ok, 500 deluxe garden gnomes. wow. i only meant to order five. there's not enough money in my account for these. i'm gonna get charged. two things i just can't deal with. overdraft charges. and garden gnomes. but your bmo smart advantage checking account gives you an extra day to avoid an overdraft fee. nice to see a bank cutting people some slack. mistakes happen. and we give you time to correct them. so, you don't like gnomes huh? what about that one? that one i like. a lot. ♪ bmo ♪ good job. >> it's rare for 60 minutes to follow a story for 15 years.

but tonight, you'll be reintroduced to jennifer thompson, a rape victim who mistakenly identified an innocent man who was sent to prison. >> then i'm going to tie my string. >> jennifer has created something called healing justice, a program that brings together crime victims, family members, and innocent men. >> dear chris, you failed in life. why did you confess? i would never have confessed. >> why can't you just be quiet? >> you are an angry black man. you will never know love. you will always be a prisoner. >> i'm here because i thought i want to be a part of a better world for our children and our grandchildren. >> can't save the whole world but i can do my part. >> what would happen if you put americans from opposite sides of the political spectrum across from one another and asked them to talk, have a look at something called one small step.

>> people feel misunderstood and judged. nobody has ever in the history of humanity, nobody has ever changed their mind because by being called an idiot or a moron or a snowflake. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm scott pelley. >> i'm cecelia vega. we begin with president biden's historic decision to step down as the democratic candidate for president. bringing an end to his 50-year political career. mr. biden made the announcement this afternoon in a letter to the american people, saying, quote, while it has been my intention to seek re-election, i believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focal solely on fulfilling my duties as predfor the remainder of my term. the president offered his full support and endorsement of kamala harris to replace him at

the top of the ticket. whether another democrat steps forward to oppose her or the 59-year-old former senator from california becomes the nominee will be determined at the democratic national convention next month. this evening, vice president harris released a statement saying she intends to win the nomination and, quote, defeat donald trump. questions about 81-year-old president biden's age and mental acuity erupted in the weeks following his debate in june against former president trump. nearly 40 congressional democrats publicly urged him to drop out and supporters put a hold on tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions. the president remains in delaware tonight as he recovers from covid. no sitting americans president has ever quit the race so late in the election cycle.

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a woman named jennifer thompson, a rape victim who was devastated to learn years after her assault that she and the police had identified an innocent man who was convicted and sent to prison while the actual rapist had gone on to attack several more women. not an uncommon story in this era of dna exonerations. and jennifer thompson has tried for years to do something about it. thompson knows first-hand that wrongful convictions scar not just the unjustly convicted but

also the original crime victims who are often overlooked. as we first reported in march, she's doing somethng no one else has tried, and perhaps only she could pull off. bringing together crime victims and innocent men from different cases for what she calls healing justice. >> what i'm going to ask you to do is turn your bowl upside down. >> what we saw on day one of a multi-day group retreat jennifer thompson is leading sure didn't look like healing. ten men and women plus an observer. >> nice job lesley. >> smashing bowls with a hammer. >> nice. >> what i'm going to ask you now and ask you to repair it. >> it was quite something to realize gluing pieces back together at one table were two women who had been raped at the ages of 15 and 12.

sitting across from two men who in unrelated cases had been wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting children and had each spent more than two decades in prison. >> anyone need a little blob of glue? >> at the next table, another woman who survived a sexual assault, sitting beside a man exonerated for rape and murder. and at our table, the partner and daughter of a murder victim. everyone here part of a case where the wrong man was sent to prison for years and years. >> you have said that wrongful convictions aren't a single bullet. you said they're bombs. >> a wrongful conviction doesn't hurt like a person. it's not just raymond towler got hurt. his whole family got shrapnel. and the victims got shrapnel, and the community received shrapnel because a child molester was still in the community. there's just so many people in a

wrongful conviction. >> in one case. >> i think it's hundreds of people for every single wrongful conviction case that are hurt. >> jennifer thompson was one of them. she was a college student in 1984 when a man broke into her off campus apartment and raped her at knifepoint. jennifer worked with police to create a composite sketch, then identified a man named ronald cotton in the photo and physical lineups police showed her. jennifer testified in court against ronald cotton and was relieved when he received a life sentence. but after 11 years in prison, dna testing proved cotton's innocence, and identified the actual rapist whose photo had not been in the lineup. ronald cotton was exonerated and jennifer was wracked with guilt as she told us in 2009. >> shame?

