Breaking Bread: How We Find Our Way Back to Civility | David Beasley | TEDxFargo

What if the simplest way to bridge our deepest divides is to sit down and share a meal?

After years working on the front lines of global hunger as Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, David Beasley learned that food can do more than sustain us. It can bring people together.

From war zones and famine to the growing divisions in American public life, Beasley reflects on what happens when we remember our shared humanity. He challenges us to look beyond politics, ideology, and differences, and to make time for genuine conversation with people who see the world differently.

His invitation is simple: break bread with someone from a different background, culture, political party, race or generation.. Listen. Connect. Find the common ground. That is the pathway back to civility.

Because America's greatness, he argues, is tied to its goodness, and rebuilding that goodness starts with each of us. David Beasley, a former Governor of South Carolina, recently served as the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), having been nominated by two President’s Administrations of two different parties and appointed to that role initially in 2017 by the UN Secretary-General of the United Nations and served until April 2023.

Under Mr. Beasley’s leadership, WFP was the largest humanitarian organization in the world assisting over 160 million people in 2022 alone and raising over $55 billion USD.

In 2020, Mr. Beasley received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of WFP for its efforts to provide food assistance in conflict areas and to prevent food from being used as a weapon of war and conflict. In his acceptance speech delivered in Oslo on December 10, 2021,

Mr. Beasley stated that “Working with 115 million people in 80 countries, day-in and day-out, the women and men of WFP have gained a unique perspective. We have learned that there is great richness in those who are seen, in the eyes of the world, as “the poor.” And many of us who are considered “rich” are actually poor in the things that matter most.” Mr. Beasley also received the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award for his stand on the Confederate Flag as well as many other awards. He majored in Microbiology at Clemson University and received a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of South Carolina. He also was a Fellow and taught at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. He is married to the former Mary Wood Payne and is the father of four children and three grandchildren. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx