Addressing political polarization with One Small Step

By Joseph Bernstein
The New York Times
September 22, 2024

"Alton Russell is a white, 85-year-old toilet paper salesman from Columbus, Ga., where for years he was the chair of the local Republican Party. Wane Hailes is a Black, 68-year-old newspaper owner from Columbus, where he formerly served as the president of the city’s chapter of the N.A.A.C.P…

"The men had come as part of One Small Step, an initiative by the nonprofit oral history project StoryCorps. Its humble format — two people of opposite politics, chatting in a room with a moderator — belies an ambitious goal. 

"Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, hopes to scale experiences like Mr. Russell’s and Mr. Hailes’s into a kind of wave of national reconciliation that will help heal our political polarization, on the theory that two people from opposing groups who engage in an unguarded conversation about their lives will usually grow to like each other…

"'We’re asking people to do something that they’ve never done before,' he said. 'Talk to a stranger across the political divides at this toxic moment in the country.'"

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