Sunday, July 26: 1:00pm (PT); 2:00pm (MT); 3:00pm (CT); 4:00pm (ET)

With the postponement of this year's National Gathering due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Planning Team sent out a new Call for Proposals in order to offer CTTT members a regular, monthly opportunity to connect, to learn, to share. The first session in May was "Tapping the Unrecognized Superpowers of Anti-Racism Allies," led by Dr. David Campt. The second session in June was an "Introduction to Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) for Cultural Competence," led by Donna Minter and Crixell Shell of the Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute (both of which can be viewed on the CTTT YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/comingtothetable). There will be sessions offered in coming months on publishing your family history, an introduction to the Doctrine of Discovery, and more. In July, we offer:

How Researching Family History Can Be So Emotional: Or, Why I Had a Meltdown in the Archives

- Led by Linked Descendants Working Group members. Facilitators: Prinny Anderson and Angela Dickey, with Panelists: Antoinette Broussard, Leslie Stainton, Will Wingfield, and Sharon Morgan

When we research our families’ involvement with slavery, whether as descendants of enslaved communities or descendants of enslavers, the obstacles to finding our ancestors or the people we are linked to through slavery can be frustrating and disheartening. Then what we do find and what those discoveries tell us can be disconcerting, infuriating, grievous or sorrowful. Family history research ties us  directly and personally to the current environment of racism and injustice. Our panelists have had such moments in their own work and in supporting others. They will share their research difficulties, their strategies for solving those problems, as well as the ways digging into family histories and genealogy exposes truths about history, opens doors for connection, builds options for healing, and inspires researchers to take action.

--- Prinny Anderson is a founding member of Coming to the Table, the original coordinator of the Linked Descendants group, and a co-convener of a CTTT local group in the NC Triangle area. She continues to research her ancestors’ involvement with slavery and is exploring the topic of reparations or restorative action on the part of one of the larger enslaver families. In her local community, Prinny is a member of the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition, working to place a memorial to the victims of lynching in the county. She is also involved in enfranchisement and getting out the vote initiatives in North Carolina.

--- Angela Dickey has been active in Coming to the Table since 2016.  She assists Prinny with the Linked Descendants Working Group; is a member of the Mindfulness Working Group; and is a supporter of the Richmond, VA, and Annapolis, MD, local groups.  She serves on the board of the Slave Dwelling Project.  She also is a board member and officer at the DACOR Bacon House, a 200-year-old historic house museum in Washington, DC.  Angela is leading an effort to incorporate into the history of DACOR House the stories of the enslaved persons who built it and who lived there prior to Emancipation.  

--- Sharon Morgan is the founder of Our Black Ancestry. She is a genealogist, writer and multicultural marketing expert who has served as a consultant to the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS) and is a founding member of Afrigeneas. She is co-author of Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade, and a contributor to Slavery's Descendants and The Little Book of Racial Healing.

--- Will Wingfield is a native North Carolinian whose English ancestors first arrived here in 1607 with the original Jamestowne colony. His direct line of his lineage was integral in the colonization of Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee. Will has worked with the Wingfield Family Historical Society and the Jamestowne Society as well as Coming to The Table to uncover and learn about his own genealogy.

--- Antoinette Broussard, whose family has roots in Louisiana and Missouri, is an avid researcher and writer committed to the pursuit and documentation of her ancestral roots. She is a contributor to the African American National Biography (editor, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Oxford Press 2008).

--- Leslie Stainton has served on the Boards of Coming to the Table and the Slave Dwelling Project. She teaches writing at the University of Michigan. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Sun, The American Scholar, Brevity, River Teeth, American Poetry Review, and Common-place, among others. A two-time recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, she is at work on a book about her slaveholding ancestors, the Scarletts of Georgia.

This 90-minute, online interactive presentation is FREE to all those associated with Coming to the Table Space is limited to 100.  These sessions have been in high demand, so please register early. It is open to everyone from professional researchers to beginners.
 
This call will be recorded for subsequent viewing for anyone who is unable to attend on July 26.

Complete the Registration Form Below. All three fields are required. Deadline to register is July 23.