Festival builds community through 'Spirit, Justice, Music and Art'

The town of Hot Springs, North Carolina, has a population of 560 people. It sits on the banks of the French Broad River, tucked deep into the Appalachian Mountains along the state's far west border. Every July, right in the heat of North Carolina's sweltering summer, upward of 4,000 people from all corners of the country trek to this tiny town for a music festival that some call the "largest progressive gathering footprint in North America."

When asked how they define "progressive," Jeff Clark, president and producer of the Wild Goose Festival, the aforementioned gathering, gave a hearty laugh.

"Our subtitle is 'Spirit, Justice, Music and Art,' " he explained. Notice how spirit and justice come before music and art? "Our gift is that we convene people with a purpose of having conversation, the only condition of which is civility. So we're going to have a conversation about all the issues that folks need to bring to the table around justice."