Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

It's time to rethink how we create change. Owensboro offers a way.

Owensboro, KY

Owensboro, Ky.

Tapan Mehta/Getty Images

Harwood is president and founder of The Harwood Institute. This is the latest entry in his series based on the "Enough. Time to Build.” campaign, which calls on community leaders and active citizens to step forward and build together.

Conventional wisdom tells us that Americans don’t have the will and ability nowadays to come together and take shared action to move forward. But that’s dead wrong. It’s why I spend so much of my professional life working deeply with communities that seek to address America’s fault lines — places like Reading, Pa., Union County, Ohio, and Alamance County, N.C.

I recently kicked off our latest community initiative in Owensboro, Ky., by speaking at what’s affectionately called the “Rooster Booster Breakfast,” which is hosted by the regional Chamber of Commerce. More than 300 folks — a “who’s who” of the community — packed into Owensboro’s stunning riverfront convention center.


Owensboro is family-oriented, faith-based and built on deep interpersonal relationships. There’s been significant downtown redevelopment. And people take enormous pride in living there. But the area is also dealing with an array of challenges, from homelessness to a lack of youth opportunities to growing disparities between the haves and the have nots. Their civic culture —the relationships, norms, leaders, organizations and networks that enable a community to work together — has badly frayed and must be strengthened if the community is to make real progress.

I ultimately told them they face a fundamental choice: Adhere to the status quo and risk stagnation or seize opportunities to come together in new ways and build a better Owensboro.

Their response: a standing ovation.

Why? Because people in Owensboro are hungry for a new path forward, just like Americans all over the country. It’s a big reason why our “Enough. Time to Build.” campaign is spreading nationwide so fast.

At issue in Owensboro is the danger of stagnation. That's different from, say, Reading, once declared the poorest community in America. Or Union County, a largely rural area grappling with rapid growth. Or Alamance County, one of the most divided places I’ve worked.

Regardless of any community’s particular challenge, so much of our country is stuck, unsure how to move forward. On top of that, what I keep experiencing in my travels is that our instincts for how to create change tend to take us in exactly the wrong direction. We turn to comprehensive plans: Seek to get as many groups and organizations and leaders around the table as possible. Spend endless time trying to coordinate everyone’s actions. Prioritize raising boatloads of money. And promise fast change.

Let’s be clear: The state of the country calls for something much deeper, more real and more promising. We must rebuild our belief in one another, demonstrate proof that we can take shared action and create growing momentum over time. Full stop.

The good news is that this is doable. That’s why, during my speech and a series of roundtables I also held in Owensboro, I asked leaders and active citizens from all parts of the community to think about change differently. To see it in terms of “starting small to go big” rather than “bigger is better.” To shift from just “getting together” to actually working together. To find what they can agree on and get moving on it. To catalyze and unleash a chain reaction of actions that not only addresses what matters to people but also strengthens the community’s civic culture. And to focus on creating a new trajectory of hope rather than seeking to solve everything at once.

Without fail, in every setting, one individual after another raised their hand to say, “I have something to contribute. I want to work on this together.”

It’s time to recognize that our very instincts around creating change are taking us in the wrong direction and to recalibrate around the practical steps we can take to get things moving again. This is core to what I’ve come to call our “new civic path,” a fundamental alternative to business as usual.

People in Owensboro are starting to forge this new path. When enough of us seize this opportunity, we can build stronger communities. And in turn, we can build a stronger country.

Read More

Following Jefferson: Promoting Inter-Generational Understanding Through Constitution-Making

artistic animated portrait of Thomas Jefferson

Following Jefferson: Promoting Inter-Generational Understanding Through Constitution-Making

Part II: Preambles

The band of brothers that met in Philadelphia to draft a fresh Constitution shared one thing in common: They were children of the Enlightenment. It didn’t matter where they came from or what experiences shaped their lives, America’s Founding Fathers subscribed to the ideals of human reason, the rule of law, government by consent, and the all-important “pursuit of happiness.” The Enlightenment was their collective calling card.

That generational camaraderie found purchase in the immortal words of the preamble. “We the People of the United States,” the famous preface begins, “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Making promises, or at least challenging ourselves to reach a higher political vista, is pure Enlightenment thinking.

Keep ReadingShow less
From Minnesota to Utah: A Deadly Pattern of Political Violence

American flag with big crack or bullet hole.

Getty Images/Stock Photo

From Minnesota to Utah: A Deadly Pattern of Political Violence

We share in the grief over the weekend’s political violence that claimed the life of Rep. Hortman and her husband Mark, and our thoughts remain with Sen. Hoffman and his wife Yvette as they fight for their lives. This tragedy strikes at the heart of our democracy, threatening not just individual lives but the fundamental belief that people from different backgrounds can come together to solve problems peacefully.

The Minnesota shootings were not the only acts of political violence on June 14th. In Salt Lake City, gunfire shattered a peaceful "No Kings" protest, killing one demonstrator. In Austin, authorities evacuated the state Capitol under credible threats to lawmakers during another rally. In Culpeper, Virginia, a driver was arrested after driving into a crowd of protesters with his vehicle.

Keep ReadingShow less
Stories Matter: How Political Messaging Transforms Protests from Rights to Riots
Demonstrators protest in front of LAPD officers after a series of immigration raids on June 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Stories Matter: How Political Messaging Transforms Protests from Rights to Riots

The images emerging from Los Angeles this week tell two very different stories. In one version, federal troops are maintaining law and order in response to dangerous disruptions in immigration enforcement. In another, peaceful protesters defending immigrant communities face an unprecedented deployment of military force against American citizens. Same events, same streets, entirely different narratives. And, as it often does, the one that dominates will determine everything from future policy to how history remembers this moment.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. Throughout American history, the story we tell about protests has mattered more than the protests themselves. And time and again, it’s political messaging, rather than objective truth, that determines which narrative takes hold.

Keep ReadingShow less
Flags of the United States hanging in front of the facade of a building
Colors Hunter - Chasseur de Couleurs/Getty Images

What ‘America First’ Really Looks Like

"Your flag flyin' over the courthouse

Means certain things are set in stone

Keep ReadingShow less