Conflict is unavoidable in everyday life – it’s how we react to it that matters. Maybe you’re a manager trying to defuse tension among employees…your co-worker doesn’t share your beliefs or background…or you have a long-simmering disagreement with a family member or neighbor. The one thing all conflict has in common – nothing gets solved until the opposing sides talk about it.

In his presentation, Daryl Davis empowers people with a universal tool kit to resolve conflict at work, at home, and in the community – one conversation at a time. The average person may never face the kinds of extreme experiences Daryl has had, but his lessons serve as great examples of the positive change that can happen when people have the courage to listen to one another without trying to change each other’s minds.

What audiences learn:

• Apply universal tools to create positive change wherever conflict or disagreement exists.
• Preparation/Empathy: Understand the other person’s position and reasoning before you engage.
• You needn’t respect what people say but you must respect their right to say it.
• Learn to listen, understand, and keep emotions in check, even in incendiary situations.
• How to recover/repair/strengthen a relationship with a co-worker, client, friend, or family member.

Daryl Davis draws on 40+ years of engaging KKK and far-right White supremacist groups to unpack why hate crimes and rhetoric are on the rise. The daily headlines are troubling, but Daryl reminds audiences hate is learned – and what is learned can be unlearned. He encourages people to engage and educate, not shun and cancel, those with toxic beliefs, and he shows them how. “Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hate, and hate breeds destruction. Engaging and finding common ground is the key to defusing fear.”

As a musician, Daryl promotes harmony over discord, and believes we can all play a part in making positive change by meeting hate with civility and building bridges instead of walls. “There’s only one race,” he says, “the human race.”

What audiences learn:

• How fear drives hate and engagement overcomes it.
• The key to changing another’s reality through perception.
• Ways to overcome one’s own prejudices, biases, and fears.
• How one person can make a world of positive difference.
• How to navigate a world of ever-growing diversity.

At its inception, Rock ’n’ Roll was called “the devil’s music” among many derogatory names by its detractors. Some cities banned it altogether. Rooted in Black R&B and Blues, its infectious beat led young people in the South to leap over the rope that segregated Whites from Blacks in the audience. The 1957, Chuck Berry lyric, “Hail, hail Rock’n’Roll, deliver me from the days of old,” in his hit song School Days, celebrated the music as a turning point in race relations. Daryl brings that history forward into his own story, using music as a common denominator and proving that musical and racial harmony go hand-in-hand.

What audiences learn:

• How musical inspiration differs from musical appropriation.
• The Elvis conundrum: How he was crowned King of a genre he didn’t create.
• How Country and Blues are the same music, and why society separates them.
• How a Black musical genre improved race relations and elected a Black president.
  • Why music is a cultural necessity and not a luxury.