REDONDO BEACH, CA – Three days after the white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, Christina Renée Joubert sat down to record a video about love and tolerance. As an African American woman, she was struggling with the hypocrisy of the way people were claiming to be tolerant while condemning those who think differently. She went for a walk on the Esplanade in Redondo Beach to clear her head, crying along the way. While staring at the ocean to reflect, a shirtless man approached her.

He smiled when he introduced himself, and gave off warm energy, Joubert said. She explained that she was distraught over what happened in Charlottesville, at which point Johnny's body language "immediately changed," she said. Johnny told Joubert that he "thinks everyone's afraid right now." Almost an hour later, they were crying and holding hands.

Joubert found herself standing face to face with the issue she was mulling over. In front of her stood Johnny, a man covered in 33 swastika tattoos. The Palos Verdes native was a white supremacist, skinhead, and an adherent of the beliefs of the Aryan nation, she said.

"For the first time ever I was able to look past that racial boundary and just have a conversation," Johnny said.

This chance encounter has transformed the world views of an African American woman and a former white supremacist, building an unlikely friendship in the process.

After getting into trouble with stealing and drug abuse as a young adult, it was during his first trip to jail that he was exposed to white supremacists – at first glance, he liked their tattoos and thought they were cool. After talking to a skinhead in jail, he began associating himself with that ideology, he said.

Johnny grew up in an affluent family and lived in the South Bay, with "no political ideology introduced to him," he said. He didn't grow up with white supremacist friends, and wasn't aware of the lifestyle.

"I found myself confronted with this one day and I didn't have any identity. I self-identified as a skinhead but I didn't really know what it was," he said. "I was a fake, I was lost, and I didn't know who I was. I just wanted to be accepted."

When he first identified as a skinhead, he felt like he had to hate "black people and Jewish people" but he didn't know why, Johnny said. So, he started studying, learning facts and statistics that he could "use against people." However, he realized many of his white supremacist friends weren't basing their beliefs in facts and statistics like he was – many of them just wanted to be accepted into a group, he said.

As time went on, the hate inside Johnny became so abundant and the negativity so overwhelming that he didn't have anything to be happy about, he said. He lacked goals and ambitions, he couldn't manage to be faithful to his girlfriends, and he had a lot of emotional baggage. However, being a skinhead and having a group of friends made him feel good – this sense of belonging was the only thing that brought him comfort, he said.

In 2006, Johnny was released from prison and got a job as a plumber's apprentice. The first day on the job, he was told to get into the car with a Hispanic man, but didn't want to.

"What if someone saw me? How was I going to be perceived?" Johnny said.

He wouldn't talk to anyone who wasn't white. He didn't want to be around non-whites or be associated with them, he said. He would hold himself back from his wants and desires because he was constantly thinking about how he would be perceived by other skinheads.

But his mindset began to transform at Delancey Street.

Delancey Street

Delancey Street is the country's leading residential self-help organization for former substance abusers, ex-convicts, homeless and others who have hit bottom, according to their website. Johnny was court-ordered to stay at Delancey Street for two years, but ended up staying there an extra year on his own volition.

Those at Delancey Street believe that people with problems can learn to become the solution, according to the website. The entire organization is run by the residents themselves – people who are in a bad place at the time, but want to practice living a responsible, dignified life.

"My time at Delancey Street is when I really started realizing who I wanted to be," Johnny said. "I've been a thief my whole life, a drug addict, someone who's selfish and who will steal from you to get what I need. When I'm at Delancey Street, the only way to really grow is to help people out."

One of Johnny's defining moments was just two weeks into his time at Delancey Street, during a "game," which is meant to solve issues between residents. With 20-30 people in a room, he said, it's a space where residents can go and scream, yell, or do whatever they want so they can open up in order to shed light on their problems.

During one of his first games, a woman named Camille looked at Johnny and, in a loud booming voice, said "I want to talk to this self-righteous m----- f----- right here." She was in his face, yelling at him, calling him "cocky," and calling him out for his behavior. It "clicked" from that moment on, he said.

"That's when I really noticed for the first time that there was something wrong with me," Johnny said. "You're forced to take a look at your behavior and how it affects people. It's a gradual change, but it works."

It took Johnny about two years for him to finally realize who he was, and that his hatred towards others was a real problem. It took him another year to admit his real, hateful inner monologue to someone else.

Founded by ex-felon John Maher and Dr. Mimi Halper Silbert, residents at Delancey Street start by earning their GED's, and then teaching someone else until they earn theirs; each step gives the residents more responsibility and a bigger sense of accomplishment. Without realizing it, he was growing, sharing, and loving regardless of race, creed, color, gender, or past, he said, although he still had hateful thoughts.

"A Jewish woman [Dr. Silbert] was the one who taught me I was worthy of love," Johnny said.

Friendship Formed

Although the transformation began at Delancey Street, it's "really taken off" the last five months, Johnny said, and his friendship with Joubert has helped ignite that. He now keeps his skinhead friends at a distance, and is trying to portray a different, positive image to the world. Johnny has even started researching tattoo removal.

Joubert is his first first "non-white friend," he said, and it feels "so liberating."

"He's still trying to disconnect completely with that life," Joubert said. "When we go out in public together, the problem for him isn't necessarily that I'm black, but what other people will think or say about us together. But on the other hand, what will my community think about his swastika tattoos?"

Joubert and Johnny have built a deep bond since their first encounter, Joubert said. They're spiritually connected and the level of vulnerability that he shares, and personal pain that he connects with is "so extraordinary and so compassionate," she said.

"I'm his first black friend, and he's the first man who's really believed in my dreams," Joubert said. "To have that happen with a man who shouldn't even like me...he inspires greatness."

The duo realized the first time they met that it was important for them to open the conversation. They've gone through an "exponential" amount of growth, Joubert said, and together, they are learning how to trust and feel worthy.

Johnny now realizes that hateful feelings aren't a condition for being accepted into a group. In awe with everything Joubert says, he knows his spiritual well-being will be improved after every conversation with her.

"I want what she has, I want that internal happiness, that loving nature for everybody," Johnny said. "I've always lied or embellished the truth to suit my own misconceptions about what life should be, but I can be my authentic self now."

Together, Joubert and Johnny have created a 3-part video series titled Understanding Hate – Through Tolerance, Love & Forgiveness to delve deeper into the meaning of hate and to overcome it. Sitting on the floor of Joubert's home, they begin a powerful dialogue about what hate means, and talk through Johnny's journey of opening up to love and inviting that love and compassion into his life.

"We have similar upbringings, and although he had turned to hate to find love, we both ended up at love," Joubert said. "We've healed each other in a deep, unexpected way."

The duo have decided, for Johnny's safety, to withhold his full name as well as blur his identity in the first video. Joubert said that once they gauge the audience's reaction to the video, they'll consider revealing his identity at a later time. Joubert, who considers Johnny one of her soulmates, also wrote a book titled When Soulmates Unite: Learning to Love Ourselves from the People Who Can Hurt Us Most. For more information about the video series and book, visit Joubert's website.

Image via Youtube screengrab

