For 25 years, Jeff Schoep headed America's largest Neo-Nazi organisation, the National Socialist Movement. Now ... he says he is committed to helping deradicalise people who hold the extremist views he used to preach. "Hating people is exhausting. When you can't tolerate other people and other systems of belief ... there's something wrong with you and the way you're looking at things," Mr Schoep said. "Once you have the opportunity to see and understand somebody else's viewpoint, from their perspective of their story in life, that can be life-altering." Mr Schoep said his time at the helm of the National Socialist Movement was like being the leader of a cult. "I felt like I was going to save my race, and I was a patriot for my country ... that was what drove me," he said. A revelation for Mr Schoep occurred in 2016 when he agreed to an interview with Daryl Davis, a prolific African-American jazz musician who worked to deradicalise Neo-Nazi groups. Mr Davis spoke of the impact that racism had on his own life, which began when he was pelted with rocks as a child marching in a Boy Scout parade, asking Mr Schoep, "How could someone hate me when they don't even know me?" "I was told that racism was wrong in school, by my parents, my grandfather, everybody," Mr Schoep said. "But none of that resonated until I sat across from somebody that had experienced it firsthand and how it made them feel. "Daryl never told me how I was wrong; he showed me how I was wrong." Note: Read more about the powerful anti-racist work of Daryl Davis. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division. - ABC News (Australia affiliate)