This portion is an hour and 25 minutes. They said i would be dead war, america, are you, are you war, america, are you there, are you there from my mother, god had shaped her, i was born with my hands in the air burn your cross so jesus sees us i was born with my hands in the air my father, someone shot him i was born with my hands in the air raise your voice in house of horrors i was born with my hands in the air are you listening do you care i was born with my hands in the air all my sadness, all my laughter i was born with my hands in the air war, america, are you there . Are you there . War, america, are you there . Are you there . [applause] all right, america, are you there . Gather around. We have a Beautiful Day plan. Love and compassion for everybody. Lets spread it today. We are very excited. Thank you for having us. We hope to meet all of you today. Thanks for being here. [applause] me, and i hope so many of you that are here, and around the world watching on cspan today. I think this is a really amazing experience. We will get started with our first speaker. We have a former congressman, jason altmire, who literally wrote the book on how to conquer polarization in washington. During his three terms in the house, he was a bipartisan centrist known for working with both sides of the aisle. In his new book, he offers some advice about bringing civility back to our nations political discourse. Please welcome former ,jason altmeir. Please welcome former congressman, jason altmeir. [applause] this is the Perfect Place to have this event. We are surrounded by some of americas most significant memorials that have to do with what we are talking about today. Right over there, the black granite wall inscribed with 68,000 names, that symbolizes a time in this country when we were deeply divided, when it appeared america was coming apart at the seams, when violence occurred, when anger turned into violence, americans turned against one another. It was about that time that one of americas greatest heroes gave one of americas greatest speeches right here at this memorial. On that day, 54 years ago, dr. Martin luther king stood here and told america we have a long way to go to achieve the civility, to achieve the peace, to achieve the unity and equality that he knew was possible. In this spot, the Lincoln Memorial represents the fact that this nation has come in the past, at times when we were even more divided than we appear to be today. The man memorialized behind me, who looks down at us now from his giant, white chair, he presided over america at the time of our deepest division. That is the backdrop of what we are talking about today, the march for civility. What we are talking about today with this march, is that regardless of our politics, we have to find a way to increase the level of civility in our public discourse. [applause] we have to find a way to reduce partisanship. No matter your politics, today partisans think all the facts are on their side, all the evidence support that conclusion, that they know better than everybody else what is right, that their side is 100 right, and the other side is 100 wrong. Maybe sometimes that is true, but usually it is not. We have to Work Together. One of the things i found in writing my book on Political Polarization is that no matter how hard we try, it is nearly impossible to change the mind of a partisan on an issue to which they are committed. We all come from different backgrounds, different points of view. We all have different opinions. We all have different Life Experiences that lead us to different conclusions. It is how we express those differences of opinion that matters. It is how we articulate our disagreements. We all have a responsibility for civility. We all have a responsibility to respect one another. This event today is nonpartisan. We have people here of every possible political affiliation. No matter what your politics, no matter what side of the aisle you are on, if you remember one thing today, make it this the rules of civility also apply to you, not just to whom those we disagree. There is so much anger, so many things we would like to change. Dont let an act of incivility discredit what you are trying to achieve. Like that great man that stood here 54 years ago, let each of us lead by example. Let us set the tone of the debate by our actions, not just our words. Win the debate based upon the merit of your idea, not the volume of your shouts. Channel your anger into making positive change. [applause] go forth in a spirit of unity, not division because we really are all here together. Thank you for being here, and enjoy the march. [applause] thank you. Our next speaker, the way i found out about him with a lot of the work i have been doing on the front lines at protests, i was tagged in a video online about this documentary on netflix title accidental courtesy. Courtesy. Accidental because they tagged me, i watched the film. I was so fascinated to see the work this man was doing as a black blues player that over the last 30 years of his life, has been crossing lines to befriend members of the kkk, and get them to denounce the kkk. I was fascinated by this guy. I ended up calling my agent and saying, have you heard of this guy, darrel davis . He said, i have been asking you for six months to meet up with darrell davis. He wants to meet with you. He lives in washington, d. C. After watching that documentary, up, tryingalling him to figure out how to get together, and we finally met last night. He is here to speak. Welcome, darrell. Up, trying to figure [applause] [cheers] thank you. Good morning. It is a real honor and pleasure to be here. Let me start by saying welcome to the march for civility. I have been walking this march now for about 30 years doing what i do. A few things i have found is this we spend a lot of time in echo chambers, surrounding ourselves with people who agree with us. Everything we hear confirms what we believe, and we exclude those who may have differences of opinion with us. What we need to do is begin to invite people to our table who may disagree. As Martin Luther king said, he had a dream that one