Former KKK leader now spends his days volunteering for anti-hate mission: 'People change'

Four years ago, Chris Buckley was an imperial knight-hawk in the Ku Klux Klan's Georgia White Knights. The father of two—who served in the Army for 13 years and completed tours in Afghanistan and Iraq—had racist tattoos peppered throughout his body. He had KKK symbols on his left knuckles, another surrounding his navel, an anti-government militia tag on his neck, and most prominently, the Arabic word for "Infidel" on the back of his forearm. "I wanted them to know I was the one the imam warned them about," he told The Washington Post in a June 2018 feature.

Today, his tattoos are all covered up. Where he once spread hate and taught his Klan brothers how to use and conceal weapons, he now spends his days making amends and helping others do the same. According to WTVC, his dramatic change is to be credited in part to Heval Mohamed Kelli, a Syrian refugee who is now a dear friend of the Buckley's. "People like Dr. Kelli came into my life, and he was the exact description of what I hated: he was a Syrian Muslim refugee coming here," he told the outlet. "If they'd have known me five years ago and know me now..."

"People change," he added. "You just have to give them the opportunity." Buckley now counsels others through the nonprofit Parents for Peace to help them combat hate by identifying the trauma in their lives that have created hateful views. "I think scars teach us about where we've been in life," said Buckley, who explained his past bigotry stemmed from a troubled childhood. The early days of Buckley and Kelli's unlikely friendship were captured in The Washington Post feature which covered the first time the two men met each other.

Although Buckley refused to describe many of his activities while a member of KKK, he opened up about how he learned hate and violence during a tumultuous childhood in Cleveland where his father would return from days-long benders and whip him for any misdeeds he might have committed. He learned to condemn feminism, homosexuality and dating someone who wasn't white.

The hatred in him grew during his time in the Army. Although he had Black comrades in the military, none were friends. Muslims, on the other hand, were a completely different story. He'd been trained to see an attacker beneath every niqab. "Every paper target I ever shot was a Muslim," he explained. "Every bit of bayonet training or hand-to-hand combat, it was other soldiers dressed up like Muslims." He brought this hatred along with him when he left the Army after 13 years following a Humvee accident that left him with a broken back and an addiction to painkillers.

Over time, it changed him into a man his wife Melissa could hardly recognize. Then, a Google search for "protecting the white race" led him to the Klan. Although Melissa didn't object at first—under the belief that it might offer her floundering husband a path to stability—she soon began to see Klan life as a threat to her children. Her quest to get her husband out of the hate group led her to Arno Michaelis, a recovered Nazi skinhead-turned-Buddhist.

"Melissa was done with the Klan and worried about Chris’s safety," Michaelis recalled in an interview. "I told her I thought we could help." It took months—and Melissa threatening to leave with the kids—but Buckley finally agreed to give Michaelis his Klan patch and informed his Klan chapter's imperial wizard that he wanted out. Leaving the group wasn't a simple goodbye but Buckley eventually moved past the hate.

Michaelis began taking him on a compassion tour of homeless shelters and gang rehab centers in Los Angeles, where he once struck up a conversation with an African American woman. It ended with him sobbing in her arms, apologizing for all the pain he had inflicted. "That's when I knew Chris wouldn't be going back to the Klan," said Michaelis. He was also the one who introduced Buckley to Kelli. Although the pair still disagree on a lot of issues, Buckley no longer hates those like his dear friend.