25/10/2024
Columbus duo on opposites sides of politics a national model for how to bridge the divide
By Mark Rice
The Ledger Enquirer
When the New York Times wanted to interview a pair of One Small Step participants to personify this national program trying to bridge the political divide in the United States, a dynamic pairing in Columbus was featured in the article last month. Wane Hailes, former president of the Columbus NAACP chapter, is a 68-year-old Black man and a Democrat. Born in Richmond, Virginia, he graduated from high school in Charlottesville and earned a bachelorâs degree in recreation administration from Ottawa University in Kansas. He is president and publisher of the Courier Eco Latino newspaper.
Alton Russell, former chairman of the Muscogee County GOP, is an 86-year-old white man and a Republican. Born and raised in Columbus, he graduated from Jordan Vocational High School. He said his only college degree is from the school of hard knocks with a doctorate is digging post holes. He is a toilet paper salesman for COPACO.
All of that makes their polarized voting preferences unsurprising. But what is remarkable, despite being prominent public figures in Columbus who never had met, they engaged in a fun and meaningful chat when One Small Step recorded their conversation last year to launch the program in Columbus. In fact, they didnât even debate politics during their 45-minute exchange. Instead, they simply got to know each other. They discussed their backgrounds and experiences. They swapped serious and humorous stories. And they shared their appreciation for the progress theyâve seen in Columbus while also agreeing local officials should create more transparency and trust. Most of all, Hailes and Russell told the Ledger-Enquirer, they realized the other guy is a decent human being.
âHe didnât have horns, just a regular person,â Russell said with a laugh, âwhich I think I am. So thatâs why I think we kind of hit it off.â âUntil you get to know somebody, you have these preconceived ideas, but people are people,â Hailes said. â⌠We all got problems. We all have trials and tribulations in our lives, and sometimes we got joy.â What is One Small Step? StoryCorps, a New York-based nonprofit organization founded in 2003 to preserve and share oral histories of Americans, launched One Small Step in 2021 to, as the organization says in its promotional content, âremind the country of the humanity in all of us, even those with whom we disagree.â The program pairs together strangers with different political beliefs for a conversation. Itâs based on contact theory, which says meaningful interactions between people with opposing views can help us find more common ground instead of divided silos. Columbus, along with Richmond, Virginia, and Wichita, Kansas, are the cities where One Small Step chose to focus the programâs initial efforts. But the more than 5,900 sessions One Small Step has recorded across America have been in all 50 states, according to StoryCorps. Jonathan Webster, managing director of One Small Step, told the Ledger-Enquirer the program selected Columbus as one of its model cities because the StoryCorps mobile recording studio visit in 2021 was considered a success, with approximately 90 recordings done in four weeks. More than 160 people in Columbus have participated in One Small Step conversations since the program started here last year, Webster said.
An independent study indicates One Small Step is making a positive impact beyond the recorded conversations. Psychology professor Jennifer Richeson, who directs the Social Perception and Communication Laboratory at Yale University, analyzed surveys of 400 One Small Step participants. She found One Small Step was âhighly effective at shifting peopleâs perceptions of their interview partners. Both liberal and conservative participants felt more empathetic toward their interview partners after their OSS conversation,â according the programâs promotional material Why these 2 Columbus figures were picked The New York Times was looking for program participants who had an interesting narrative, Webster said. One Small Step suggested several pairs. The New York Times chose Hailes and Russell because of their positions in the community and the success of their conversation, Webster said. âThey were seen as impressive ambassadors and people we want to hold up as a model,â Webster said. âWhen you think about their backgrounds and their perspectives, and then you think about them coming together and having a conversation across those divides as leaders in their community, they would just be, in many ways, the best possible pairing for the kind of behavior that we want people to take, that one small step to get outside their comfort zone, . . . acknowledging that, even if you have profound differences like Alton and Wane, if they can do it, anybody can do it.â Participating in this program prompted Hailes and Russell to wish they had taken this step on their own years earlier. âItâs an indication that we were missing the boat and that more people need to have conversations like we did,â Russell said.
âThink about all the people who say, âI donât like that white guy,â but theyâve never talked to him,â Hailes said. âThatâs crazy.â In July, Hailes and Russell sat next to each other in the courtroom where Travis Chambers was sworn in as the first Black candidate to be elected to a citywide seat on Columbus Council in 30 years. They noticed the looks from folks wondering why âthose twoâ were together. After the ceremony, Russell explained to inquiring observers, âHeâs my friend.â âThat says it all,â Hailes added, âand that probably wouldnât have happened if we hadnât had this (One Small Step) conversation.â The significance of this program, Russell said, is that it spreads this message: âDisagreeing does not make you enemies. ⌠If we could get more people to become agreeable and have a conversation that doesnât try to change each otherâs mind, then politics wouldnât be hate. It wouldnât be evil against good.â Hailes concluded, âIâve always believed that if you meet somebody, youâll understand them better.â How to participate in One Small Step One Small Step sessions start with each participant reading aloud the otherâs submitted brief biography. They are free to talk about anything else for up to 50 minutes, but a facilitator is available to suggest questions and support the conversation if needed. In Columbus, One Small Step has partnered with St. Thomas Episcopal Church, the Columbus Public Library, the National Infantry Museum, First Baptist Church, Columbus State University and the Columbus Consolidated Government to host sessions, but anyone can register independently to participate in person or via videoconferencing.
Those interested in signing up for the program can visit takeonesmallstep.org and enter their zip code to get started.