>> shame. terrible shame. suffocating, debilitating shame. >> jennifer turned that shame into action. she apologized to ronald cotton in person and then started speaking around the country to police and prosecutors, sometimes together with cotton, about how to make wrongful convictions less likely. but over the years, as exonerations of the innocent have multiplied -- >> finally we're free. >> with more than 3500 freed so far -- >> i'm free. >> based on new evidence including dna, jennifer began focusing in on what was being overlooked. >> what do you think most people feel and see when they see an innocent man come out of prison? >> it's the day that that man or woman who is wrongfully incarcerated and their families are rejoicing. >> i know you didn't do it. i know, i know.

>> the day they have been dreaming about. they have prayed for. they're on the court steps and their arms are raised high. and it's a day of celebration, but for the crime victims, for the murder victim family members, they're sitting back here saying, hey, hold up a second. this is another nightmare on top of a nightmare. the victims have been forgotten. >> victims, she says, like tomeshia carrington artis, who was 12 years old when a man broke into her bedroom and raped her. >> he grabbed me by my throat and put a knife to my throat and said if i scream he was going to kill me and my mom. grabbed me from behind, put me in a choke hold. >> penny burntson, sexually assaulted at age 36 as she went for a afternoon run on the shore of lake michigan. >> he said now i'm going to kill you. now you're going to die. >> and loretta zilinger white

who was raped at age 15 on the way to school one morning after she missed her bus. >> it's hard. people expect you to just put it behind you and not think about it again. and they don't realize that it's going to affect you for the rest of your life. >> all these women like jennifer had identified a suspect the police showed them, only to learn years later that those men were innocent. and they were gripped by a whole new nightmare. >> i felt so bad for him because i felt like i sent this man to prison. that's all i could think about. i got scared. i felt like he was going to try to come out and kill me. i just -- i shut down. >> did people blame you? >> oh, absolutely. >> the first time i went out in public, a friend came up to me and said, i can't believe you're showing your face. >> they were saying i needed to go to prison. >> that you needed to go?

>> yes. that i intentionally sent the wrong man to prison. >> oh, my gosh. >> yeah, it was bad. >> yeah. memory experts have long understood how crime victims can get it wrong. in our earlier story about jennifer's case, professor gary wells showed us a simulated crime scene and then a lineup. >> now you know now after we talked probably not to pick anyone. >> no, no actually. i actually know who it is because if i had -- >> who is it? >> i think it's this guy. am i wrong? >> yeah. you're wrong. >> i'm wrong? >> yeah. it's none of them. >> studies have shown again and again when the actual perpetrator is not in the lineup, witnesses often pick the wrong man who then comes to replace the original offender in their memory of the crime. in jennifer's case, and tomeshia and penny's, the real perpetrators revealed by dna

years later, had not been in the original lineups. >> 20 years later when they come to me and say, by the way -- >> can't imagine. >> the person who raped you never went to prison and the person we thought is innocent. see you. and oh, by the way, it's all your fault. not the system's fault. here was my narrative. rape victim falsely accuses an innocent man and sent him to prison. everything is wrong with that. because a false accusation denotes a lie. >> deliberate. >> why would a crime survivor, why would a victim want the wrong person to go to prison? that doesn't make any sense at all. >> you know, when you hear what you're saying, then we get it. but we don't hear it, as you said, there's a blazing headline, man is freed. person who fingered him got it wrong. that's it. >> in the system, it now doesn't

get held accountable for how it failed me and it failed my family and it failed the innocent person, it failed the innocent person's family and it failed everybody. >> that failure, jennifer told us, is also devastating for families of murder victims, even when they played no role themselves in identifying the wrongfully convicted person. that's what happened to andrea harrison and her father, dwayne jones. andrea's mother jacqueline was raped and murdered in 1987 when andrea was just 3 years old. >> it was one of the most h horrendous crimes. she was brutally raped, tortured. someone found her body walking their dog. >> a local man named larry peterson spent more than 17 years in prison for the crime before dna testing proved his innocence, and he was released. >> did you know that he was going to be released? did they tell you?

