Ray Starling grew up on a hog and tobacco farm in rural North Carolina. He recalls working on the property by age five. Abdullah Antepli grew up in poverty in a slum in Turkey - his father left school in the fifth grade, and his mother is illiterate. Today, both men live in North Carolina, and their politics could not be more different. Starling leans right - he is a former principal agriculture advisor to former President Trump. Antepli, a Duke professor and a Muslim leader, leans left.
But the two became friendly through an innovative program designed to get civic, business and political leaders with differing political views to discuss important issues in the state of North Carolina. In this episode, they talk about how the strategies they learned in the program could help others in these divided times.