Original subtitles

(music)

MORGAN: I'm proud to call myself a Mississippian.

I've always felt a profound sense of belonging here.

It's not just the land...it's the people.

Way we talk, food we eat...

(music)

Thank you greatly.

...the way we treat one another.

That doesn't mean that I agree with everybody who lives here.

This state was segregated.

It was us and them.

(music)

Jim Crow maybe long behind us but the state is still separate,

still divided...

...culturally, politically.

It's as if the whole country, even the whole world is

polarizing into separate camps that disagree with one another,

can barely even talk to one another.

Is this tribalism just part of human nature?

Or can we bridge the gap that separates us from them?

NARRATOR: How does division spawn hate?

DARYL: How can you hate me...

...when you don't even know me?

NARRATOR: What makes hatred turn deadly?

(explosion)

FEDJA: Mass killing, a thousand people at a time.

NARRATOR: And can we find a path towards unity?

MEGAN: After all the years that I spent doing destructive

things, I wanna try to repair it.

BILL: The real lesson of our history is that when you expand

the circle, the story of us can also include...

...them.

(music)

NARRATOR: This is my journey...

...to discover the ties that bind us...

...and become a humanity inside us.

(music)

This is The Story of Us.

We divide ourselves into us and them in many different ways.

By nationality...

...religion...

gender...

...or which team you support.

Some of these divisions are harmless but others expose

the darkest side of human nature.

Divisions that once seemed consigned to history...

...are still with us.

In fact...

NEO NAZIS: You will not replace us!

NARRATOR: ...they appear to be on the rise.

NEO NAZIS: Jews will not replace us!

(music)

NARRATOR: I want to understand how...

...so I'm traveling to Maryland to meet musician, Daryl Davis.

He spent his life trying to heal a hateful divide.

(piano blues music)

DARYL: Yeah man! (laughs)

Thank you.

MORGAN: Music is a thing. DARYL: Thank you.

MORGAN: Thank you.

DARYL: It brings people together, man.

MORGAN: You made yourself some very...

DARYL: Interesting friends?

MORGAN: Yeah.

I'm tellin' ya. Why?

DARYL: Why? Well, you know,

in the fourth grade I was one of two black kids

in the entire school.

Consequently all of my friends were white

but most of my guy friends were members of the cub scouts

and they invited me to join,

so I joined the cub scouts.

On scout day we had a march from Lexington to Concord

to celebrate the ride of Paul Revere and I was the only black

scout in this march.

And somewhere down the parade route there was a small group

of white spectators, couple kids, couple adults

and all of a sudden I began getting hit with bottles

and soda pop cans and rocks and debris from the street

by this particular group of white spectators.

And my first inclination was, oh,

those people over there don't like the scouts.

So when I got home my Mom and Dad who were not at the march

and asked me, "how did you fall down and get all scraped up?"

I told them, "I didn't fall down",

I told them exactly what happened.

For the first time in my life my parents sat me down

and explained to me what racism was.

I literally thought they were liars, I did not believe them.

I could not get my head around the idea that someone

who had never laid eyes on me would want to inflict pain

upon me for no other reason than the color of my skin;

it made no sense.

And I formed a question in my mind and that question was,

how can you hate me when you don't even know me?

So I figured in my adult life, who better to ask than someone

who would join an organization whose whole premise is hating

those who do not look them and who do not believe

as they believe.

So I began seeking out members of the Ku Klux Klan.

KU KLUX KLAN: Power!

MORGAN: Okay, no listen,

but how do you know where to go find these people? I mean...

DARYL: No, they're not hard to find.

MORGAN: They're not? DARYL: No, they're not.

MORGAN: They wear masks, they wear hoods and...

DARYL: Absolutely.

But you know what when they have a rally in a public park...

MORGAN: Yeah.

DARYL: ...they have to apply for a permit.

MORGAN: Yeah.

DARYL: So that's public information.

MORGAN: Yeah.

DARYL: So I can go there and get their name,

get their number and call and ask for a meeting.