>> no. >> no. >> no. >> for many, many years, someone was tried, convicted, and put away. >> yes, ma'am. >> and then you find out that the dna doesn't match. >> i mean, you go back into fight or flight. >> you got scared. >> absolutely. >> can you tell us of what? >> who hurt my mother? what happened to jackie? whoever that person is, they're still out there. >> since larry peterson's exoneration with the case now cold, they feel the original crime and victim have become an afterthought. >> it's always been, what do you think about mr. peterson? that is not my charge. i care about jackie. i'm worried about jackie. what about jackie? >> even while victims and their families are left reeling in the wake of wrongful convictions, jennifer knows from her friendship with ronald cotton and her work with other e

exonorees that heady blissful first day of freedom is just the start of a struggle to rebuild. raymond towler, exonerated after 29 years in prison, 29 years, plays in a band with other exonerees and says he struggles with the lingering stigma and hurt of being charged with such a heinous crime. >> tell us if it's not too painful what the crime was. >> it's painful. i'm laughing over it, but it is painful. but it was rape of an 11 and 12-year-old kids. >> when dna testing finally proved towler's innocence and won his freedom, he says it was thrilling. but also daunting. the adjustment was difficult. >> yeah. i couldn't even really go out the door by myself. >> you don't feel like you fit in anywhere. at least i didn't. >> exonerees' stories are often

filled with egregious police and prosecutorial misconduct, in chris ochoa's case, abusive interrogations that led to a false confession to rape and murder. for howard dudley, evidence withheld by prosecutors that likely would have cleared him of child sexual abuse for which he served more than 23 years. >> i always dreamt being with my kids, seeing the football game, film them on the basketball court. didn't get a chance to see none of that. >> so i would like for everybody to introduce themselves. >> so jennifer came up with a novel idea. >> so i am jennifer thompson. i'm a victim/survivor. >> my name is raymond, i'm an exoneree. >> my name is loretta. >> she started an organization called healing justice, that brings together exonerees. >> my name is chris.

>> and crime victims. >> my name is penny. >> all from different cases. >> i am tomeshia. >> as well as family members. >> my brother was an exoneree. >> my name is andrea. >> healing justice paid to bring them from around the country to this rented retreat center in virginia where they will spend three days sharing stories, playing games, and eating all their meals together. this is the 17th retreat healing justice has done. how effective is it when it's not the same crime? >> very effective. there's something powerful and healing when an exoneree can hear what the victim in their case must have felt like, and for crime survivors it's really healing to also hear about the experiences of exonerees. >> the biggest thing i lost was trust. >> three days of emotional

release, rebuilding trust, and healing when we come back.

when she created the nonprofit organization healing justice, in 2015, was to help all groups harmed by wrongful convictions. healing justice now advises prosecutors' offices around the country on dealing more effectively and empathetically with crime victims and exoneration cases. and they have recently gotten a grant from the justice department to expand those efforts. but it's what they call the healing side of their work that is most meaningful to jennifer. she did coursework in trauma recovery and worked with psychologists to design a

program to safely bring together victims of crime and exonerees. they work in small groups on the wounds left behind when the justice system gets it wrong. remember the breaking and gluing back together of those bowls? >> did anybody notice how fast and easy it was to break it? and how hard it is to put it back together again? >> that was just the start of this retreat's opening exercise. and perhaps a metaphor for the whole endeavor. >> what i'm going to ask you to do now is to paint your broken places with gold. this is actually 24 karat gold paint. >> she told us it's called kin sugy. >> what is that? >> it's the japanese concept that even in our broken places, we're still beautiful. because we're strong at our

