Thirty Richmond community leaders have formed a new Hope in the Cities Council to provide a space for networking, sharing of concerns and insights, and exploration of opportunities for honest conversation on critical issues.

The Voyage of Dialogue and Discovery rolled into Washington, DC, June 7, on the heels of a number of public events in support of Trustbuilding, a recent book release from IofC National Director, Rob Corcoran. The themes of the book and the tour dovetailed well as Rajmohan and Usha Gandhi spoke throughout the week about building trust through honest conversation, personal conviction and trustworthiness.

Nearly ninety years after what has been described as the worst act of domestic terrorism in US history, Tulsa, OK, is starting to come to terms with its painful racial past and to “turn tragedy into a triumph of reconciliation.”

“I believe in Canada’s great role as a trustbuilder in a world that must deal with diversity as never before,” said Rob Corcoran, national director of Initiatives of Change USA, in his keynote address to the Annual General Meeting of Initiatives of Change Canada in Toronto.

Why Not Make Richmond the Capital of Reconciliation?" asks Tom Silvestri, president and publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an April 25 commentary on Rob Corcoran’s book Trustbuilding.

In 1972 Cleiland Donnan decided to be part of the solution to racial division in Richmond. It was an unlikely choice for someone who spent their life teaching the fox trot and social graces to the children of Richmond’s affluent West End.

Students from Duke University Divinity School visited Richmond this month on a “pilgrimage of pain and hope.”

"You have written this book at a time of sharp polarization, characterized by deep divides,” said Tim Kaine the former governor of Virginia at the launch of Rob Corcoran’s book, Trustbuilding: an honest conversation on race, reconciliation, and responsibility on March 15.

Rob Corcoran, author of Trustbuilding, spoke at the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University on March 9. He joined fellow panelists David Campt, a nationally recognized race relations consultant, and Jana Carter of Search for Common Ground to discuss "Conflict in Our Own Backyard: Prospects for Racial Reconciliation."

In 1963, Martin Luther King called for a day when “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”