 Welcome to the Valley Advocate Podcast, featuring interviews that take us deeper into the people and happenings on the local scene. For more podcasts and a closer look at what's going on in the valley, visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Hi, my name is Dave Eisenstetter. I am the editor of the Valley Advocate and this is the Valley Advocate Podcast, which we do in collaboration with Amherst Media. I'm here with Arts and Culture editor Gina Bevers. Yes, and we are here with John Clayton and Sharon Dunn from Hands Across the Hills, who just ventured to Kentucky into Trump Country, if you will, that's right, and have supplied us with some terrific essays and articles about it. So thank you so much for being here and we want to talk to you about that. Yeah, and I should just say that so back in, gosh, I think it was January, we took on an essay that John, you wrote with Sharon's help, and now we're running Sharon's essay that you wrote about going down to Kentucky with John's help, and maybe you could talk a little bit about the premise of how you got involved with Hands Across the Hills and what the Hands Across the Hills project is all about. This all started after the November 2016 election. Many people in Leverett were very upset, and there was all this kind of despair and almost hopelessness, and people wanted to know what they could do, and the Leverett Peace Commission, which is for individuals in our area, called for a meeting at the local library, and about 70 or 80 people showed up, and we all brainstormed and put ideas on a whiteboard. And one of the ideas that cohered was a bridging committee that would bridge to an area in the United States that was somewhat similar to us, but had the opposite political voting record. And so everyone liked that idea a lot. And one of our members, Jay Frost, who actually had at the meeting approached that idea, the sister city, spent some time taking a look online to see if he could find a partner reading various articles, and he read an article in Bill Moyers.com that was written by a fellow named Ben Fink from Apple Shop, which is an arts organization in Whiteburg, Kentucky. It's been around for about 50 years. That's Apple for the Appalachians. Appalachian, Appalachian shop. Yeah, Apple shop. And Ben, who's actually from Connecticut and is really an organizer, had lived down there for about two and a half, three years, and has really been in a way accepted by the community down there. But of course, his voting was more like ours. And he said that when he woke up in Whiteburg on that morning, he heard gunshots. People were celebrating, and he kind of wondered what was going to happen. But he's found out that his Kentucky partners, the people he works with down there, just keep on collaborating on all their tasks, all their projects. And he felt like that he wanted to reach out to someplace else in the country that voted differently. And Jay wrote an email to him right away, and that's how it all got started. So we found a really active partner. I think that was a really important part of the whole endeavor for us, don't you think? Yeah. So Whiteburg, Kentucky, and you just went down there. Can you talk a little bit about kind of what it was like, what you saw there, and the people that you met? Whiteburg is the county seat for Letcher County, and it's in eastern Kentucky. It is one of the richest coal districts in the whole country. Rich is in, like, has a lot of coal. Profoundly deep. A lot of reserves. A lot of reserves. About two minutes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And when we arrived there, the town was in somewhat of a valley. The mountains, when we arrived, we were first driving into the county. We had taken air, we flew by air into an airport that was two hours away. But as we were driving in, the mountains were so beautiful, and it was about, it was very early spring with the trees just coming into bud. The mountains there are very steep, they're very steep-sided, and the people mostly live in what they call the hollers in between the steep mountains. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. And so we began to see that as we came in, and there's a lot of red bud trees down there, and they were in bloom, which was very beautiful. But as we drove into the town of Whiteburg, I saw a lot of red brick buildings, and it reminded me of towns in New England. It did not look that different to me at all, and when, and we were getting together with folks that had come up and spent a very long weekend with us up here in Leverett. Mm-hmm. And when was that? October? That was October. Okay. So the initial perception of we're going to go to Trump voters, and we're going to go see Trump voters, that broke down. And when they first came, it wasn't Trump voters, it was people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And you wrote about kind of some of the dialogues that when they came up in October, there were about a dozen of them, right, and you sat down and chatted about some stuff. I mean, can you kind of describe what that was like? I mean, were there any like yelling matches or, you know, part of? No. It was the opposite. If anything, it was too kind. Too kind. Yeah. Too, too. Do you think it was southern, I'm sorry, southern gentility? Well, yeah. Kind of like that. Interesting. Yeah. But what we were doing is not talking about argument, we're not trying to argue. We're trying to find out who these people are individually and collectively, and to treat them as people individually, not as a position, a political position, a voting position. We started to see this was an extraordinary group of people, self-selected. They may not represent the average Kentucky in if there is such a thing, but they were beautiful people. People that when we first saw them, they dressed differently, they didn't look like us. And after a while, I thought, my God, this is an extraordinary, eloquent woman who's speaking. This is an extraordinary guy. This is a really interesting people individually. So when they went down there, they already had a base for talking to the people. And I wish I had been there, but I hadn't. So you weren't able to go down, but Sharon, you went and was it the same? Was it more dialogues like it was in October up in the Leverett area? Yeah. I mean, really, the heart of our growing connected was the dialogue process. And part of the peace commission, which had originally called for this meeting at the library way back in December 2016, one of its members is a woman named Paula Green, who has about 30 years of experience as a conflict resolution, mediate, not