broken places, and we're not disposable. >> but before they can paint their real wounds with gold, they have to look hard at the breaks that need repair. >> i lost part of my heart. >> so sitting in a circle, using a rock to give whoever holds it the floor, and with a healing justice social worker always present, they talked about their losses. >> i lost believing in myself. i had so much confidence. i had so much. >> that first, you know, slam of the doors, everything got real right then. i seen people suicide, death by cop, just getting beat up, killed. you know, it all comes back. and i have to keep reminding myself, you know, right here, i'm in the present right now. >> the hardest part for me is hearing what the exonerees went

through in prison. it's so hard to hear, but it's so necessary. >> so what i want to do today -- >> on day two of the retreat, jennifer led an exercise on how the harsh words used against each of them end up becoming internalized. >> you might have been called a liar. you might have been called a rapist. and those words really do take on a life of their own. i would like for you to write a letter to yourself from the space of the critical mind that loop that plays in your head over and over again. >> you have them write letters. what was the purpose? >> i have done this before when they're writing it, they're not happy. then i had them read it out loud in the circle. they didn't like it. >> dear chris, you failed in life. why did you confess? i would never have confessed. >> why can't you just be quiet? >> dear raymond, you are an angry black man. you will never know love.

you will always be a prisoner. >> and then there was loretta's. >> dear loretta, you deserve to be raped and beaten. you really don't deserve to be alive. you aren't brave nor strong. you are a failure as a woman and a mother. >> loretta, jennifer told us, faces one of the most excruciating situations for a victim in an exoneration case. when the dna clears one man but doesn't identify who the actual assailant was. >> i'm stuck. >> she told us she relives the assault daily and can't get the exonerated man's face out of her memory. >> so even though he was cleared through dna, his face is still there. >> yes. the dna said it wasn't him.

>> you didn't believe it. >> no. i feel guilty. because i feel like i did something wrong. >> so you're having both the feeling he was the one and that you did something wrong. >> yes. >> oh, my god. you really are stuck. >> i don't know who did this. >> for andrea harrison, whose mother's killer also remains unknown, it's a familiar struggle. >> what was told to me was that he was the person who murdered my mother, and so that was a belief of mine for a lot of years. i can't get that out of my head. >> on his side of it. i mean, that's sad. >> it is sad. >> it is sad. >> the justice system failed him just like it did us. >> until now, andrea and her father had not been willing to attend a retreat with exonerees present. do you think that the exonerated

person and the victim are almost pitted against each other when they shouldn't be? they're both victims of the same perpetrator? who knows someone sitting in jail for what he or she did. >> at the end of the day when an innocent person is in prison, a guilty person is not. we should all be concerned about that. >> maybe they go off and do it many more times. >> in my case, the person who wasn't caught committed six more first-degree rapes before he was ever apprehended. >> i just love that we're here working on this. >> in the circle, after reading the critical letters, jennifer turned the tables. >> i want you to write a second letter now to yourself from the self compassion voice, the voice that you would use for the person you love the most. >> so they rewrote it. and their faces, they smiled when they read it. >> dear raymond, you have a kind

heart. you are loved. raymond, your dreams have come true, and you are free to dream more and create. >> you are a great mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, and so on and on. keep going. you got this. >> i have seen you stumble, and i have seen you bounce right back. >> dear loretta, you know that it's never too late to follow your dreams. you should never stop believing in yourself. you didn't deserve to be hurt by anyone or anything. i will always be your biggest fan and supporter. i love you. >> that was different. so why is it that we speak to ourselves in a way that we would never speak to the people that we love? >> something that i need to change, you know, is that it was actually harder to write the happy letter for me. i do believe the good things about myself, but i don't think i really say them to myself