MORGAN: How many people have called you crazy?

DARYL: Everybody.

(laughing)

But it's a good kinda crazy, cause you know what,

if I can walk away with changed hearts, we all need to be crazy.

MORGAN: How do you...know that a person who has had one set of

beliefs has changed that set of beliefs?

DARYL: When a Klansman or a Klanswoman sheds

that clothing... they have shed their ideology

and given that robe and hood to their enemy, a black man,

yeah, they're done.

MORGAN: Look at me, they've done that to you?

DARYL: Yeah.

I... I have a bunch of robes and hoods.

MORGAN: Oh man!

DARYL: So these are a couple of the Klan robes that I have

in my collection; I have quite a few more.

This Klan robe, Grand Dragon robe was owned by a fella named

Bob White, Robert White.

And he was sent to prison for four years for conspiring

to bomb a synagogue and went back to prison for three years

for assault with intent to murder to black men

with a shot gun.

He went on to become one of my best friends.

His day job...

...Baltimore City police officer.

MORGAN: Under the color of the law!

DARYL: Yeah. Now the gentleman behind you here.

I use the term gentleman loosely.

(laughs)

MORGAN: Alright.

How did this come to be a way of life?

DARYL: Well because we all have to have a belief.

You gotta change that culture, you know and show them

other things that they can believe in.

They can be somebody without believing that I need

all this around me.

KU KLUX KLAN: White Power!

NARRATOR: The mindset of racist seems so entrenched,

it's hard for me to believe they could ever really change.

So I'm traveling with Daryl to Memphis to meet

one of his ex-KKK friends.

(music)

DARYL: Scott Shepherd, how you been man?

Good to see ya. SCOTT: Good to see ya.

DARYL: My friend Morgan Freeman.

SCOTT: Hey, nice to meet you, sir.

MORGAN: Scott... how did you happen to get involved

with the Ku Klux Klan?

SCOTT: Bein' from Mississippi Delta, you know,

the Klans been all around me.

I didn't have any self-confidence...

KU KLUX KLAN: Do you accept the light of Christ?

SCOTT: I do, yes.

And I got sucked in...by some of their recruitment tactics,

you know, that they use to get young people in

that are troubled, just like gangs in the big cities.

KU KLUX KLAN: For God!

God!

For country!

For Country!

For Family!

Family!

For the Klan!

Klan!

SCOTT: From the very beginning when I joined and...

and took the oath, there was an immediate feeling of importance.

MORGAN: How long were you involved?

SCOTT: Almost 20 years.

MORGAN: You think that period in your life,

it was a way to get attached?

SCOTT: Find a home, yes sir.

MORGAN: A meaning.

SCOTT: I grew up in a really dysfunctional family,

an alcoholic father; well he was very violent.

But I can't blame him on that, I take full responsibility

for the decisions I made.

MORGAN: The Klan are absolutely bound by the rules of no "them,

no blacks, no... SCOTT: Exactly.

MORGAN: ...homosexuals. No Jews".

Did you have any sense that that wasn't quite

the way it should be?

SCOTT: I always had an internal...internal battle

with it myself because I was raised by a black lady and...

MORGAN: So many of us in the South were.

SCOTT: Yes.

Rebecca raised my mother, my brother, my sister, all of us.

And...

...you know, I...I distanced myself from her

and it was a constant battle within myself knowing

that I really wasn't doing right.

MORGAN: What made you break from the KKK?

SCOTT: I left a restaurant one night from having dinner and

the police pulled me over.

I failed the sobriety test.

And that threw me into the court system.

Well, when I got inside the alcohol and drug treatment

center there was people in there of all color, religions,

sexual preferences, I mean just, you know,

a whole gamut of different people and I got to know them,

sat down, we had intimate conversations with each other,

talked about our lives.

The seed had been planted; I was changing.

MORGAN: How'd you meet Daryl?

SCOTT: I was stuck between a rock and a hard spot, you know,

trying to figure out where my life was and I needed guidance.

