History
Coming to the Table (CTTT) was founded to support African Americans and European Americans whose ancestors were linked by an “enslaved/enslaver” relationship in building relationships and exploring the impact of America’s legacy of slavery on themselves, their families and our nation.
The name, “Coming to the Table,” is from Martin Luther King’s historic March on Washington speech, in which he prayed that “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood.” The project seeks to fulfill his vision in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood, accountability and reconciliation.
CTTT began with individuals from two sets of connected families: the Hairstons and the Jefferson/Hemings. Both “white” and “black” family members developed alliances in their desire to face history and move towards healing and wholeness for themselves and their communities. Will Hairston, a European American, credits the African American Hairston family reunion organization – the Hairston Clan – with the idea of building connections between black and white descendants by inviting his family to a Hairston reunion. These personal experiences motivated a desire to invite other sets of connected families to come together.
In order to move this dream from concept to reality, these descendants engaged the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) at the end of 2004. CJP offered to house and develop the project and drew on its own theoretical models and practices to support the planning and development of the initiative. A founding team was identified to plan the first event. It consisted of Jefferson/Hemings and Hairston family members as well as experts in trauma healing, restorative justice, and racial healing. Those of African and European heritage were equally represented on the team.
The founding team of CTTT went through training in trauma awareness through EMU’s Seminars on Trauma Awareness and Resilience program and Re-evaluation Counseling’s United to End Racism training. These trainings gave the team tools to use at gatherings to support truth telling and healing, and identified areas of personal healing needed in order to provide leadership to this movement.
The first CTTT event was held from January 26 to 29, 2006, with twenty participants from five connected historic families: those descended from the Jefferson/Hemings, the Moncures, the Hairstons, the DeWolfs and the McArthurs. This event successfully demonstrated the value of such a meeting for the participants, who learned about the legacy of slavery and its emotional implications. They also got to know their counterparts better in a space created to promote acknowledgement and listening. In this space, they explored new ways of being together. One white participant offered a heartfelt apology for his ancestors’ enslavement of the ancestors of his African American family, who accepted the apology. Although the family had interacted numerous times, this was the first time that the white participant felt safe enough to apologize. This highlighted the importance of creating opportunities for this level of interaction, which rarely happens in our still very segregated communities.
After the first event, numerous presentations took place in churches, classrooms and community gatherings to share the stories and learnings from the gathering. These outreach opportunities encouraged others to explore their ancestry, and in a few cases, resulted in new contact between connected descendants.
During the spring and summer of 2008, CTTT focused on furthering the conceptual framework that would support the community of descendants, identify the larger community of organizations working towards racial reconciliation and articulate the contribution CTTT could make to a national reconciliation movement. The conceptual framework included the areas of restorative justice, trauma and trauma healing with a specific focus on historical trauma and perpetrator-induced trauma. The framework also further developed reconciliation theory and identified how the theory could be used as a strategic mapping and planning tool. These frameworks suggest possibilities for moving forward and making things right after people have gained an initial awareness of their connection to the legacy of slavery.
The project director integrated the frameworks into curriculum taught in a CTTT course at EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2008. CTTT developed a paper and manual that described the theoretical frameworks and applications. In addition to outlining principles, the course provided further opportunity to explore developing a healing community of people of European and African heritages.
At the end of the summer of 2008, an “Extending the Table” gathering took place at the Fetzer Institute to continue building the CTTT network and identify next steps. This has been the largest gathering of pairs of connected descendants with six families represented, plus descendants of slave traders and representatives from Hope in the Cities and the Fetzer and Kellogg foundations.
Many people have described the CTTT community as a “beloved community” and a way of being together that is rare in our society. A spirit of family has been adopted by this group beyond individual family names and linked ancestry connections. Many people who have joined the CTTT conversation can not identify a linked descendant but are searching for a supportive community in which to explore the impact of slavery and its legacy, and to work at identifying initiatives that address slavery’s harm and work toward making things right.