mediator, but in conflict resolution and peace work all over the world. So she's worked with Israeli, Palestinian. She's worked in Mawanda. She's worked in Burma and in Bosnia. So really places where the divisions have been terrible and can continue often to be terrible. And she has a process that she's actually also taught for a long time of dialogue. And you work in a closed space in a circle. And there are certain guidelines for conducting discussion. And it's very private. It's very confidential. And she will ask a very carefully constructed question that is to elicit a response. So to give you an example, when we first worked with, had our very first day together after some getting to know you games that all kinds of groups do, we had an art activity together. Not a dialogue, but an art activity with scissors and paste and all that on the table. And Paula had asked us to think about our family stories and especially our immigration stories. You know, what is our family story? It's everybody worked on that little white squares of paper. And then the intention was to take those squares and make banners out of them, mixing both communities up. And so we actually have one now hanging in Leverett and we brought one down to Kentucky with us. That exercise in family was the basis of the very first dialogue that we did. And Paula invited folks to tell their stories. And as stories were told, it was you heard coal stories, stories about brothers dying, the stories about sickness of children and lack of food. You also heard on the part of the Leverett folks, many stories of the Holocaust, of having lost family members. And that was a very, that broke down a lot of resistance, that's a very good word. And one of the individuals from Kentucky said, I never met an immigrant. And here, I mean, John's parents were immigrants, you know, and my great-grandparents were immigrants. Of course, we all have our stories. But the people in Kentucky, their folks came over to North America long, long, long time ago, many, many, many generations ago, and they've lost any immigration stories, whatever, whatsoever. So somebody said, you know, this, I feel like I'm meeting immigrants for the first time and realizing how much they contribute to our country. So that goes against everything, all the anti-migrant language that we've heard. And I'm sure there's some difference in their mind, too, immigration in terms of a lot of people don't think of Irish immigrants or Italian immigrants versus immigrants of color. So their view might have been directed towards immigrants of color, not realizing that everybody's an immigrant. Everybody is an immigrant. And it's so funny, because that's such a hot button issue, immigration, just very polarizing. And that sounds like the very first thing that you all were talking about, but not in a polarizing way. And kind of a, okay, this is my story, this is your background story. So that's fascinating to me. That's the deeper politics, the deeper politics. It isn't who you voted for, but it's that sense of understanding that we have to be open to each other. And being open to each other, that is a politics. It's hard for me to get this out. Yeah, I mean, I feel like these stories of the past and kind of the idea of immigration or not immigration, that's really connected to people's identity. And I wonder, I think a part of the identity of Kentucky and all of probably what's known as coal country is, I think what's probably hard for us up here to understand is why there is such that fierce connection to coal, which kind of, I grew up learning that it's health problems associated with coal, that you wouldn't think that the people who were actually mining coal would be standing up for coal so much. You'd think that they'd be the first people to kind of talk against that, but I imagine that's not what you guys found talking to them. Herbie Smith, who is a filmmaker with this group called Apple Shop, and he was part of our group in our dialogue circle, he said, the men loved mining coal. They bonded mining coal. They felt they were contributing to America by mining coal to building American industry, to helping win world wars, that it was a really honorable job to do. So that was very much a part of really believing and wanting to continue to mine coal. And also tapping into that make America great again mentality. With the decline of coal, one of the things that's happened is that all the easily accessible coal has been mined in Letcher County, and so that the coal that remains, which there is a great deal, it's much more expensive and harder to extract. And the extraction is more by machines than it is by men. And because it's by machines, because it's by machines, there's much more dust. And because there's much more dust, there's much more black lung disease, the black lung disease starts earlier for the people who are still involved in coal production. Do you feel that the people that you spoke to were sort of turning a blind eye to the health implications, or did they acknowledge that? Did they acknowledge that coal can make you sick when you breathe it in? Well, I think they very well know that since so many of their brothers and fathers and sons have been plagued with this and have died from it. On the other hand, when someone in our group in the circle said, well, what about all the pollution of the streams, which is also a byproduct of coal production? They said, we don't think about that very much because we're concerned about feeding our kids. That's the main thing on their minds is it's the absolute need to have money to buy food. What is the other industries? There another industry there other than coal? Well, they're trying to build industries, and that was one of the things that I did see when I was down there, that there's a real emphasis on developing a new kind of economy, getting away from the mono economy of coal, and tourism is one thing that they're kind of exploring. There's actually a wonderful outfitter shop already there. They want to see people kayaking, but they got to clean up those rivers, I think. There are beautiful waterfalls there. The mountains must be wonderful for hiking. There is a possibility for that. They're hampered somewhat right now. They do not have robust internet. Which is the case around here too, in some places. Yes, and that can hold some individuals back. Some people from Leverett are actually working with people in Kentucky to try to do what we did in Leverett to get broadband inexpensive and robust. As far as other industries, one of the most impressive parts of the trip down there for me was that there was a celebration