NEWNAN, Ga. (AP) – Nothing has the power to unite people like banana pudding.
People as different as Chris Buckley and Heval Mohamed Kelli just have to be willing to sit down and share a meal first.
“By no means do we have all the answers to divisiveness in this country, but we should not be sitting here in the 21st century talking about how hate is growing in our country,” Kelli told the audience that gathered to hear the Syrian refugee-turned-cardiologist at the Wadsworth Auditorium on March 10.
Kelli’s unlikely friendship with Chris Buckley – a former U.S. soldier, drug addict and white supremacist – holds a message Newnan Presbyterian Church wanted others to hear. The church worked to bring Kelli and Buckley to Newnan, which was the site of a National Socialist Movement rally and a massive counter-protest last April.
Kelli is Muslim, Buckley Christian. Kelli’s high-profile Kurdish family fled persecution in Syria for the safety of a German refugee camp, eventually finding their way to Atlanta. Buckley fled his abusive family for the United States Army after 9/11, carrying a duffel bag full of pain and fear that morphed into hatred after he saw a close friend killed by an ISIS bullet in Afghanistan.