‘Take Race Off the Table’—Bob Woodson on the Power of Grassroots Leaders to Rescue America from Moral and Spiritual Freefall

“I proudly say that 80 percent of my closest friends have letters in front of their names, like … ex-drug addict. Ex-gangbanger,” Bob Woodson says, chuckling.From facilitating truces between warring gangs to helping ailing communities triumph over violent addiction and social degradation, Bob Woodson has devoted the last 40 years to helping people in the most troubled of circumstances become “agents of their own uplift.”This Christmas, we invited Bob Woodson to share his incredible insights into redemption, healing, and transformation, and why he believes the singular focus on racism is diverting attention away from the greatest challenges facing America.“America is in a moral and spiritual freefall that is consuming our young people, of all races and of all classes … Young people are growing up without content or purpose in their lives, to the point where they devalue their life. If a child devalues his or her life, then they will take their own, or take someone else’s.”The solution will come from grassroots leaders, Bob Woodson said. “America needs a brushfire, a moral and spiritual brushfire. And brushfires burn from the bottom up.”Bob Woodson is the founder of the Woodson Center and the 1776 Unites project.