Thank you to Dennis Kucinich, Lester Strong, and Dior Williams for joining us online on Thursday, February 11, 2021 for our webinar on Finding Common Ground. This event highlighted practical approaches to overcoming polarization and finding common ground, building on the 125-year living tradition of peacebuilding at Mohonk Mountain House. Below you can watch a recording of the event and here’s a piece about it in HudsonValleyOne.
hosted by Brad Berg of Mohonk Consultations.
Our panel members and the titles of their presentations were as follows:
• Dennis Kucinich, “Stepping out of Polarization”
• Lester Strong, founder and director of the Peaceful Guardians Initiative, “The Four Gateways of Communication”
• Dior Williams, Rondout Valley High School student and member of its Human Rights Club, “The Importance of Humility”
“We tried war, we tried aggression, we tried intervention. None of it works. Why don’t we try peace, as a science of human relations, not as some vague notion—as everyday work.”
—Dennis Kucinich, former member of Congress and two-time presidential candidate
It is clear that we are in a period of intense polarization in the US and in many areas around the globe. Recent events have given hope that a shift may be underway, presenting us with an opportunity to change the perspective of enmity to one of collaboration and unity in working toward a common understanding. Tools for avoiding conflict and finding common ground are extraordinarily useful and needed at this unique time, as is the spreading of goodwill.
How can each of us, in our own way, be part of a solution?
Lester Strong 
Dior Williams
Mohonk Consultations thanks M&T Bank for making this program possible and free to registrants.
MORE ABOUT OUR PANELISTS
DENNIS KUCINICH was a member of the US House of Representatives from Ohio from 1997 to 2013. From 1999 to 2003, he served as a chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He was a candidate for the US presidential elections of 2004 and 2008.
Dennis was involved in efforts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, requiring radio stations to give liberal and conservative points of view equal time. Fellow Democratic Congressperson Maurice Hinchey, Senator Bernie Sanders, and others joined him in this effort.
He was awarded the Gandhi Peace Award in 2003 and the US Peace Prize in 2010 in recognition of his leadership in working to prevent wars.
Due to his pro-environment votes in Congress, Dennis earned a 100% rating during 2005 and 2006 from the League of Conservation Voters. He has said that clean water is “a basic human right” and believes that health care is a “right in a democratic society.”
“I feel like Johnny Appleseed,” he told the New York Times in 2004. “I’m planting seeds all over this country: seeds of peace, seeds of hope. At some point, maybe years from now, there will be orchards.”
Dennis and his wife Elizabeth work to strengthen the capacity of institutions, companies, causes and individuals working to bring global social, health, economic, food, agricultural and ecological systems into balance.
LESTER STRONG is the executive director of the Peaceful Guardians Project, which serves as a communication and conflict-resolution bridge between law enforcement and communities of color. Currently, he is the lead coordinator for the City of Kingston’s Re-envision Public Safety Task Force as mandated by New York Governor Cuomo in the wake of the George Floyd killing. The Task Force’s report is scheduled to be published by April 1, 2021.
Lester also co-facilitates a four-week anti-racism workshop series in New York’s Hudson Valley, entitled, “How to Help Heal Racism in America.”
Lester was an award-winning TV journalist and executive for 25 years in New York City, Boston, Atlanta and Charlotte. After leaving TV, Lester became the president and CEO of the Siddha Yoga Foundation, which coordinated the activities of yoga and meditation centers in 46 countries. He has maintained a daily meditation practice and the study of Eastern philosophies for many years.
Lester also served as Vice President of AARP Foundation’s Experience Corps; a tutoring/mentoring program that serves 30,000 elementary school students annually who struggle with reading.
He is married to Pat Courtney Strong, with whom he shares a blended family of five children and two grandchildren.
DIOR WILLIAMS is a junior at Rondout Valley High School (RVHS) in Stone Ridge, New York, where he is an active member of the RVHS Human Rights Club. He speaks on such issues as police reform, climate change, diversity synthesis, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. He presented at the 2019 SUNY New Paltz Multicultural Conference to educators and administrators on incorporating social justice topics into the school curriculum. He also shared his reflections on the importance of peace work at the 2019 Mohonk Consultations Conference, “Creating and Sustaining Peace.” Along with the other members of the RVHS Human Rights Club, and their faculty mentor, Diana Zuckerman, Dior was a proud recipient of the 2020 Mohonk Consultations Distinguished Achievement Award for the club’s accomplishments on local, national, and global levels.
Outside of school, Dior has an internship for the Ulster County Youth Bureau, where he works part-time and holds a seat as a youth board member. Dior takes part in Ulster County’s Brighter Future Initiative. Their mission is “to both promote restorative justice and host community empowerment activities and events.”
Dior plans to strengthen his powerful voice and intends to represent this generation and inspire future generations to do the same.
Featured image: Peace Dove – 2008-07-10, by Banksy