Building community in difficult times

Travis McAdam, the project director of the Montana Human Rights Network, will give a presentation on building community in difficult times next week.

The program will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 9, at the First Presbyterian Church, Fourth and Alder. The non-partisan event is being offered free of charge by the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force.

An expert on the challenges communities in the region face, McAdam is also versed in the strategies that have helped them choose discourse over discord and unity over dissension. He will explore how to have calm, productive dialogues about difficult questions.

"We face a situation where many of our communities are divided right now. We need to understand the challenges we face and come together to address real problems,” McAdam said. “We should never underestimate the power of people coming together to do good work.”

For over 20 years, McAdam has sought to understand what drives extremism, what pulls people apart and what brings them together. His theory is to know your community, know your goals, focus on what’s working, build on strengths and work together to sustain stability.

He recently received the Eva Lassman “Take Action Against Hate” award presented by the Bard College Center for the Study of Hate. For years, Travis, director of the Combating White Nationalism and Defending Democracy program for MHRN, has done the difficult work of tracking extremists in Montana and publishing his research.