DARYL: I...I sent him my phone number said, "sure, you know,

I'd be happy to talk with you."

SCOTT: I had heard about Daryl and saw what he was doin' and,

of course, I told him before, I thought he was a nut case.

ALL: (laughing)

DARYL: You know, I have an obligation,

he's looking for somebody to trust,

so why would I turn my back on someone who's looking

to trust me, looking for something different?

And I've always believed if you sit down

with your worst enemy...

...for five minutes, you will find something in common.

And if you sit down with them for ten minutes,

you'll find even more in common.

And if you build upon those commonalities

in that relationship,

it will turn into a friendship and then those things

that you have in contrast, such as,

trivial things like skin color

will begin to matter less and less.

SCOTT: I felt trust, I felt trust with, you know,

Daryl and what he said, it made sense.

KU KLUX KLAN: White power!

White power every day!

MORGAN: When you look back on that, what do you think of it?

What did you think of them as an organization?

SCOTT: I despise 'em and will do anything I can to break down

the racial barriers in this country but they're definitely

still a threat.

DARYL: We can legislate behavior but we cannot legislate

how they think.

The day we legislated for blacks to sit on the bus,

after the Rosa Parks Bus Boycott,

did not change the mindset that came over time through

grass roots conversation.

Thank you.

MORGAN: I'm on your side.

Scott, welcome home.

SCOTT: I appreciate it.

I'm glad to be home.

Been a long journey.

MORGAN: Daryl Davis has proven that when you open your heart

to someone you give them the opportunity to open their heart

to you.

And an open heart is an open mind.

If more or us had the courage to get to know the people who claim

to hate us...

...I believe we could bridge the divide between us and them.

NARRATOR: But look around today and it's hard to have hope.

A new generation is joining the hate groups and they no longer

feel the need to hide behind hoods and robes.

HATE GROUP: Blood and soil!

Blood and soil!

NARRATOR: And around the world, leaders are coming to power

who promise division not unity.

We need only to look at history to see the horror...

of where we might be headed.

(background voices)

(music)

NARRATOR: I've come to the capital of Bosnia

and Herzegovina, Sarajevo...

...a city where three different cultures have lived side by side

for generations.

There are Orthodox Christian Serbs,

Catholic Croats and Muslims.

But in 1992, that peace came to an end.

(gunshot)

NEWS REPORTER: Civil war and ethnic violence range across

newly independent Bosnia and Herzegovina despite all peace

efforts of the European Community.

NARRATOR: For 50 years Bosnia had been a part of the communist

state Yugoslavia.

But in the early 1990s, Yugoslavia broke apart

into five separate states.

Serbia's leader, Slobodan Milosevic,

saw the breakup as an opportunity to capture territory

from Bosnia.

Milosevic used his state controlled media

to spread anti-Muslim and anti-Croat propaganda...

...encouraging Serbs living inside Bosnia to turn

on their neighbors.

The war that followed took the lives of 100,000 people.

SÈNAD: Morgan!

NARRATOR: I'm meeting with Sènad Hadzifejzovic...

SÈNAD: Come up here!

NARRATOR: ...a prominent Muslim TV journalist who lived

through the war.

MORGAN: This is...

...spectacular.

I see...

...maybe a dozen minarets out there.

That's unusual for a European City isn't it?

SÈNAD: Ottoman Empire founded Sarajevo in the 15th century.

MORGAN: Okay. SÈNAD: We have

more than 100 mosques but we have seven Catholic churches,

four Orthodox churches and four Synagogues.

(foreign language)

MORGAN: Now you were broadcasting...in 1992 and you

predicted that war would come, how did you know?

SÈNAD: I had interviews with every President of Yugoslavia

Republic.

Everyone knew but I am first who said.

After three days, April 5th, war starting in Sarajevo.

We were sleeping.

Citizens, media, politicians when war starting.

MORGAN: You mean you had Serbian tanks and stuff

in the streets here overnight?

SÈNAD: First grenades from this position.

