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National Racial Justice Group Convening in Historic Triangle to Recognize Slavery in Virginia

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National Racial Justice Group Convening in Historic Triangle to Recognize Slavery in Virginia 8/22/19, 1(57 PM Page 1 of 1 ENTERPRISE BUILDING BRIDGES TOWARD UNDERSTANDING National racial justice group convening in Historic Triangle to recognize slavery in Virginia By PATRICK WILSON • Richmond Times-Dispatch Aug 15, 2019 Danita Green (left) and Martha Rollins are co-CEOs of the Richmond chapter of Coming to the Table, a national racial reconciliation organization. The group has launched a new chapter for the Historic Triangle area. DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/Times-Dispatch Danita Green, an African American author and Danita Green (left) and Martha Rollins, co-leaders of the activist from Richmond, likes to tell people she was Richmond chapter of the nonprofit Coming to the Table, plan to born in a country where she didnʼt have all her civil start raising money to work on social causes. rights. DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/TIMES-DISPATCH Theyʼll reply: What country was that? The answer is the United States of America. Greenʼs statement is designed to provoke them to think about how slavery and segregation affect African Americans “because those are things that people donʼt think about.” “We hear so often that all of this was so long ago. Well, it wasnʼt for me.” She is the co-CEO of the Richmond chapter of Coming to the Table, a national organization with more than 30 chapters in 11 states. The organizationʼs focus is bringing together white and black people to build relationships with one another and have discussions about race and slavery, discussions that can be personal or contentious. Members of Coming to the Table will convene in Jamestown this weekend during a year when Virginia is recognizing the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans arriving on its shores. They will celebrate the launch of a new chapter of their group for the Historic Triangle, attend events at Historic Jamestowne recognizing the first African Americans in Jamestown, and on Sunday attend a worship service. Coming to the Table was formed in 2006 at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg. Co-founder Will Hairston, who is white, grew up on Marylandʼs Eastern Shore and now lives in Harrisonburg. He is a descendant of one of Americaʼs largest slave-owning families. “We do justice MLK-style,” said Hairston, who will be among the speakers at a Friday evening dinner for the group. “A lot of times people donʼt have a safe place to talk about racial justice issues.” Hairston said his familyʼs legacy wasnʼt something he could separate himself from. “Itʼs hard to ignore that legacy and brush it aside when youʼre one of the largest slave-owning families,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, I inherited this legacy.ʼ ... I felt like Iʼd like to leave my kids a different legacy.” Greenʼs counterpart in the Richmond chapter is Martha Rollins, a retired antiques dealer and community activist. With about 200 people participating in the groupʼs monthly activities, like meeting over a potluck meal, and about 600 on its email list, it is the largest chapter. The two close friends talked about their backgrounds and work with Coming to the Table in an interview this week at the Nutty Buttery restaurant in Richmondʼs Carver neighborhood. Green started school not far from there in the 1960s during segregation. Local leaders planned interstates through black neighborhoods, and her family ended up living in eastern Henrico County when a highway separated their home from her school, Carver Elementary. She remembered wonderful African American teachers she later learned were overqualified for classroom teaching but couldnʼt get higher-level jobs. Green had her first white teacher in fourth grade, a woman in her mid-20s who she said looked like one of her Barbie dolls — tall and blond with shoes that clicked on the floor. Green said she often talks about vivid memories of spending more than a week writing an adventure poem in a notepad that she stored under her bed. After the teacher introduced students to Greek poetry, she wrote the poem about herself as a gift to her teacher to show what sheʼd learned. For a 10- year-old, it was an epic tale of crossing seas and fighting monsters. Her teacher looked at the poem and asked who wrote it. “I did,” Green told her. No, who really wrote it, the teacher replied. Green repeated her answer. Green then watched, shocked, as the teacher tore up the poem and threw it in a garbage can — one of the cans the girl would need to empty as part of her end-of-day duties. Her heart broken, she decided on her walk home to become a writer. She has written three books. Green entered the University of Virginia in 1979, in one of the first large groups of blacks to go to the college. She said she remembered arriving on campus to a local news article about how the brains of black people were smaller than those of whites. “It was actually a very sympathetic article, saying that we probably wouldnʼt be able to make the grade and it wasnʼt our fault,” she said. Some students did leave, but not because they couldnʼt handle college, she said. The pressure of dealing with racism and being the “first” African American to do something required more of black students than just being good students, she said. For months, Greenʼs mother would not let her tearful daughter come home on the weekends to her familiar surroundings, though, telling her daughter she needed to learn the new community where she lived. Rollins was born in the 1940s in Martinsville in a family that lived on what was former Hairston plantation land. Her grandmother was a leader in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and young Martha was a briefly member of an auxiliary group, Children of the Confederacy. Like her friend Green, she has vivid memories of a teacher. In seventh grade, she learned in school that the Civil War should be called the War of Northern Aggression. Her teacher, in her 60s, lived the “Lost Cause” narrative, Rollins said. “I will never forget her class because she was such a force of indoctrination.” She remembers something she learned from her teacher and textbook made her pause: “I have this memory of thinking, ‘Why would the slaves be happy in the fields?ʼ ” Rollinsʼ parents, she recalled, were different than other families because they didnʼt use demeaning words to describe blacks and saw black people as human beings, inviting them into the family home as part of an interracial group that ate meals together. Her father, who ran a textile factory, and other community leaders saw the resistance in Greensboro, N.C., of restaurants to integration. She said her father and other community leaders pressured Martinsville restaurant owners to integrate. Green and Rollins met at an awards ceremony in 2009. Part of the formation of Coming to the Table in Richmond was to bring together linked descendants, both white and black — people whose ancestors owned the othersʼ ancestors or share a last name, they said. Their local chapter is a nonprofit corporation, and they plan to start raising money to work on social causes. Laura D. Hill, the leader of the Historic Triangle (Jamestown, Williamsburg, Yorktown) chapter of Coming to the Table, is a descendant of enslaved Africans from St. Maryʼs County, Md. — across the Potomac River from Virginiaʼs Northern Neck — and has lived in Williamsburg for about 20 years. She coordinated this weekendʼs gathering of national Coming to the Table chapters and said members from Colorado, North Carolina and New York City will join members from Maryland and Virginia. Hill contacted the group early this year to start a chapter, which first met in June. “In January, Governor Ralph Northam declared 2019 the year of reconciliation and civility and I started looking for racial reconciliation organizations,” she said. Besides having an honest dialogue, she said, her group wants to work on such issues as reducing racial disparities in school discipline. “We are focused in the meetings on racial reconciliation and healing and having open honest dialogue, but we also are focused on repairing whatʼs broken in our communities,” she said. For details on the group, visit www.comingtothetable.org. [email protected] (804) 649-6061 Twitter: @patrickmwilson MORE INFORMATION Williams: Our nation's foundation is rooted in racism. 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