enough. >> and the reality is, if we really want to do good in the world, hating ourselves serves nobody at all. >> who's ready? >> after two emotion-filled days came a scene we weren't expecting. >> catch it. >> the group gathered together for improv games. acting like animals. smiling and laughing. >> you play a lot of games. >> the games are just really a way of inviting that child to come back and play again. if you feel safe, you can pretend like you're a monkey. you can do all kinds of ridiculous things. and it's okay because everybody else is doing it too. >> we noticed a loosening and connecting. later that night, over an art

project, the kind of inprompten conversation jennifer says this retreat is all about. >> how can somebody look at me and think i would do something so heinous like that? that's part of the trauma for me. >> when you hear some of our stories, do you ever, like, blame us? >> like me being an exoneree? >> yeah. do you ever see yourself blaming the victims for -- >> you didn't do anything wrong. it's not your fault. >> the next morning, as they gathered in the circle for the third and final day -- >> i feel blessed. >> i feel light as a feather. >> the mood had shifted dramatically. >> i feel open. >> i feel courageous. >> i feel nurtured even though it's painful to let it out, i

think you guys do it because you know it's going to help the next person. and it has. >> so how did the retreat go? >> very enlightening. very powerful. >> we took off the mask that everybody sees. >> what questions did you ask each other, exonerees to crime victims and back around? >> i asked what happened to you? and everyone was honest. >> everybody was honest. i asked right away, i shook mr. howard's hand. and i feel for this man. and my other two friends back there that are exonerees. i see it now, because we only looked from our side of the table. we never seen it from their side. >> i had that fear. even when i came here, i didn't know if i would be coming into hate because i was an exoneree. you know, nobody believed me for 30 years. >> i think we believe it. >> thank you. >> i had questions myself for an

exoneree, and i was able to build up the courage to even ask raymond because i still hold this guilt, and i was finally able to let it go after talking to him. i knew he was speaking from his heart. and it took 30 years for him to let me get that guilt off of me. >> wow. >> i thank you. >> may you keep spreading your love to everyone that needs it. >> so as the retreat drew to a close, they clasped hands and shared wishes for one another. >> penny, may you continue on your journey of healing. >> what happened in your case that allowed you to heal? >> i think i'll always be healing. but i think what has helped me more than anything is the relationships i built along the way with people that have been harmed and hurt just like me.

>> because you're helping other people. >> jennifer, may you always be in our lives and may you always be courageous. >> i'm helping other people but what they don't realize is they're also helping me. >> i didn't know that move. >> they're healing. they are healing. and i want to walk with them on that journey.

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♪ bmo ♪ ok, 500 deluxe garden gnomes. wow. i only meant to order five. there's not enough money in my account for these. i'm gonna get charged. two things i just can't deal with.

overdraft charges. and garden gnomes. but your bmo smart advantage checking account gives you an extra day to avoid an overdraft fee. nice to see a bank cutting people some slack. mistakes happen. and we give you time to correct them. so, you don't like gnomes huh? what about that one? that one i like. a lot. ♪ bmo ♪

trying to build a bridge over the nation's political divide. dave isay has created a program called one small step to get americans on the left and the right to stop demonizing one another and start communicating face-to-face, one conversation at a time. one small step grew out of storycorp, the oral history project dave founded 21 years ago. as we first reported in 2022, it has taped more than half a million americans telling their stories to become the largest single collection of human voices ever recorded. with one aim at its core. >> what if we just give the entire country the chance to be listened to and have a chance to talk about, you know, who they are? >> do you think part of the problem we're having in america is that people are so angry because they don't feel like

anybody is listening to them? >> yeah, i think people feel misunderstood and judged and hurt. you know, nobody has ever in the history of humanity, nobody has ever changed their mind because by being called an idiot or a moron or a snowflake, but many minds have been changed by being listened to by conversation, being told they're loved. >>tio something we would consid so simple is so powerful. >> being told that all of our stories matter equally and infinitely is something everyone needs to hear. >> dave isay seems to always be listening. always taking notes even during our interview. he told us journalism should be a public service and now hopes that one small step can help end what he calls the culture of contempt that is tearing apart the country. >> the situation is so bad that, you know, if the culture of contempt wins, things are just not going to end well for the

