Common Ground Initiative

Posted on February, 27 2024

By Anthony Tone Payton

The Common Ground Initiative aims to highlight the diversity of our communities with stories of people the average Granite Stater might not get to see or meet. The goal is to clarify misconceptions and find the threads that bind us all together as one New Hampshire community.

The companion Common Ground podcast is produced by Payton in partnership with The Granite State News Collaborative and the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications at Franklin Pierce University

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Anthony Payton is a Brooklyn-born, New Hampshire-based freelance writer. He is a regular columnist and freelancer for The Collaborative and its partner Manchester Ink Link. He can be reached at [email protected]

We all have fears and biases. We all, at times, have bought into typical media narratives. The narratives that will have you believe that a white guy with an American flag is racist, or that a person of color who kneels for the flag automatically hates this country.
I want to take us on a journey that gets us beyond that narrative to see a different side of our neighbors.

— Payton - "Not everything is as it seems, sometimes it’s better"