The Rice Thresher, Vol. 89, No. 17, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 2002 Page: 4 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER NEWS FRIDAY, JANUARY 25,2002
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Former skinhead credits prison for changing life
by Elizabeth Decker
THRESHER STAFF
The life of a racist skinhead had
trapped Frank Meeink in a violent
cycle until he reformed in prison,
Meeink said Wednesday evening at
a speech in Farnsworth Pavilion.
Meeink spoke about growing up
in an Irish neighborhood of segre-
gated South Philadelphia and attend-
ing a predominately black middle
school before being recruited into
the skinhead movement by an older
cousin and his friends.
While in high school, a white su-
premacist Christian fundamentalist
wing of the Ku Klux Klan called the
Invisible Empire became his life.
"Right over my room, on the ceil-
ing in my bedroom, I had a swastika
flag, so as soon as I woke up it was
the first thing I saw in the morning,"
Meeink said.
Meeink explained that violence is
the central aspect of beinga skinhead.
"The whole thing about being a
skinhead is about street fighting,"
Meeink said. "That's why we have
short cropped hair, that's why we
wear boots — for fighting."
Several attacks on minorities kept
Meeink on the run from the law,
taking him to Springfield, 111., where
he worked to recruit members from
local high schools into the Northern
Hammerhead skinhead group.
After kidnapping and assaulting
a member of a rival gang one Christ-
mas Eve, Meeink was arrested and
sent to high-security prison.
Locked in solitary confinement,
he eventually began reading the
Bible, which inspired him to fast.
After he had fasted, the warden
moved him to a low-security wing,
where he was welcomed into a Bible
study group with black inmates.
"As soon as I walk in, they turn
around and look at me." Meeink said.
'Two guys separate, and both offer
me their hand and pull me into the
circle. And it was the first time they
didn't call me 'skinhead boy,' they
said, What's your name?' They start
saying 'Our Father' again, and at the
end, they say, 'Let's thank God for
bringing Frank to us tonight.'"
After being released from prison,
Meeink returned to South Philadel-
phia and hung out with his old
skinhead friends, but he later came
to appreciate racial equality.
"I started thinking — blacks,
Asians, Latinos, we're all equal,"
Meeink said. "If you have to take my
appendix out, you're going to cut me
in the same spot as you are a black
dude. You aren't going to cut him in
the back."
As his beliefs changed, Meeink
stopped seeing other skinheads.
"People say, 'How do you get out
of this stuff?"' Meeink said. "It's the
same thing as if you have a bad set of
friends. You stop hanging out with
them. You just avoid them at all costs.
If they had a party, I wouldn't go. If
they were going to a concert, even
though I had tickets, no loss."
Meeink began to rebuild friend-
ships with people from his old school
and neighborhood.
"All my friends down in South
Philly took me back in, even the
black kids I grew up with and played
football with," Meeink said.
After the Oklahoma City bomb-
ing, Meeink recognized the ideas of
white supremacists and volunteered
his information about the movement
to the FBI. Agents suggested he
speak with a civil rights group about
his experiences.
After his first speaking experi-
ence, he was invited to speak to a
class of fourth graders and received
many individual letters from those
students in response.
"A week later I got all these letters
from these little kids, all like. Thank
you for coming to our school.'"
Meeink said. "You can't even read
the half at the bottom anymore be
cause I cried on these letters so much.
Kids wrote, 'I know I'll never get into
this, I know not to judge people,' and
it's because of me."
Meeink continued speaking, but
wanted to make a bigger impact.
Five years ago, he started a hockey
club to help kids learn to work to-
gether. The program now serves 250
kids of all backgrounds.
With his own family, a 9-year-old
daughter and a 4-year-old son, he
has tried to be honest about his past.
"I'm honest with them, totally
honest," Meeink, who is 26, said.
"That's part of being a dad, is telling
them about my mistakes."
Meeink said he thinks his own
children will never join the white
supremacist movement because of
his influence in their lives.
"People always say, 'What hap-
pens if your daughter gets into this?'"
Meeink said. "I don't think she will
because I'm always going to be there
with her. It's only my advice and she
can only take it so far, but if you
respect and love your parents
enough, you do what's right."
Meeink said the truth about white
supremacist movements is they are
losing support.
"They're not that big." Meeink
said. "Sometimes it might just be
like two or three dudes with a P.O.
box number that makes them sound
like there's a whole army of them."
Meeink said racial tensions in
the United States arise from the pres-
ence of so many different racial
groups, but that those groups are
the strength of the country.
"Here we get along so much bet-
ter [than in Europe]," Meeink said.
"We're the greatest nation in the
world, and I promise you, it's be-
cause we're not all white."
Hanszen College senior Kirstin
Engelhardt, one of about 100 Rice
CHRISTINE LIANG/THRESHER
Former skinhead Frank Meeink points out his tattoos while speaking about
his involvement with extremist groups Wednesday night.
Baker College freshman Will
Conrad said he enjoyed the discus-
sion of a difficult topic.
"1 thought he really wasn't hiding
anything — he was very open."
Conrad said. "He was very confident
talking about every aspect of what
he had gone through."
The speech was sponsored by
.ADVANCE and the Rice Program
Council.
community members at the speech,
said she was impressed that so many
people from Meeink's past accepted
him after he rejected the teachings
of the extremist groups.
"It's pretty amazing to see people
going out of their comfort zone to
reach out to him even though he had
wronged them so much, and being
so willing to accept him," Engelhardt
said.
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Liu, Leslie & Reichle, Robert. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 89, No. 17, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 2002, newspaper, January 25, 2002; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443100/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.