Discovering Pockets of Pluralism Across the U.S.

This is part of a series of posts highlighting knowledge assets from New Pluralists' first four years.

What does pluralism look like in local communities across the country? How are people coming together across their differences to solve problems in U.S.?

As we began our work in 2021, that’s exactly the question we asked — and it’s a question we continue to hear from prospective funders, researchers, policymakers, and the public. 

To find the answer, we engaged Scott Shigeoka and a team of ethnographers, anthropologists, and community researchers to search for examples of pluralism in practice.

Their findings are compiled in “Pockets of Courage,” a beautiful, ’zine-style publication that not only defines pluralism in plain terms and explores the conditions for its success, but also introduces us to innovators and community leaders doing the work.  

These profiles of “Community Pluralists" highlight the work of a violence interrupter in Dallas;  a community project welcoming Afghan refugees to rural Missouri; and a churchgoer in Michigan helping her congregation understand the experiences of LGBTQ+ members – among many others. 

Flip through “Pockets of Courage” and you’ll see: this is what pluralism looks like.

When we began our work, we kept hearing that pluralism was everywhere, but it was not easily spotted, possibly because the work is called by so many names. We wanted to elevate stories – told in people’s own words and interpreted through visual art – about what this work of belonging looks like in practice. “Pockets of Courage” shows how local pluralists are transforming communities across the country, sometimes just one congregation or city block at a time, and they have deep wisdom about how pluralism grows.  

As one of the first research projects that we funded, it remains a keystone that has informed our work thus far — and the work we’ll do for years and grant cycles to come. In fact, the stories in the zine inspired us to create the “Healing Starts Here” program and cohort and infuse $10 million into local communities. 

Click here to check out “Pockets of Courage,”