How to sort date in String format coming from an API in android Java

Question

I am loading data in an ArrayList and I want to sort date in descending order but it seems like it doesnt work since Comparator method returns integer value, and date is in String. Anyone knows how to implement such?

Here's my code snippet:

searchAllProductsModels.sort(new Comparator<SearchAllProductsModel>() {

    @Override
    public int compare(SearchAllProductsModel list1, SearchAllProductsModel list2) {
        // -1 - less than, 1 - greater than, 0 - equal, all inversed for descending

        return list2.getPublish_start_date().compareTo(list1.getPublish_start_date());
    }
});

Below is Data Model:

public class SearchAllProductsModel {

    private final String publish_start_date;

    public SearchAllProductsModel(String publish_start_date) {
        this.publish_start_date = publish_start_date;
    }

    public String getPublish_start_date() {
        return publish_start_date;
    }
}