Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky will moderate a conversation with John Wood Jr., Liz Joyner, David McCullough III, and Sam Feist on their work bridging divides in local communities, national politics, and in the media to strengthen our social fabric and democracy.
The evening will culminate with the inaugural awarding of the George Washington Unity Prize from Listen First Project. The prize will celebrate teams of community members from different geographic communities in America who are walking a patriot’s path—following in the footsteps of George Washington himself.
Meet the Speakers
Sam Feist
Sam Feist is the CEO of C-SPAN. Prior to joining C-SPAN, Feist served as CNN’s Washington bureau chief and senior vice president. Feist was the founding Executive Producer of The Situation Room, CNN's daily newscast. He has produced interviews with such world leaders as Barack Obama, Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Yitzhak Rabin. Feist is the recipient of five Emmy Awards and in the 2008 election cycle, Feist oversaw the campaign coverage that earned CNN a Peabody Award. Feist received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Vanderbilt University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He received his law degree with honors from Georgetown University.
Liz Joyner
Liz Joyner is founder and president of The Village Square, a nonprofit dedicated to building civic trust between people who don't look or think alike in American hometowns. Called "a model for the land" by former NEH Chair Jim Leach, The Village Square came early to the notion that it’s in hometowns where we live our lives that our accelerating division is most effectively addressed—and is now offering their concept-tested model to other communities.
Liz has a master’s degree in clinical social work, specializing in family systems theory—which directly influenced The Village Square’s unique and scalable model for strengthening civic life. She was named by USA Today as an "extraordinary American who is making our nation a better place," nominated by Leadership Tallahassee as Leader of the Year, and selected by the Tallahassee Democrat as one of "25 Women You Need to Know.” Liz is a member of Heterodox Academy’s board of directors, having spent two decades living the transformational power of people gathering with good intentions when they disagree.
John Wood, Jr.
John Wood Jr. is a former nominee for congress, former vice-chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, an opinion columnist with USA Today, radio host on KBLA 1580 Los Angeles, and National Ambassador at Braver Angels; America's largest grassroots, cross-partisan organization dedicated to political depolarization. He is a nationally noted speaker and thought leader on the subjects of political depolarization and the nonviolent philosophy of Dr. King.
Wood has written for many major publications (including the Wall Street Journal, Quillette and the Washington Examiner) and has spoken before prominent American think tanks, corporations, associations of elected officials, and has appeared on multiple national cable news programs, radio shows and popular podcasts. Wood is also a musician who lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.
David McCullough III
David McCullough III is the Co-Founder and CEO of The American Exchange Project (AEP). To connect our divided country, AEP sends high school seniors on a free weeklong trip to an American hometown very different from their own. In the summer of 2016, David, a rising college senior, drove 7,100 miles across the country on a road trip research project on poverty’s effects on education. He spent two months in three towns that were very different from the Boston suburb he grew up in: Cotulla, Texas, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and the Slavic Village of Cleveland, Ohio. The lessons he learned and unlikely friendships he made inspired the vision for AEP, and with the help Paul Solman (PBS NewsHour) and Bob Glauber (Harvard Business School), he founded the organization in 2019.
David’s work with AEP has been featured in over 100 media outlets, including the CBS Sunday Morning Show, Fox, Friends, the BBC, the New York Post, the Boston Globe, and Good Morning America. While starting AEP, he worked as a substitute teacher and baseball coach at his hometown’s high school. He has a BA in American Studies from Yale, where he played on the Varsity baseball team and was a member of the Grand Strategy Program, and an MPhil in Economic and Social History from the University of Cambridge. In 2022, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Education. He lives in Boston with his wife Kasey.
About Our Partners
Listen First Project elevates the impact of the movement to bridge divides in America. Listen First connects the efforts of 500 partners bringing people together across divides.
More Perfect, a bipartisan initiative dedicated to engaging institutions and Americans in protecting and renewing American democracy.