(explosion) (multiple gunshots)

Grenades, snipers directly attack on the city.

Front line around Sarajevo and we stay under siege four years.

(explosion)

(music)

NARRATOR: The Bosnian Serb Army, backed by Milosevic,

hoped to divide Sarajevo's ethnic groups but the besieged

citizens continued to see one another as friends

and neighbors, no matter what their ethnicity.

Sènad used his television show to make sure a voice of unity

could still be heard.

SÈNAD: We was together, together.

Serbian, all Croatian, Jewish from Sarajevo,

all Bosnian or Muslims together.

NARRATOR: Sènad even tried to end the war when his studio

phone rang live on air.

SÈNAD: Leader of Bosnian Serbs call me live in program

and I said, "I have one question for you,

you are leader of Serbians,

can you call all Serbian who hold guns to stop fire

on Sarajevo?"

And he said, "okay".

Okay and after that I...I said, live in program,

"President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, can you call us?"

And he called and I ask him, "can you call your Bosnian

people with guns to stop fire" and he said, "okay".

And we have two days...

MORGAN: Of peace. SÈNAD: ...of peace.

Some call Sènad peace.

This is...this is good, two days, we have...we have...peace.

(music)

(explosion)

NARRATOR: But the peace did not last.

Outside of Sarajevo,

the divisive rhetoric of Slobodan Milosevic

was tearing Bosnia apart.

Ethnic cleansing began.

And soon, there came the horror of genocide.

(multiple gunshots)

NARRATOR: To see the devastation caused

when a country splits into us and them,

Sènad Hadzifejzovic is taking me

into the Bosnian countryside.

It was here, in a town called Srebrenica,

that the clash between ethnic groups will be remembered

for generations.

(music)

It's now the final resting place of at least

8,000 Muslim fathers and sons all killed in July 1995.

They were all civilians, just like Sènad and his son, Fedja.

SÈNAD: Today I'm here in Srebrenica with you

and with my son, Fedja.

FEDJA: Hi, Morgan.

It's a pleasure to meet you. MORGAN: Pleasure.

FEDJA: Welcome.

MORGAN: What in the world happened here?

FEDJA: So Morgan, what actually happened here, it's a genocide.

SÈNAD: This border of Serbia is near.

MORGAN: Uh huh.

SÈNAD: Very, very, very close.

FEDJA: They came here, they wanted to kill everybody

and just to gather...to give this territory,

to separate it from Bosnia and pass it to Serbia.

MORGAN: Back to Serbia. FEDJA: Yeah.

The Serbian Army collected all women,

man and children into these factories over there

and from there they were separated and men, boys,

they were...they took them all around these mountains

to kill them and to shoot them.

From there they started to... the mass killing, you know,

a 1,000 people at a...at a time to...

MORGAN: Mass graveyards. FEDJA: ...mass graveyards.

NARRATOR: Soon after...NATO bombing helped end the war.

But it was too late to save the victims of Srebrenica.

MORGAN: So you were five, six years old when this happened?

FEDJA: Yeah. I was six years old

and there were a lot of boys my age that were killed,

that are here and I still can't believe like,

how is it possible for people to be blind because of their own

belief and how can they not see this humanity...for me,

it's like unimaginable that there exist people who can do

this kind of ethnic cleansing.

NARRATOR: Entire family lines were wiped out here.

The Serbian Nationalists hoped to kill off the very idea

that Bosnia could be a melting pot of ethnic groups.

But that belief is still alive in Sènad and his son Fedja.

FEDJA: This is flower of Srebrenica and this represents

mothers around one coffin of a small child.

So this is like the mothers from the top with the scarves, yeah,

and these are like their hands...

MORGAN: On the coffin. FEDJA: ...on the coffin.

This is actually my first time here so it's even harder for me

to handle all of this.

SÈNAD: I'm crying every time.

MORGAN: I just can't imagine that you can go through this

and then come out whole on the other side.

FEDJA: You have to learn to live with it.