on the Saturday we were there that was celebrating the Letcher County Culture Hub. This is something that Apple Shop has devised in the past two years under a Ben Fink's leadership. It's a network of 22 organizations in Letcher County, and they're all working on this issue of economic development and stability. Also through the arts, there's a lot of making of plays down there, which is another thing that I've found so interesting. There are wonderful storytellers down there, and so the theatrical, the theater people go around and they do storytelling circles, which result in all this wonderful material about people's lives, and then they put all that together. So we were even thinking, could we bring that up here? Could we have them have a residency up here and teach us about storytelling? One of the other funny things that happened when we were down there is that at one point Ben Fink led us in a storytelling circle after our dialogue one day. So we all knew how to dialogue us with all of our kind of therapist brains or whatever, but Ben wanted us to tell stories. And so we went around the circle. The Kentuckians could tell a story that had a character, a setting, and a bit of a narrative. You get to people from Leverett, and we just were talking heads. We just had our comments on this or that. And afterwards I went up to Ben and I said, we didn't do very well, did we? Story telling. Yeah, that could be a real export. I know, right? It's all good and important. Wonderful. And music was another thing that brought us together. Yes, appellation music. I think everybody kind of has an idea of what that sounds like. Absolutely. So how did you bridge the gap? Did you run into any conflicts? Were there any head-to-head conflicts? I know John said it was very genteel and kind of resisted to conflict. But did you find any hot points? I can recount one story. It was Sunday over lunch. We had just visited a coal mine. And we had that experience was kind of interesting. And we were having lunch in a converted abandoned schoolhouse that had been turned into an inn. And there was a very large room where they were serving brunch, Sunday brunch. So one of our folks was there, Kip. And he was near Gwen, who actually did visit us from Kentucky. She runs a community center down there in a catering business. And a bakery, she's called the Black Sheep. And they started talking about guns. And of course, Kentucky culture guns are used for hunting for animals that will provide you with meat. And for food. And up here, we're a more anti-gun completely, I would say. I mean, there is certainly a segment of our population up here that does hunt in its very serious hunters. Again, just like the Kentuckians. But a lot of us in Leverett were pretty much wanted a lot more gun legislation, especially against assault rifles and a lot more background checks and everything. So anyway, the two of them went added over lunch. I was not privy to it. I was at a different table. But I heard the story of them. And so Gwen says to Kip, look around this room. I bet there are six guns in this room. And she says, I own a gun. It makes me feel safer. And for us, it makes us feel less safe. They have guns for me anyway. I speak for myself. And was that something that was brought up and was resolved? Or was that something that was just kind of like, OK, this is a different culture? They both held firmly to what they believed and felt. And after lunch, they kind of like, they got up, and they were going to shake hands. And then that wasn't enough, and they hugged. So I mean, you can agree to disagree. However, one of the outcomes at the end of our time was to talk about, well, what are our next steps? And one of them was that Leverett folks and Letcher County folks, a little team from each, would work on gun legislation, saying, here we are from two different areas of the country. And we both believe in X, Y, and Z, the things that people could agree on. And I think that's pretty powerful. You've come forward with that. Do you feel like that this is kind of a way forward? I mean, I think that a lot of people learn about other parts of the country just through reading about them or seeing them on the news or not actually going there and talking to people. But logistically, that can be difficult. So I've moved around in that way. I mean, do you feel like there's a future in a lot of these groups or more of these groups that you've been a part of? And how do you think that that might work? Well, as far as believing in it, I feel like I've really experienced the power of face to face encounter that it's very, very strong. I feel like there's nothing that can replace it. I feel that face-to-face encounter takes away the word, puts aside for a time the voices of the media and the voices of politicians so that people can really encounter one another. And if they're really deeply listening, which is a very important part of the dialogue process, really listening, that you really can learn and something comes in. What the future of it, since it is difficult to travel to different parts of the country, that's hard to say. But I hear of more and more people that are interested in face-to-face encounters. And you have the Better Angels movement, which is much more local, doing face-to-face encounters of people in a divided situation. And I know that as far as Hands Across the Hills goes that we're exploring different initiatives both in Massachusetts and out of New England. So we're gonna continue to go forward. So you might find other partners, other than Whitesburg. Yes. Okay. And it might be us and Let Your County going to a third place. Right, so like the snowball gets going. Yeah, really interlinking it and helping it go on, you know. And in the meantime, there's Zoom. Which is? Zoom, it's a program to allow 14 or 15 people to talk all at the same time on screens. And then to frame the one who's talking. Okay, yeah. And be able to see each other. So we've done that. And that's not perfect, but it's wonderful. We've done that as a whole group thing with all of the Kentuckians as many as we could get together and most of us in Leverett talking just like a week ago. And then individual groups, I had another group, we're talking about expanding the dialogues to other geographical areas. And there was five of us together talking about that, looking at each other. So that was wonderful, you know, like the future. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, definitely keep us up to date on how it all progresses. We will. Yeah, great. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to visit us at valleyadvocate.com.