Stories
Stories are a major part of Coming to the Table. Sharing stories helps us connect, identify common ground and learn new things that have been entirely outside of our experiences. Sharing stories related to slavery and its aftermath helps us face the topic for all of these reasons. Coming to the Table’s approach includes facing History, making Connections, Healing wounds and taking Action. The stories that we feature on this site will address at least one of the four categories. Some may address more than one, but we are are lodging them under the heading most applicable. These are stories about how these stages are playing out in real people’s lives and how they are making a difference. At the conclusion of each of these stories, you will find related story titles that may interest you. If you would like to share your story with the possibility of having it featured on our home page, please e-mail your story to sha.jackson@emu.edu.
History
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.
Getting to the Roots of My Family Tree
Go home. Find out what happened, said the black ghost woman lying dead at the end of my bed one drizzly April evening in the ‘90s. This was the one thing
A View From the Open Window
The window of opportunity has been often looked through, in this country, by those with pale skin and European heritage. David Pettee tells of his experiences finding African Americans with a shared family history, whose ancestors were on the other side of the window looking in.
Connecting
Unexpected Cousins
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.
Bridging the Gap
In August of 2010 I traveled from relatively cool and mossy Seattle to the humid, cricket-buzzing
heat of southeastern Mississippi for a family reunion I will never forget.
CNN-news story "When Kin of Slaves and Owners Meet"
This story, featured on CNN.com, tells the connecting story of our very own Betty and Phoebe.
A Growing Smoke in the Distance
Healing the legacy of slavery between Betty Kilby Baldwin and Phoebe Kilby has been an event that has hinged on the promise of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His dream and their lives have coincided in a remarkable way and when told, in their own words, their story holds a large degree of power.
Action
Connecting and Healing Through Action
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.
Community Projects
Read information on updated projects in our Dec. 2010 newsletter here
Gathering the Community at Monticello
Sitting under the porch while my parents attended an annual meeting of the
Monticello Association (MA),in the late fifties, it occurred to me that my
Monticello Randolph relatives must include many, many African Americans.
Healing
How to Forgive
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.
The Healing Power of Storytelling
From the time we exit the womb until the time we enter the sands we begin to construct our personal narrative. In between these two points a multitude of stories are created, some are significant enough for us to remember and tell over and over again and others are just small remnants of our day to day lives.
The Healing Possibility
Betty Kilby Baldwin, an infant plaintiff in the Betty Kilby vs. Warren County board of education case, knows firsthand the need for personal healing as her family was traumatized by an incident that stemmed from the aftermath of slavery.
