Communities Overcoming Extremism: the After Charlottesville Project

Nationally, there has been a dramatic rise in extremism, intolerance, and political violence. At the same time, community leaders often lack the alliances and experience to proactively address these threats. Communities Overcoming Extremism: the After Charlottesville Project is a bipartisan capacity-building initiative aimed to empower leaders for their work against extremism.

Communities Overcoming Extremism has spent the past year bringing together mayors, prosecutors, law enforcement, faith leaders, school officials, legislators, nonprofit leaders and the business sector to fight hate across the country through community-based problem solving. This initiative showcases the power of creative problem-solving from democratic institutions, and diverse public and private sector coalitions, to help build localized capacity to prevent extremist events like Charlottesville from happening in the future.

The project has connected with a national network of leaders and organizations that can empower our communities by providing the tools to overcome extremism, promote reconciliation and advance community respect and healing. The project has convened national summits of both public and private sector leaders to generate alliances and best practices.

Please join us for the launch of the project’s final report and podcast series. This capstone event will feature a broader conversation about the ways in which alliances and interventions can help address extremism.

A light lunch will be served.

Welcoming Remarks

Tyra Mariani
President and Chief Operating Officer, New America

Opening Remarks

Mike Signer
Mayor of Charlottesville, 2016 – 2018
Founder and Chair, Communities Overcoming Extremism: the After Charlottesville Project

Susan Bro
Co-Founder, President and Chair, Heather Heyer Foundation

Panel 1. Working Together and Building Bridges: The Power of Alliances

Tyra Mariani (moderator)
President and Chief Operating Officer, New America

Reverend Alvin Edwards
Mayor of Charlottesville, 1990 – 1992

Robert L. McKenzie
Director and Senior Fellow, New America

Adam Neufeld
Vice President of Innovation and Strategy, Anti-Defamation League

Sarah Ruger
Director of Free Expression, Charles Koch Institute

Mike Signer
Mayor of Charlottesville, 2016 – 2018
Founder and Chair, Communities Overcoming Extremism: the After Charlottesville Project

Panel 2. Taking Action: Interventions Against Extremism

Robert L. McKenzie (moderator)
Director and Senior Fellow, New America

Samar Ali
President and Founder, Millions of Conversations

Mary McCord
Legal Director and Visiting Professor of Law, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Georgetown University

Amy Spitalnick
Executive Director, Integrity First for America

Vegas Tenold
Author, Everything You Love Will Burn
Investigator, ADL's Center on Extremism