Braver Angels Return to Campus to Bridge Political Divide

On September 20 at 12:00 p.m., Beaufort County Community College will host Rebecca Marmaduke of the Braver Angels of North Carolina to discuss engaging in civil and meaningful political conversations. Launched in 2016, Braver Angels is a national, non-profit, bipartisan, citizens’ movement. The mission of this effort is to bridge the partisan divide in the United States.

The forum will take place in the college’s auditorium in the Continuing Education Building (8). Students, employees, and the public are encouraged to attend. Robin Warfield and Beaufort County Commissioner John Rebholz will be available to answer questions.

Rebecca Marmaduke retired from a career in corporate communications and training with companies such as Citi and Fidelity Investments. She now works with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh and serves as an ambassador for Braver Angels.

By bringing citizens of different political views together in a working alliance, Braver Angels is building new ways for citizens to talk to one another, to participate together in public life, and to influence the direction of the nation. Through meaningful discussions, they work to cool down the heated rhetoric that gets in the way of real conversations and accurate understanding of our differences.

“As a community college, I think it is inherent in our mission to help our students and the residents of our service region to understand how we must communicate with each other in a civil manner in order to maintain our democratic republic for successive generations,” said BCCC president Dr. Dave Loope.

The objective is not to push a political agenda or change participants’ minds, but rather to provide a safe place for deeper understanding. Braver Angels helps people listen and understand so as to build trust, to clarify disagreements, and to find common ground based on common values.

Braver Angels hopes to continue this work by forming small groups to sit down and engage in meaningful and civil dialogue to prove that people from different political persuasions can work across political divides.