MORGAN: Yeah. FEDJA: But also

you can't forget it.

At one point you can forgive but not forget.

MORGAN: You have to forgive each other.

Not say forget. FEDJA: Yeah, yeah.

MORGAN: Cause forget, you'll do it again.

FEDJA: Yeah.

MORGAN: The heart wrenching story of Bosnia shows

the dark side of humanity.

People who once shared a common Yugoslav identity began to see

their neighbors as the source of their problems

because they could no longer see their humanity.

But...there is hope amid the horror that happened here.

There are people like Sènad, he's proud of his Bosnian,

Muslim identify, sees himself as a global citizen...

...happy to live alongside Serbs, Croats,

Christians and Muslims and he's using his voice in the media

to promote that belief.

That's the kind of voice the world needs...

...one that inspires us to believe in our common humanity.

NARRATOR: Looking back,

the Bosnian war now seems like a turning point...

...the beginning of a backlash against the global merging of

cultures and economies that had held sway since World War II.

Across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas,

nationalism is on the rise.

NIGEL: We've got our country back.

NARRATOR: Can we hope to escape this fractious tribalism?

(music)

To find out I'm headed to Manhattan to speak to a man

with a rare insight on national and global politics...

...the 42nd President of the United States,

William Jefferson Clinton.

MORGAN: It seems like at one point the world was kind of

coalescing, coming together.

On the other hand we're heading now towards a kind of tribalism.

What's gonna happen?

BILL: I dunno.

It depends.

In general, we're experiencing a period of this kind of tribal

nationalism you see all over the planet.

MALE: We don't need y'all here, go home!

Go back to Africa!

BILL: People saying that,

"I...I can't stand all this change."

That's understandable.

It was never gonna be that simple to build a so-called

New World Order.

Dominant groups, whether ethnic or racial or religious or

economic, tend to see the world in zero sum games, that is,

if somebody gets more, I must be getting less.

And nobody gives grounds willingly.

I believe the real lesson of our history is,

that when you expand the circle of opportunity you have

multiplication, not just addition.

And when you shrink it you don't just have subtraction,

you get division.

And you...in the end do way worse.

NARRATOR: President Clinton gives the example of Europe,

a continent devastated by the bitter rivalries that caused

two world wars...

...is now a prosperous, united economy.

Former enemies have turned their back on division

and embraced unity.

The motto of the United States of America,

E Pluribus Unum means, Out of Many, One.

One nation rises from a diverse collection of states and today,

many Americans regard their countries ethnic diversity

with pride.

MORGAN: We are now probably the most diverse community

on the planet, I would say,

I mean in terms of people who can call themselves Americans.

BILL: And I believe it has made us a lot stronger.

Queens for example, we're doing this interview in New York City,

in Manhattan, Queens is now the most diverse urban center

with more than 2.5 million in the world.

And we have many, many American counties with people from a lot

of countries but as you know we have many people who feel

threatened by all these immigrants coming in.

(music)

MORGAN: Why, that's always been the case though, hasn't it?

BILL: Always.

MORGAN: But it's never stopped us.

BILL: No, not yet.

We're still here and we are thriving because at every

critical juncture of when we could have gone back,

we found a way to go forward.

MORGAN: Looking outside America,

do you think the whole world will ever come together?

BILL: I do but I think we have to do it in steps.

People need personal experience with...

...the other so that the story of us can also include...

BILL and MORGAN: ...them.

BILL: And that's gotta happen literally billions of times,

this is not gonna be an easy deal.

Martin Luther king's words,

"The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice",

it also bends toward growth, inclusion,

intelligence but it's a rocky road, always has been.

And all of us have a complicated way of our identifying

who we are.

Who is we?

Who is us?

Who is them?

It's the oldest question in human society.

(music)

NARRATOR: President Clinton's words resonate with me,

"who are we and who are we not"?

Could be the most ancient and most difficult questions

societies ask themselves.

But one tribe, living deep in the Central American jungle,

may have found the balance between tribalism and globalism.

(music)

NARRATOR: I'm in Panama, headed up river from Panama City

and into a different world.

I've learned of an indigenous group that has developed

an unusual balance between us and them.

The Emberà live in and around the rugged and inhospitable area

that separates North and South America, the Darien Gap.

The group I am meeting today lives less than three hours

from Panama City but their way of life remains largely

as it always has been.

(music)

(music)

MORGAN: Si, ah.... ah.

Buenos Días!

NELSON: BUEnos Días.

MORGAN: Como esta!

NELSON: I'm very good. MORGAN: Me too.

NELSON: Yeah, my name is Nelson. MORGAN: Nelson?

NELSON: Yes.

MORGAN: How'd you get a name like Nelson?

NELSON: Eh... When I born. MORGAN: Yeah?

NELSON: Yes, my teacher gave me that name, Nelson,

from Nelson Mandela. Yeah.

(laughs)

MORGAN: Perfect.

NELSON: Yeah, yeah.

MORGAN: How come you speak English?

NELSON: There is a missionary school outside from here

nearer the city, stay for four years there.

MORGAN: Oh, very good.

NELSON: Yeah, Morgan, this is my village here, up on this hill.

MORGAN: Uh huh.

NELSON: And let's go and see what kind of...

MORGAN: I want to. NELSON: Yes.

MORGAN: How many structures?

NELSON: We are around 134 people here.

MORGAN: Uh huh.

NELSON: Between kids and adults. MORGAN: Uh huh.

NELSON: So it's around 28 houses.

Each house is one family.

MORGAN: Ah.

NARRATOR: Life here may look to be free of Western influence

but look deeper and you find signs of contact.

The village has a thriving jewelry and carving industry

that caters to weekly visits from tourist boats.

MORGAN: And it looks like we're busy.

NELSON: Right now, he's carving...

MORGAN: A boat. NELSON: ...little boats, yes.

MORGAN: A little canoe.

NELSON: This kind of wood is, we call, coco bolo,

it's out...it's kinda like a rosewood.

MORGAN: Yeah.

NARRATOR: For the Emberá, regular tourist business

is a sign that their culture is valued by others

and worth maintaining.

It's also a source of revenue with which to buy a handful

of Western goods that make their life easier.

MORGAN: You don't have a lot of...modern conveniences but

you got those 200 horsepower outboard engines.

NELSON: Yes, in the old days we use, we call,

palanca...in the current.

MORGAN: I'd imagine it'd be hard to get up river.

NELSON: Yes, now, we have motor and it's more easy.

MORGAN: Of course. NELSON: Yeah.

(music)

NARRATOR: On the other hand, unlike many other indigenous

cultures in Central and South America,

the Emberá have not taken to Western clothing.

Their loin cloth is not only practical in this climate,

it's also part of their identity.

I asked Nelson to introduce me to a village elder to understand

how the Emberá managed to live between two worlds.

MORGAN: Alright, now, there's a big city...not too far down

river with cars, big motels, tall buildings, paved streets,

how come you don't wanna go there?

(native language)

NELSON: One of the big things that the Emberá people have is

the Emberá like to live in the jungle, you know,

live together like a family because he can eat,

he can work in the jungle and all the people here

they love the jungle, you know.

MORGAN: What traditions do you have that you're holding onto

that we wouldn't see in the city?

This is one of them, paint.

NELSON: We use this many years ago.

The fruit that we call hagwa, which is the tattoo you can see.

And also this can work for mosquito net, for sun block,

for your hair.

We use this paint, the ink, for the baby so the baby can be safe

you know, from the different bugs around.

MORGAN: That's fantastic.

It's amazing to me that every culture, particular in yours,

you have knowledge of plants, what they're good for.

(native language)

NELSON: The jungle, for him, is his God...

...you know, everything is here.

(music)

NARRATOR: This is a culture that trusts the jungle to provide.

Including remedies for its ills like the fever

that has afflicted this girl.

The Emberá don't reject Western medicine.

