Overcoming Extremism: Episode 8 -- Andy Berke Overcoming Extremism

In 2015, a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, attacked two military recruiting centers in the city, killing five people. The terrorist attack shocked the nation. In 2019, the city’s mayor, Andy Berke, announced a new “Mayor’s Council against Hate” that would include task forces working on action items in seven different specific areas, including the city's public university and the public school, the police department and the business sector. Along the way, the city has innovated in other ways, for instance, in teaching their police to build bridges to marginalized populations who could be radicalized. As a Jewish mayor of a Southern city he has also been the target of vicious attacks, but as you’ll hear in the interview, they have only strengthened his resolve to fight for democratic values.