Chats In A Park With Strangers: Chauncey Williams

Chats In A Park With Strangers: Chauncey Williams

From How Do We Fix It? by DaviesContent

December 19, 2025 · 24 min

About this episode

Chauncey Williams discusses his project of engaging strangers in political conversations in local parks.

Pick a controversial topic. Whether it’s immigration, race, climate change, the role of religion, or the economy, many of our assumptions that we view as completely reasonable can seem whacky or wrong to others. This may well include very smart, thoughtful people, who’ve had very different life experiences than our own. Our guest for this episode is Chauncey Williams, a Democratic-leaning  Braver Angels  volunteer in Denver. He was shocked when Donald Trump was first elected President in 2016. But instead of retreating into his political silo, Chauncey began a unique project. On different occasions he set up a table with two chairs in local parks, and invited total strangers to have conversations about important public matters.  “One of the important things I came to realize is that I walk into a lot of those conversations with a host of assumptions about folks that aren’t always true,” Chauncey told us.  “I’ve often been fascinated and humbled by realizing my own limitations in knowledge, and having that revealed,” he said. “I’ve had this happen on more than one occasion… As uncomfortable as it is, I also welcome it.”…

People in this episode

Guest: Chauncey Williams

Topics covered

  • immigration
  • race
  • climate change
  • economy
  • political discourse

Keywords

  • controversial topics
  • public matters
  • political silo
  • assumptions
  • conversations

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Braver Angels

Books & works: Chats In A Park With Strangers, chats in a park, Share Your Story, How Do We Fix It?

Places: Denver, Ecuador, Colorado

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