When people are seriously injured they take them

to the hospital in Panama City.

(native music)

But for most ailments, the Emberá do what they have done

for generations.

(native music)

They call on healing spirits and prepare remedies

from healing plants.

(native music)

MORGAN: Not bad. LISETTE: Not bad.

MORGAN: Not bad.

NARRATOR: It's a blending of us and them that has worked

for the Emberá for centuries.

They take what they need from the outside world

but they cherish and maintain their traditional way of life.

MORGAN: The Emberá are completed connected

to the natural world around them,

the forest,

the river...

...living for centuries surrounded by the jungle,

they've developed a deep spiritual connection.

It's why they're still here, thriving...even as the modern

world creeps closer and closer.

NARRATOR: Our modern world is a mosaic of different tribes,

each with its own customs and belief systems.

In m any places those tribes live shoulder to shoulder.

The challenge we face is learning how to accept those

who are not like us.

I've come to Los Angeles to meet someone

who has faced that challenge head on.

Megan Phelps-Roper was born into the Westboro Baptist Church,

a religious cult notorious for its hate ridden interpretations

of the Bible.

NEWS REPORTER: Members of a fundamentalist Kansas church

believe US deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are punishment

for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

NARRATOR: Megan grew up indoctrinated

into these divisive beliefs.

(music)

MORGAN: Where did the Westboro Baptist Church come from?

MEGAN: It was started by my grandfather in 1955.

FRED: God hates fags.

Except you repent you shall all likewise perish.

And God is not running out of room in hell.

MORGAN: Your grandfather started this movement?

MEGAN: Right.

So we thought it was our duty to go out and warn people

when we saw them sinning,

to rebuke them so that they wouldn't go on in their path

to Hell.

(crowd chanting)

Anybody who came out against what we were saying,

we thought they were coming out against the word of God

so we starting protesting churches,

we started protesting the government.

We thought that God was punishing America by killing

her soldiers in battle.

We thought we have to go to these families at these funerals

and say, "this is a curse,

God has cursed you because you're fighting for a nation

that has made God its number one enemy".

FEMALE: Soldiers die and went to Hell!

What the heck is wrong with you?

MEGAN: 'Cause of course we believed that outsiders

were all evil or delusional and so the...

MORGAN: Megan, stop a minute. MEGAN: Uh huh.

MORGAN: There are about 80 people in your church...

MEGAN: Uh huh. MORGAN: ...and you think

80 people are right and maybe seven billion are wrong?

MEGAN: Right.

(music)

(music)

NARRATOR: Megan Phelps-Roper was one of the staunchest

advocates of the hateful ideology

of the Westboro Baptist Church.

She spent her days preaching division,

condemning those outside her cult to damnation in Hell.

MEGAN: I used to wear this shirt and others like it.

MORGAN: Are you going to all these places,

holding up these signs and stuff?

MEGAN: Yeah.

We protested every single day in Topeka but we were also

traveling across the country.

We believed that the nation had been promoting this lifestyle

that God calls abomination.

MALE: God decides who God loves, not you!

MEGAN: And I believed that I was doing good.

I believed that I was doing what God wanted.

MORGAN: You went on Twitter yourself...

MEGAN: Right.

MORGAN: ...to start spreading the word of...

MEGAN: Right. MORGAN: ...the church.

MEGAN: Right.

So in 2009 I started tweeting for the church.

It seemed like there was a growing body of people

that I could preach to.

One of the very first people that I attacked was a man named

David Abitbol who ran a blog called Jewlicious.

I was trying to find ways of explaining to him

that he was wrong,

that to reject Jesus was going to land him in Hell

for eternity.

He kind of at first responded with sarcasm and anger

and hostility.

But almost immediately he sort of changed tactics.

He started asking me questions about Westboro's picket signs.

And I started asking him questions about Jewish theology.

So throughout this conversation I was seeing his interactions

with his friends and photos of his life in Jerusalem

where he was living and coming to understand him and see him

as human as... as a person with good intentions

who was trying to do what he believed was right.

