The Many and One Coalition, for example, formed in 2003 after a white supremacist group held a rally there.

Following immediate activities surrounding a hate-group rally, the Many and One Coalition has evolved into a large-scale diversity organization, educating and organizing residents, businesses and community-based organizations to address personal and systemic oppression, like racism, sexism and homophobia.

The coalition sponsors an annual statewide event called, "10 Days of Community, Diversity and Justice." The conference celebrates differences with activities like multicultural food fair. But it also helps residents go further, providing a safe space in which participants can talk about sensitive issues like race, sexual orientation and religion.

Expanding Comfort Zones
The Connecticut-based Study Circles Resource Center helps communities look long range by creating dialogue groups in which residents discuss tolerance-related issues before tensions can boil over into bias incidents and hate crimes. The group publishes a helpful handbook, "Organizing Community-wide Dialogue for Action and Change."

The idea is simple: Bring together people from different backgrounds and belief systems, and provide them with a safe space to air opinions and get to know each other.

It's a formula that can be replicated anywhere.

In Montgomery, Ala., for example, about 30 members of One Montgomery meet once a week over eggs and biscuits. The diverse crowd — black and white, conservative and liberal — discusses, among other things, housing, education and the city's race relations. They don't always agree, say the group's co-chairs, but then, that's kind of the point.

"Several of us wouldn't otherwise come in contact with each other," says Daniel Webster, one of One Montgomery's two co-chairs, who is black and calls himself conservative. "It's been good for me because the mindset of a lot of members isn't like the mindset of the people I'm normally around."

Webster's co-chair, Paula Weiss, who is white and calls herself a "tree-hugger," agrees: "As soon as you meet the so-called 'enemy' and hear what they have to say, without it being filtered through someone else or the media, it makes a huge, huge difference."

For more information about community dialogue groups, visit www.studycircles.org.