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Join us for a discussion with leaders who are on a path of racial healing personally and organizationally as they explore what happens when communities cross divides, engage in difficult conversations, and take transformative action toward a better future. Presented by W.K Kellogg Foundation with NBCUniversal News Group
“Weavers” are a diverse group of Americans who are making quiet yet extraordinary efforts to strengthen the communities in which they live. Each of these leaders is taking on a very different challenge — be it suicide prevention, housing, urban revitalization, or immigrant rights — but they all focus foremost on the transformative power of human relationships. Learn about...
A healthy community is characterized not only by the absence of illness but by attributes that promote well-being and enable a high quality of life. While social policy and public and private investments are important contributors, the broad-based engagement of local people is also key. Across the US and globally, people are taking community-building into their own hands,...
Our country’s social fabric is badly frayed by distrust, division and exclusion. But across America, people are quietly working to end loneliness and isolation and weave together inclusive communities. Meet some remarkable ordinary Americans who are “weaving” every day — swimming against the current of hyper-individualism and doing their part to put trust, empathy, connect...
Any city would be lucky to have an artist in its corner like 2016 Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence Theaster Gates, whose work embraces activism, cultural preservation, and community development. Since he began work on his now famed Dorchester Projects in 2009, Gates’s transformation of a once-neglected South Side neighborhood into a thriving cultural hub has yielded an en...
More than one-third of the world’s girls and women have experienced some form of violence in their lives, leading the World Health Organization to highlight “a global health problem of epidemic proportions.” In this year of unprecedented attention to women’s safety, we are increasingly aware of their vulnerability to sexual violation, trafficking and other forms of abuse....
As high-profile episodes of violence have highlighted the issue of use of excessive force and mistreatment of people of color by police, what is the way forward for law enforcement and the communities they are duty bound to “serve and protect”? What have we learned from the tragedies of the past few years? What are the strategies and philosophies that will enable police to...
What possibilities unfurl when a symphony reaches Skid Row? How does music create healing on a street corner? Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Vijay Gupta and internationally renowned soprano Camille Zamora are expanding access to classical music through their organizations Street Symphony and Sing for Hope, which bring music out of symphony halls and into the spaces of...
Bipartisanship is as rare a commodity in Washington as perhaps it has ever been. But as we look to transition from several decades of incarceration-focused criminal justice, Democrats and Republicans often find themselves on the same page. What are the driving values of each party’s proposals for reform? What priorities, ideas, and solutions are the bases for consensus—and...
In Being Nixon, Evan Thomas peels away the layers of the complex, confounding figure who became America’s 37th president. Drawing on a wide range of historical accounts, Thomas reveals the contradictions of a leader whose vision and foresight led him to achieve détente with the Soviet Union and reestablish relations with communist China, but whose underhanded political ta...
Two Jacksonians — and lifelong friends with very different perspectives — discuss their hopes for the future of their city. Join acclaimed author Kiese Laymon and the youngest mayor in Jackson’s history, Chokwe Lumumba, as they discuss their personal relationships to the city, its deeply rooted inequities, its rich cultural heritage, and the importance of civic and artisti...
With the power of a text message, the advice of a health worker fits in the palm of your hand. With innovative entrepreneurship, care becomes accessible where it previously was not. With the skill of a midwife, the pregnant woman in need of a champion thrives. Health systems may be complex, but what powers them is simple—the human beings at their backbone who are critical...
Hate takes many insidious forms: as a mass shooting targeting a Black community, as an antisemitic remark, as a wave of anti-Asian violence. Intolerance and hate crimes have spiked in recent years, and experts, activists, and community members themselves are working hard not only to quantify the problem but to find actionable solutions. What does it take to stop hate in co...
The Aspen Challenge presents three high school teams from Louisville and one team from Dallas who developed innovative solutions to issues that have chronically impacted their communities. See these young change-makers take to the stage to prove that entrepreneurial community solutions can be created at any age. Learn how Justin F. Kimball and Central High School Magnet Ca...
In America, interpersonal trust is in decline. Less than one-third of Americans agree that most people can be trusted. Events that might have brought people together, like the shared sacrifices of the pandemic, led instead to infighting. Social trust enables us to live meaningful lives in community and peacefully solve shared problems, from racial injustice to creating job...
The forces of division have been tearing America's social fabric for decades. But a new coalition of community builders with a new set of beliefs is rising to turn things around. Here's how you can help. Underwritten by Nestlé Waters North America.
A church in Denver that is at once ancient and of the future. A home-based experiment in Jewish life in Brooklyn. A Washington, DC, sacred space for artists and activists. Meet a group of leaders reimagining spiritual community for the 21st century.
The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics that mimic an amphitheater, to hear from global leaders, community change-makers, journalists, politicians, and more.
The world’s young leaders are leading the charge to ensure future generations inherit a vibrant and thriving planet. Hear from inspiring leaders and changemakers, among them Indigenous youth, about the urgent work being done through innovative and inclusive solutions, activism, and community resilience.
The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics that mimic an amphitheater, to hear from global leaders, community change-makers, journalists, politicians, and more. Doors open at 2 p.m.