united states. >> what's fueling the culture of c contempt? >> it's media, social media. there's a multi, multi, mull-billion dollar hate industrial complex where people, you know, can make money by making us hate and fear each other. it's a little bit of a david and goliath fight here. >> long before he started storycorps and one small step, he fought to tell stories of the forgotten by making radio documents in flop houses, coal mines, and public housing projects. >> i need you guys from here on end to be on top of stuff. >> he first appeared on "60 minutes" more than 25 years ago in a story with lesley stahl about two teenagers from chicago who made their own documentary with his help. the pair won a peabody award, one of the highest honors in broadcasting. >> thank you. >> in 2003, he got the idea for story corps. >> everybody, my family,

everybody thought it was absolutely insane. we started with a booth in grand central terminal and it's a very simple idea. you come to the booth with your grandmother, anyone you want to honor by listening to them, so people think of it if i had 40 minutes to live, what would i say to this person who means so much to me. >> to attract people, be reached out to the people's library, specifically the american congress's folk life center. >> i said i'm going to try to record the whole country. will you accept the materials? she said those magical three letters, yes. and that was it. and here we are. >> the storycorps archive is in good company at what is the largest library in the world. other treasures here include a rare gutenberg bible as well as a draft of the declaration of independence handwritten by thomas jefferson. and a preliminary draft of president lincoln's emancipation proclamation. dr. carla hayden serves as the

librarian of congress. until recently, it was a lifetime appointment, so only 14 people have held the job since 1802. >> how does having storycorps here fit into your vision for the library of congress? >> storycorps is an important part of adding history and context and the individuals who make history. not just the ones that we see on the news but the people who are part of the fabric of our american life. the everyday people. what did they feel? what did they believe? >> to try to find out, storycorps rolled out a mobile booth in 2005 to travel the country. they also launched partnerships and story collection programs in multiple american cities. >> this is dave isay, founder of storycorps. >> when the pandemic hit, they created a new way for people to submit stories online. >> share your interview far and wide and know that some day, future generations will be

listening. >> every friday for the last 19 years, national public radio sends one story into the homes, headphones, and cars of 6 million people. >> it's friday, which is when we hear from storycorps. >> we were at npr's washington studio to hear morning edition host steven insky introduce the story of miguel, a decorated fighter pilot who passed away in twen 16 at the age of 92. >> he served as a u.s. military pilot in world war ii and korea and vietnam. two of his children, isabel and juan pablo came to storycorps to remember him. >> when i was little, i remember him flying in on his fighter jet and me thinking what a hero my father is. >> as he got older, he was diagnosed with dementia, but even at the end when he cognitively wasn't all there, he would hear a plane and just look

up and stare at it in the sky. and you could tell that he just wanted to be up in that plane with every ounce of his being. >> maybe he's listening to us somewhere up there. >> i hope so. >> sometimes in an interview, you can almost see sparks flying out of someone's mouth. there's just this kind of magnificence and grace to the story. and those are the ones where you just -- it almost demands to be shared with a larger audience. >> in 2010, storyskoer began to animate conversations to be viewed by new audiences online. like this one recorded in mississippi between albert sykes and his 9-year-old son aidan. >> are you proud of me? >> of course. you're my man. i just love everything about you, period. >> the thing i love about you, you never give up on me. that's one of the things i will always remember about my dad. >> have you thought about selling kleenexs? you could make a lot of money.

>> we always wanted to get kleenex as a sponsor but they never agreed. >> only a tiny fraction of storycorps's hundreds of thousands of stories ever make it onto the radio. they're selected by storycorps's facilitators who make up the actual core of story corps. >> once i press record, we'll have you introduce yourselves. >> facilitators are trained in the art and technical aspects of story collection. >> wonderful. >> jason reynolds serves on storycorps's board of directors. he's also one of the most popular and celebrated young adult authors in the country. 19 years ago, fresh out of college, he was a facilitator who conducted close to 300 storycorps sessions over 18 months. >> i felt like i was privy to something special. something sacred. you know, and something that would last forever. and no one would know i'm in the room, but i was in the room for some of the most beautiful tales i have ever heard.

