This is the fourth story in a series about the Othering & Belonging Institute's Bridging for Democracy project, a coalition of grassroots organizations canvassing—door-to-door, across the country—to bridge across differences. What they are finding is an antidote to authoritarianism.

When Ponsella Hardaway first walked into a week-long organizing training in Chicago in the late 1990s, she wasn’t sure why she was there. At the time, she was balancing two worlds: corporate America, where she felt isolated and disconnected, and her Detroit church, where she was working in youth ministry but frustrated that young people’s needs weren’t being met. Searching for new approaches, she signed up for the training, not knowing what “organizing” really meant.

On the very first day, the facilitator posed a piercing question: “Would you rather be liked, or respected?” For Hardaway, it cut to the heart of her experiences as a Black woman in a patriarchal church and a mostly white corporate environment. 

That challenge sparked a turning point.

She returned to Detroit armed with tools, began one-on-ones with her pastor and fellow members, and pulled together a new team to revive struggling ministries. Soon she was offered a position with the Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES), a faith-rooted, congregation-centered community organization that for decades has created spaces for churches to confront social divides and bridge across differences. She agreed to try it for one year. 

More than 25 years later, she is still with MOSES – leading the organization as executive director.

Hardaway is also active in the Bridging for Democracy project, in partnership with the Othering and Belonging Institute (OBI) at UC Berkeley. Drawing on lessons from Detroit’s churches, neighborhoods, and suburbs, she and other leaders are showing how local experiments in “long bridge” building—whether across racially segregated communities in Wayne County, or the invisible political divides in the pews of suburban churches—can scale into a broader strategy to confront polarization, resist authoritarianism, and build a multi-racial democracy rooted in belonging.

Hardaway spoke to us about her story, which is both a personal journey and a national call: in this moment of deep division, democracy itself may hinge on whether we choose to bridge.

What was your first campaign once you became an organizer?

Ponsella Hardaway: In my first year, I focused on what we called “micro-organizing.” We created 21 “safe zones” in neighborhoods across Detroit. These weren’t glamorous campaigns—they were about cleaning up parks, boarding abandoned houses, pushing police to curb speeding, shutting down drug houses. They were small but tangible victories that built trust and taught me how to mobilize communities.

But soon, pastors began raising a bigger issue: all the vacant land left behind once we boarded up buildings. We had cleaned so much, but now Detroit was full of empty lots. They asked, “What do we do with all this land?” That question turned into my first real campaign.

I invited john a. powell to talk with about 30 pastors. He introduced the idea of a land bank. I had no clue what that was. But after he left, I started digging. I discovered legislation moving through the state, but it wasn’t designed for equity. So we pulled together lawyers, including Josephine Powell and Steve Tobocman, and worked to shape it. Our first try failed—but that was good, because it gave us the chance to push for something better.

In 2004, we organized a massive public meeting at the University of Detroit, Callahan Hall—4,500 people strong. The governor, the mayor, and the city council were all there. The centerpiece was Detroit’s 90,000 vacant parcels. That was my first big campaign, and the year I officially became director of MOSES.

How did bridging become part of your strategy?

Honestly, it came from john powell. He pushed us to think regionally. His challenge was simple: Detroit can’t build enough power alone. If we wanted to move legislation, we needed suburban partners. That meant reimagining ourselves—not just as a city organization, but as a regional one.

And to bridge across the region we really needed to look inward and outward to find what could help everyone think in terms of a bigger “we.” For us, the bridge became transportation, a topic that has always been racially charged. People say outright they don’t want to pay for “those people” to ride buses.

We had to start by making space to listen to and confront those fears. Over the years, we worked in Oakland County, Novi, and even Livonia, places that had historically resisted, and often considered Detroit the “other.” In 2012, we finally helped win the Regional Transit Authority, after creating bridging spaces for discourse for partners across the region to get on the same page and to relate to one another.

To me, that was proof bridging works. It was never easy—racism and tax resistance ran deep. But when we helped people connect and understand one another’s daily lives—jobs, schools, ballgames, doctor visits—we could move people. 

And that’s what bridging is: finding the ability to deeply and humanly see one another to shift people's perception, and organizing from that stronger place. That’s also what Bridging for Democracy is trying to do nationally with OBI: connect local fights to larger democratic renewal.

How does that connect to the political polarization we see now?

We’re living in a time where people are so focused on race or ideology that they literally vote against their own self-interest. It’s painful to watch, because you know they’re hurting themselves too.

Bridging is the antidote.

It doesn’t mean we agree on everything. It means we create space for honest conversations. In MOSES’s early years, we worked with Republicans as well as Democrats. Why? Because when you talk about shared struggles—transportation, healthcare, education—people’s stories begin to cut through ideology. If we can organize unconventional coalitions, we can transform our communities and the future for all of us, no matter who’s in office.

And we need to continue to ask deeper questions: Why is the country so divided? How do we humanize each other again? How do we stop othering—even as progressives? That’s the kind of hard reflection OBI’s Bridging for Democracy project is pushing us to do.

Tell me about that pilot bridging program in Livonia. Why did you start there?

Livonia is historically one of the whitest, most segregated suburbs around Detroit. For decades, it was considered a sundown town—Black families warned their sons never to drive through. My own brother had to pass through Livonia for work and lived with that fear.

So to start our pilot bridging work there, it was historic. We brought together four all-white congregations that were economically and politically diverse. Then, with the team at OBI, we put together a plan for group dialogues, with specific prompts to help people share their stories. The pastors carefully identified participants. People came skeptical, nervous, guarded. We set it up café-style, with small groups conversing at round tables.

By the end, the tone had shifted. People dropped their defenses. One woman stood up and admitted, “Coming in here, I had all of you pegged. I was wrong.” That kind of honesty is exactly what we’re trying to spark.

It doesn’t fix everything, but it opens the door.

Now we’re planning deeper conversations, and we’ll diversify the room by bringing in more racial perspectives. Starting in Livonia was a breakthrough—and it shows how local experiments connect to the larger work of Bridging for Democracy.

How has working with the Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI) shaped your approach?

Organizers live with our noses to the ground. It’s issue after issue, crisis after crisis. Sometimes I feel like I get whiplash. What OBI gives us is space—space to analyze what’s happening nationally, to connect research with organizing strategy, and to test ideas before applying them.

Take bridging. At first, honestly, I struggled with it. It felt abstract when so much was pressing on the ground. But when we actually executed—when we saw people in Livonia drop their assumptions and open up—it gave me new energy. That’s what OBI helps with: lifting up strategy, giving us perspective, and showing how local work in Detroit fits into national movements for democracy and belonging.

If you had one message for organizers and institutions right now, what would it be?

We cannot build the power we need unless we bridge. Period. We won’t agree on everything, but we can find common ground in our shared needs when we see and recognize one another, outside of our preconceptions.