The One America Movement partners with faith communities across religious, political, and racial divides to confront toxic polarization in our society.
by Christina Tobias-Nahi
One America Movement has been a grantee of IRUSA since 2019, when the organization marked its 25th year anniversary through a special program set up that year to bridge divides.
From June 20–23, 2023, I was privileged to join a One America Movement immersive three-day “experience” to unpack the historical legacy of Charlottesville, VA, from the times of Thomas Jefferson until the events of August 2017 that shook the city and the broader United States, and then up to the present day how they are trying to recover and heal as a community.
The cohort selected to attend, in addition to One America staff across many states, included local faith leaders, faith leaders from other cities working to bridge divides, Americorps, a DC- based group working with young people who are emerging leaders on Capitol Hill learning to work across political affiliation and party, and academics and foundations working in the space of reconciliation and healing. Special listening sessions also brought in a group of local Evangelical pastors, the Charlottesville Community Foundation, and an author writing about the isolation of men and boys in American society (and post-Covid increasing by data in almost every political, faith and racial community), and how if they do not find positive purpose they are prone to self-harm (more than girls) or recruitment for other extremist ideologies. This was causal in the case of the KKK and Unite the White rallies that took place in Charlottesville well before the pandemic. Indeed, just this week on June 24, a handful of people waved Nazi flags and held antisemitic signs in front of the Chabad of Cobb synagogue in East Cobb, GA. This was reportedly the second recent rally in Georgia by the hate group, so Charlottesville was by no means an isolated incident.
Tours as a critical component of the program included visiting the oldest synagogue in Virginia, Congregation Beth Israel, built up by German and Eastern European refugees and amongst the oldest in the US (circa 1882) and which was a main target in 2017 as marchers chose their street to wave signs and spew hate messages. Another poignant walk in the rain was through the gentrifying downtown where the Confederate statues once stood and to a memorial of counter-protestor Heather Heyer, who was fatally struck by a car that plowed into the crowd. The final stop was a guided historical architectural tourof the enslavement history of the University of Virginia (a flagship university that did not admit African Americans or women until 1970!) by an amazing professor, Dr. Louis Nelson, who is working on resurrecting this legacy and a former descendent of Sally Hemings, the mistress of Thomas Jefferson. I visited Monticello after the formal program concludedalso where I learned more about that history in an exhibit of Sally Hemings and where the grave of Thomas Jefferson does not mention his term as 3rd President but mentions he wishes to be remembered for the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the VA Statute of Religious Freedom* (see at end), and the University which he saw through to construction just before passing. It is interesting that our current elected Muslim members of Congress have all been able to take their oath of public office not using the Bible, but using the Quran of Thomas Jefferson.
The group also participated in a service project to help set up a newly relocated gym with a mission to work with young men and boys of color mostly, to provide after- school tutoring and train them for boxing competitions. Through mentoring the idea is to make them upstanding citizens and future leaders.
All in all it was a very multi-faceted experience, looking at so many complexities across time that continue to have reverberations today. These deep dives take time but are a great way to be authentic in redressing historical wrongs and seeing what are the challenges to moving everyone forward together because it’s not zero-sum, and each community has different needs and different fears. It is imperative to be open to hearing from all stakeholders for those truly invested in real transformation for all.
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*Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
