A North Carolina church has taken a page out of the Alcoholics Anonymous playbook to launch a 12-step program for racists.

For the past month, Trinity United Church of Christ in Concord has been holding Racists Anonymous meetings every Wednesday night in its fellowship hall, a local NBC News affiliate reported.

The Rev. Nathan King, who is white, started the program out of concern for the racial unrest in urban communities that’s dominated the news media in recent months.

“It seemed like every week we were coming into worship and we were doing another prayer because someone had been killed in the street,” he said, adding that the program is meant to help people “deal with the racism within ourselves.”

About a dozen people have been attending each meeting, which are led by a licensed therapist. Most attendees are church members from all backgrounds, but some people from neighboring communities have started to trickle in, NBC reported.

“It’s an anonymous meeting, so there’s safety in that,” the Rev. King said. “It may not be the first thing you want to talk about the table at the Thanksgiving dinner with your family, but those conversations are going to be more common going forward.”

He said the program follows the traditional 12-step model and encourages people to say as much or as little as they choose. In a video shot by NBC, a Racists Anonymous organizer says, “Hi, I’m Carol, and I’m a racist.”

The program’s goal is to “seek solutions to understand what behavior is appropriate and healthy,” Carol told NBC.

“We need to have open dialogue with each other,” she said.

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