History
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The Collision of Black and White
By: Sharon Leslie Morgan
My grandmother, Jennie Waymoth, was a farm girl from Eastern Illinois. Born in 1902, she grew up milking cows on her father’s homestead in Sidell.
Full storyComing to the Table is a program that is addressing the legacies of slavery in the United States. Read about CTTT and our approach HERE:
Coming to the Table is a program of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University.
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By: Sharon Leslie Morgan
My grandmother, Jennie Waymoth, was a farm girl from Eastern Illinois. Born in 1902, she grew up milking cows on her father’s homestead in Sidell.
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By: Dionne Ford
When Sheila Reed Findlay used DNA testing to help her trace her family tree, she didn’t expect to learn that she was a biological match to a Virginia family that was white.
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When I began my quest to determine if my family had owned slaves I focused on slavery alone and not the repercussions of it. I quickly learned after meeting descendants of people my family enslaved, that wounds inflicted during the Civil Rights era, a time in which they had been denied educational opportunities and terrorized for demanding change, were much more impactful to them than scars left from slavery.
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By Grant Hayter-Menzies
I was a little over a year old when the Watts Riots broke out in Los Angeles in August 1965. I don’t remember clearly what I first saw of the events, but I do have a memory of frightening violence on the screen of our black and white Magnavox TV set. I saw people hurting each other, and it wasn’t clear from what I was seeing whether the people running or throwing things or being taken down on the ground were the most to be feared or the people chasing them, who looked like the only people I ever saw in my small California foothills town. That is, white people.
Full storyOne of the greatest travesties visited upon humanity has come in the form of an old folk-wisdom which states: “Time heals all wounds.” This piece of folk wisdom has now been effectively countered by every major scientific school of thought. The evidence of its inaccuracy is also clearly visible when we consider the unhealed and ongoing global conflicts, local ethnic, class and political turmoil and especially when we consider the legacy and aftermath of racialized institutional enslavement in the United States.
Are you wondering what steps to take in order to uncover the history of slavery in your family? Susan Hutchison has some helpful suggestions.