This conversation, you know, it became much more friendly.

And then...he asked me a question that I didn't have

an answer for.

MORGAN: What was the question?

MEGAN: He was asking me about one our picket signs that said,

"Death Penalty for Fags" and that, you know,

that comes from Romans 1:32, that was the penalty prescribed.

And David said, "didn't Jesus say,

he who is without sin casts the first stone?"

And I responded, "we're not casting stones,

we're preaching words".

And he said, "yeah, but you're advocating that the government

cast stones" and I was kind of, you know,

shocked at that point cause I had never connected that,

if you kill somebody, you completely cut off

the opportunity to repent and be forgiven.

And that's what we were advocating,

we were telling people to repent.

So as time goes on and more of these situations come up,

the weight of that, of all these contradictions over time

became so heavy...

MORGAN: Well, now that's not gonna make you leave the church,

it's just...makes. MEGAN: No.

MORGAN: ...you start to think. MEGAN: Exactly.

I stopped holding the sign.

But it was the first time that I thought that the church

could be wrong about something.

It became more terrifying...

...to stay and less terrifying to leave.

MORGAN: So now...you're in a quandary.

MEGAN: Right.

MORGAN: You're sort of half in and half out.

MEGAN: The day that I actually first thought of leaving,

it was just...it was agonizing and excruciating.

I mean, just imagine, if you thought you were going to lose

everyone that you loved and cared about,

to go to a world that was full of people who hated you

for all the things that you'd been doing to hurt them.

There were so many things like our family recipes and photos

and home movies and...our...

MORGAN: Life? MEGAN: ...yeah.

MORGAN: Your life.

MEGAN: Yeah.

So it was like trying to collect these...

(music)

...like, once you leave, you're gonna lose everything

and everyone.

And...

(music)

...it was like...

MORGAN: Where am I gonna go? MEGAN: Yeah.

MORGAN: Who...who am I going to be?

MEGAN: Yeah.

The idea of...of losing all of them...

...and...

...it was just...it was...it was awful, it was terrifying.

Not long after I left I actually met David Abitbol and he told me

about this idea, this concept in Judaism,

it's to see the brokenness in the world and to help repair it

in as many ways as you can find.

And he said, "you and your family have added

to the brokenness of the world and you should try to do

what you can to repair it.

"After all the years that I spent doing destructive things,

I know I can't undo it, but I wanna try to repair it.

NARRATOR: Megan went through a complete reversal

of her lifelong mindset.

The key to her turnaround, she says,

was the lack of hostility and conversations with people like

David Abitbol.

MEGAN: The fact that people are being kind and understanding

and compassionate to me that contradicted

what I had been taught to believe about outsiders.

They didn't seem to be the demons

that I'd been taught that they were.

Like, what's the first thing that happens when someone

approaches you with hostility?

MORGAN: Well you get hostile back.

MEGAN: Kindness is powerful.

And I think it's more powerful than hostility,

aggression...or anything else.

It's so important for us to learn how to reach out across

these intense divides.

I think we can do that. I have a lot...

MORGAN: And I think your story will help a lot, I really do.

MEGAN: I hope so.

(music)

MORGAN: Today we are inundated by news stories that make us

feel divided by our different political and religious beliefs.

Our compulsion to sharing news on social media only seems to

make those issues wider.

But Megan's story is encouraging.

It shows that we can harness the power of social media for good,

that it can be a medium for gentle and patient conversation.

It can help us to find our shared humanity.

(music)

This journey has shown me how dangerous it can be to divide

into us and them.

But the people I've met give me hope that these divides

are not impossible to bridge.

(music)

We are a species that thrives on working together,

I mean look at this city around me...

...buildings that reach for the sky,

a diverse population living shoulder to shoulder

and new technologies that help us connect in a heartbeat.

All created out of a spirit of cooperation.

(music)

It will take humility, understanding...

...respect of our differences and time.

But I believe there is room for everyone in the story of us.

(music)