>> so it sounds like what you heard in the booth is very different than what people may hear on the radio. >> absolutely. sometimes you can almost hear the anxiety of it all. and other times you can hear the gentle tenderness of human beings. >> i think storycorps and the facilitators, they get to see who we really are as americans, and it's not what you see on 24-hour news. >> around the time of the 2016 presidential election, dave isay says he got the idea for a new kind of storycorps that could perhaps help unite a country becoming increasingly divided. he decided to call it one small step. >> what's the difference between regular storycorps and one small step? >> so every regular storycorps interview, there are people who know and love each other. every once in a while, one small step are strangers and it's people across the political divide. >> after you read each other's bios i'm going to ask why did

you want to do the interview today? >> we match strangers who disagree politically to put them face-to-face for 50 minutes. not to talk about politics, just to talk about your lives. >> facilitators begin by asking the participants to read one another's biography out loud. as in this session in richmond, virginia. the project tries to match people who may be from different political parties but have something else in common. >> hi. i grew up as an army brat and an evangelical christian surrounded by a very powerful ideology of conservative, patriotism, and religion. >> i'm a baptist pastor and performance artist, a native charlottesvillian, gradual of the university of virginia. >> participants are encouraged to focus on what they share. >> we're pastors and we're helping people to find their path and find their voice. >> oh, brenda, i love what you

just said about helping people find their path because i feel such a connection there. >> format is derived from a psychological concept called contact theory. >> it says when you have two people who are enemies and you put them face-to-face under very, very specific conditions, and they have a conversation and a kind of visceral emotional experience with each other, that hate can melt away and people can see each other in a new way. >> i'm here because i thought i want to be a part of a better world for our children and our grandchildren. >> yeah. yeah. i can't save the whole world, but i can do my part where i am, and i'm going to. >> so far, one small step has completed more than 2,500 sessions. it has a presence in wichita, kansas, richmond, virginia, and columbus, georgia. >> i'm going to give you a quick rundown on what's going on with

one small step since we last smoke. >> once a month, dave meets with their braintrust. it includes social psychology professors, former political advisers from the right and left. >> i like how you can't tell who is a democrat or a republican. >> and pollsters to support the idea that there is an exhausted majority in america. >> they're tired, scared, sick of division and they want a way out. we have to give them a way out. >> dave isay makes it a point to venture outside of storycorps's home turf on npr to increase the project's reach. >> i have no idea what your politics are, which is one of the reasons i like you so much. i don't think you're primarily political. you're interested in bringing peel together. >> you actively seek out media outlets that appeal to conservatives like tucker carlson, glenn beck. >> i think what makes one small step special is that all of us

believe in every cell of our body that there is a flame of good in you, whether you're liberal or whether you're conservative. and our job is to fan that flame until it becomes a roaring fire. >> i take my hat off to dave. i think once more he's proving that he's willing to walk the walk. >> when you heard about the one small step initiative, what did you think? >> it is very, very difficult for us to hate one another when i'm looking you in the face and we're talking about what we like to cook our children for dinner and we're talking about how difficult it is to get our babies into college. it isn't an easy fix. it isn't some kind of hocus-pocus. it isn't any of that. he knows that. but somebody got to do something. >> our dream with one small step is that we convince the country that it's our patriotic duty to see the humanity in people with whom we disagree. >> going to take a lot of stories to wring this country

together. >> we're banking on a bit of a miracle here. you just don't give up. >> the storycorps session jason reynolds never forgot. >> what a gift to watch such an incredible thing happen. >> - [narrator] at kpix, we're taking weather to the next level. - we can show not just what's happening at ground level, but we can show what's happening in the upper levels of the atmosphere. let's lift the clouds off of ground level and talk... - it really spotlights how unique the geography is here.

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