Issues such as inequality, gender identity, and education have become the subjects of national debate,

with the focus often on what elected leaders in Washington say and do about them.

Yet many of those same issues play out on the local level in communities with their own

particular histories and challenges.

Judy Woodruff recently traveled to one such community in North Carolina as part of her ongoing series America

at a crossroads.

The history in Alomans County is not so pleasant.

Inside this room in Burlington, North Carolina,

residents of Alamans County have come together

to talk through a very difficult subject,

their divisions.

We have some gargantuan problems,

especially with our school system.

I don't care what side of the spectrum, Your Honor.

We're in a tough situation right now.

They're being led by Rich Harwood, who through his non-profit, the Harwood Institute, has spent decades trying to help

communities like this one come together during increasingly divided times. We have separated from one another more and more in our country and so that has led to a

coarsening of our politics and of our public discourse.

It's a fight or flight mode which says,

I am so frustrated with things, I am so afraid of one another,

I am so anxious and fearful that I'm going to throw up my

hands in disgust and frustration and fear of one another and retreat or I'm going to

...