day, the sons of former slaves would sit down at the table of brotherhood, with the sons of former slave owners. Thats what we need to do. We need to come together. We spent a lot of time talking about each other or at each other, but we dont spend enough time talking with each other. Learning about the other side, learning their faults and fears. They learn from us. Have learned that while you are that is what i have been doing. I have learned that while you are actively learning about someone else, at the same time, you are passively teaching them about yourself. You always want to be honest. You always want to be true. You always want to be civil, because the most important thing you want is a return visit with that person, regardless of who they are, how extreme they may be. What youre doing is planting a seed. You must nurture that seed. Keep in mind, you only have one opportunity to make a good First Impression. You may have a second or third opportunity to make a good impression, but only one opportunity to make a First Impression. Most people judge you by their First Impression of you. If they dont like you first time around, they will not be willing to meet with you again. I have been spending 30 years meeting with neonazis, supremacists, etc. , and most of the time i get a return visit. Over time, you find things to have in common, and if you nurture those commonalities, you begin to form a relationship. As you form that relationship, the things you have in contrast such as skin color, religion, things like that begins a matter less and less. As you nurture that relationship, you begin to forge a friendship. As a result, i have collected many robes and hoods and neonazi paraphernalia over the years, and i even have these people going out on lecture tours with me, speaking out against the evils of racism and discrimination, and they have aligned themselves with me and my embracing attitude. What we need to do is adopt an attitude of no longer can we say i am not my brothers keeper. Lets say we are our brothers keeper, because we are all brothers and sisters in this country. Thank you. [applause] the second most important thing i have learned is this, give your adversary a platform. Allow them to express their views. You dont have to agree with them, and if you do that is fine, and if you dont, challenge them. Do it politely and intelligently. Not rudely or violently. That way, 9 out of 10 times a will reciprocate and allow you to air your views. Make sure you have done your homework, so you can present the facts in an intelligent and influential manner, because at the end of the day, you each have to think about what the other person said. Nobody wants to be wrong. We always want to be right. Keep in mind, when two enemies are talking, they are not fighting. They might get a little loud or beat on the table, but at least they are talking. Its when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. So lets keep the conversation going. Thank you all, and good luck. [applause] to continue on with the message about crossing over different lines, many of you may have seen my most viral video as i was in the protest that was taking place in charlotte last year. There was an important moment special moment that was used in a google commercial and cadillac commercial, that as i was walking by, trying to deescalate the tension at this protest. There was a giant Police Officer, and as i was walking by, he says, bring it in, do i get one of those hugs . In that moment i was really nervous, because i had a group meprotesters standing behind , and they, in that moment, they would see me as a traitor or sellout, because i crossed over to a different line and hugged this cop. I knew i was going to face criticism. Almost immediately people were challenging me to a fight because i hugged this cop. I love the message about being able to cross over to different lines. That cop reached out to me shortly after that interaction happened, and we have become good friends ever since. My buddy chris is here. Come up. [applause] look how big this guy is. I am going to look really short in a second. You can stand right there. Naw. Come on up. [applause] share with them what was going through your head. A lot of people think i just walked up to him and hugged him. In that moment i was scared to hug him. He was in riot gear, his weapon was with him, and he is just big. I do not know what is going to happen. There was tear gas in the air. It was a chaotic night. I was shocked he asked for that hug. People thought it was me that initiated that. It was actually him. Tell them what was going through your head in that moment. In that moment, it was tuesday night, and i got three hours of sleep. We were in the city, bruised and beaten, trying to help the citizens take the city back. We finally got a break. I saw ken, and i recognized him in the dallas video, and recognized his work. I just yelled out, where is my free hug . He looked at me with this look, i have to have this big guy . [applause] he smells, but he came over and we started talking. It opened those communication lines between protesters, police, him. They are more willing to listen to him because i am in riot gear. They are listening to him. It brought peace for that one moment in our city. It really helped out. It was amazing friendship that bonded. I stalked him on facebook for about a month, trying to get a comment. We started talkin,g and started talking organizing Different Community events so we can all Work Together and stay strong. We stand together or we fall apart at the end of the day. Absolutely. [applause] what a lot of people dont realize is that in those moments, these unlikely friendships can be created. I really see him as a friend of mine. Many people dont know that when i was in charlottesville a few weeks ago, and i was standing at that alley when that car came through. I made three phone calls. One was to my wife, one was to duane, and the third was to chris. I knew i needed someone in Law Enforcement that could give me some advice, as i was standing there, distraught. I had never seen anything like that, a car coming in and plowing down 