New York City, April 2022

Kofi Appenteng, President of the Africa America Institute, has been appointed to the advisory board of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy. Mr. Appenteng is one of a 26-member advisory board spanning multiple backgrounds and fields that are committed to the Project’s mission to elevate facts and evidence-based reasoning into American political discourse.

Established with the core premise that the country has become disconnected from evidence and reason, the project seeks to supplant ideology with fact. The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy hopes to achieve this by informing public discourse around the themes of “Polarization: Its Past, Present, and Future”, “Hours of Hope: Case Studies in American Progress”, “Race in America: Toward a Nation of Equality”, “Under God: The Role of Religion in a Divided Time”, “To Keep the Republic: Strengthening Democratic Principles at Home and Abroad”, “Information Marketplace: Ensuring the Public has the Data”, and “Cultural Bridges: Using Artistic Expression to Narrow the Divide”. The project aims to enhance American political problem-solving in this deeply polarized age by working through these themes while taking into consideration various perspectives relating to the entire political spectrum.

On the formation of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, Mr. Appenteng said, “My hopeful vision is that we’ll develop a thriving curiosity to learn and relearn American history in all its complexity and that, in the process, we the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will serve as an example of how we can cultivate empathy and embrace an ethos that affirms the humanity and dignity of all people.”

Learn more about the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy here.