How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?

Complimentary parking located in Bear Park North parking garage located next to Juanita K Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts. 

Moderator:  Missouri State University President Clif Smart

It’s simply amazing what empathy and civil conversation can accomplish. Daryl Davis should know. For nearly 40 years the noted Black musician has gained acclaim for confronting extreme bias with civility. He’s engaged, face-to-face, those who hate him because of the color of his skin: members and leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremacist groups. Disbelief is most people’s first reaction: How could he possibly be civil to “those people?” But Daryl reached out in an effort to understand – not to change minds.

Those conversations forged unlikely but genuine friendships and over time many of his new friends changed their own minds and renounced their old beliefs. Some even gave Daryl their robes, hoods, Nazi flags, and other symbols of their past. Daryl is a brilliant storyteller with jaw-dropping experiences about building bridges of understanding using practical tools we can all employ to ignite positive change in our workplace, our community, and at the family dinner table. As Daryl says, “A missed opportunity for dialogue is a missed opportunity for conflict resolution.”