Virtual event Tuesday to launch Hands Across the Hills book

LEVERETT — A seven-year effort to bring together progressives in western Massachusetts and more conservative residents of rural eastern Kentucky, for conversations and sometimes intense dialogues about their political and cultural differences, is being chronicled in a new book.

“Hands Across the Hills: A Grassroots Project to Bridge America’s Political Divide” will recount the work done by participants in Hands Across the Hills, formed in 2017 in the wake of the presidential election that saw Republican Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, the Democratic former secretary of state.

The publication will offer details about the work that went into the blue state-red state project that received both national and international attention, as well as provide insights into what was learned and the impact it had and continues to have.

During the program, participants will read and discuss passages from the book, while sharing feelings about the upcoming presidential election in which Trump for the third consecutive election is the Republican presidential nominee, this time facing off against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Tuesday’s event will also include time for public discussion and an opportunity to ask questions and share reflections.

The book includes original interviews, written reflections of all participants, along with news stories and media coverage of the project from its start seven years ago to its conclusion in 2023.

Sharon Dunn, a Leverett resident who was part of the editorial team, said even though the project came to a close a year ago, there should be significant interest for people throughout the Pioneer Valley who followed the journey or participated in discussions.

“The project formally ended last October, yet we decided to gather all our history and publish a book,” Dunn said.

Co-created by the late Paula Green, founder of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and with expertise in conflict in places like Rwanda, Bosnia and the Middle East, her idea with Hands Across the Hills was to offer an immersive experience with dialogue circles, homestays, art and music for participants, whether they be more well-to-do academics and others from Leverett who had overwhelmingly supported Clinton, or those from Letcher County, Kentucky, whose coal-mining families had largely voted for Trump.

Over the course of the years, dozens of hours were spent on three multiday visits, one hosted by Leverett in October 2017, when 10 individuals from Kentucky road a bus for 16 hours to meet up with 19 others. The other events took place in April 2018 in Whitesburg, Kentucky and then in October 2019 in Leverett.

During the one held five years ago that brought 200 people to the Leverett Elementary School gymnasium, hot-button issues, like gun control and abortion, were not discussed; instead, the focus turned to shared values, with Green explaining in an interview that it was not about changing each other, but to learn from each other, accept differences and act on commonalities.

“We talk about politics, we talk about religion, we talk about class,” Green said at the time. “We’re just not here to convert each other; we’re here to understand each other.”

The work of Hands Across the Hills also inspired other conversations and outgrowths, like the Bridge4Unity, where racial attitudes were discussed during a visit to Beaufort, South Carolina, which was followed by a reciprocal discussion in Springfield.

In addition, the group earned acclaim in 2018, with Hands Across the Hills receiving a U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence from the Alliance for Peacebuilding in Washington, DC.

The 200-page book will be available through the Hands Across the Hills website as a free PDF file at https://www.handsacrossthehills.org/ A soft cover book will be published later this fall by Off the Common Books in Amherst and will soon be available for pre-order.