19 people in front of me. Before he even went into cop mode, he wanted to make sure i was ok and check up on me. He started giving me advice on what next steps i should take. I appreciate the friendship that has come out of that moment. Sometimes we look at the color of peoples skin or the uniform so many times, we look at the color of peoples skin or the uniform they are wearing, and we say i cannot find a friend in that person. Chris is a real friend of mine. We have traveled around to colleges and spoken to young people about this message of unity and being able to come together. We will do a whole bunch more of that. He just got promoted to sergeant. [applause] two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. They are still velcroed on. [laughter] just knowing that now, he will have more free time to spend with me, as i travel to colleges, and show students there does not need to be division between us. There is no need for this division intention and conflicts tension, andand conflicts going on around the country. We need to be able to come together. This is a symbol of that. Thank you, chris. I appreciate you. [applause] our next speaker coming up, when i started this march, i had originally called this the peace march. I thought this is the message we need to spread. Duane, my advisor, he started having me travel around and meet his friends. They suggested you dont call it peace, you call it stability. We need to take it back to the foundations of people being able to treat each other with respect. At the time i wasnt sure what that word meant. I did research, and i found out in washington, d. C. , there is a National Institute or civility. I reached out to them to see if they would join us for this march. We ended up getting their president. Come on up. [applause] i would love for you to be able to share with them a little about the work you do with the National Institute for civility. Either way, i still owe you a hug this morning. [laughter] thank you so much, ken. How about another round of applause for chris . [applause] ken used the phrase, unlikely friendships. I will come back to that phrase as i talk. What we heard from darrell and chris and can are the extremes of society where words have turned into violence. I am going to talk about how we have come to a place in our society where it isnt just the extremes that have to come back together again and learn to listen, it is all of us. This has gotten so bad that you can practically every day see a cartoon someplace. Our favorite at the National Institute is this one, it shows civil discourse on a gurney on the way to the emergency room. After the president ial election and during the president ial election of 2016, we got thousands of emails and social media messages from people in red states, blue states, purple states, all of them distraught, frustrated, ashamed, angry about how we are speaking to each other and how we are treating each other. We got thousands of emails same i dont want to go thanksgiving. Our best, saying Product Innovation teams cannot talk to each other after this election. Political historians tell us that this year is the First Time Since the reconstruction and jim crow laws that we have seen the following reality. This is 10 months after our president ial election, and yet americans who voted for trump, i could say americans who voted for hillary, either way, it is happening both directions we the people are still vilifying, demonizing, and hating each other. If we do that, if we do that as a people, in our homes, towns, neighborhoods, there is no hope of ever Holding People accountable at the other end of this wall for being civil to mall, for being civil to each other. This is now like a virus in our country. Democracy has always been a conversation. The quality of that conversation is what matters. Most of us have come to a place, and social media has exacerbated this, the anonymity, that we are all broadcasters. We all want our message out. Do we really know how to listen, to understand . That is what we are doing at the National Institute for civil discourse. We have created a set of tools to revive civility person by person. We do it with small group dialogues, person by person, largescale dialogues, and a texting platform. Try to remember this. Text 89800, and type civility into the message line. It will take you to a script that walks you through how to have a conversation with someone very different from yourself. I want to go back to unlikely friendships and highly recommend go to youtube, unlikely friendships donna and bob. I am an iowan by birth. Donna redwing runs the longest gayrights organization in iowa. She invited bob vandercloot who runs family leadership in iowa, whose views on gayness, these beingstwo of these human could never come to any type of agreement, on what they view and feel about gayness. Donna invited bob to lunch. They go to lunch. They meet each other as human beings. In that process, they form the same kind of bond ken and chris talked about, of a real friendship, across profound differences. Im going to ask you to do something, right here, right now, as becoming one of the people who takes the next step to revive, restore civility. Think in your own head who is someone it may be in your family, your workplace, someone who voted differently from you but, think of a person where there is a riskreward ratio, if you did what donna did or what chris did. In your minds eye, think that person right here, right now, and when you are ready, invite that person to have a conversation with you. The critical thing to remember when you have that conversation, you are not trying to convince that person that she should not have voted for trump, or he should not have voted for hillary. What youre trying to do is learn enough about that persons Life Experience to understand why they make the choices they made. We have now created a huge divide. People who are now more on the left really think Trump Supporters are not normal people. We have gone that far in our lack of understanding of each other, and vice versa. Do exactly what you can do on a oneonone basis. The text platform, u