LOS ANGELES VISIONARY ARTIST AND FUTURIST FABRICE GUERRIER MA ’15 (CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION) has been selected by ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř’s Alumni Association and its Awards and Nomination Committee as the 2025 Alum of the Year for his work as founder and CEO of (pronounced Syll-a-ble), the first collaborative worldbuilding production house for science fiction and fantasy storytelling. 

“Being selected for this award feels quite unbelievable and affirms my work around collaborative worldbuilding,” said Guerrier, who defines worldbuilding on his website () as “the creation of intricate, plausible fictional universes often found in sci-fi, fantasy, and video games.” 

In collaborative worldbuilding, underrepresented creators from diverse cultures come together to imagine and publish their shared stories. 

A refuge of books

Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Guerrier immigrated with his family to Coral Springs, Florida, when he was 13. Already fluent in French and Haitian Creole, Guerrier learned English as his third language. 

“It’s kind of magic… being Haitian from an Afrocentric world… being from an island… being able to speak multiple languages,” said Guerrier. 

Nevertheless, Guerrier was an exile in a foreign country, forced to flee the 2004 Haitian coup d’état. He says while he “wanted to be an American,” the more he tried to fit in, the more he felt like he was destroying a precious part of himself. 

Guerrier found refuge at Northwest Regional Library, where he worked as a page, volunteered, helped with community programming, and explored everything from manga and comics to encyclopedias and films to nonfiction and sci-fi books. His curiosity sparked Syllble, an idea that was furthered while reading “Blindness,” an essay in Jorge Luis Borges’ “Seven Nights” collection, as a sophomore at Florida State University. 

“I resonated with how Borges described being in a library as the closest thing to heaven, and how his blindness allowed him to see things in different ways. The impact of his words inspired me to become a writer,” said Guerrier. 

Healing and growth

After graduating from Florida State in 2013 with a bachelor of science degree in international affairs and a leadership studies certificate, Guerrier decided to pursue a master of arts in conflict transformation from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP).Ěý

As a graduate assistant at the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, he worked with its then-director and CJP professor, Carl Stauffer MA ’02 (conflict transformation), and conducted “humbling and eye-opening” field research on the impact of Fambul Tok International in promoting reconciliation in communities after an 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone (West Africa). 

“EMU was a place of healing for me,” Guerrier said. “My peace studies showed me how personal and interpersonal work affects peace in the world.” 

Guerrier worked with CJP Professor Emeritus Barry Hart MDiv ’78 to explore theories and practices of Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Healing (STAR), and in 2014, he started a chapter of Coming To The Table (), a racial healing and reconciliation organization aimed at Taking America Beyond the Legacy of Enslavement—a program that began at CJP. Guerrier later served on CTTT’s board of managers and became its youngest national president. 

Looking to the future

After graduating from EMU in 2015, Guerrier worked on two novels, revising one to the point of exhaustion. 

“It was probably one of the most painful and loneliest experiences I’ve ever had,” he said. 

Guerrier began researching collaborative writing techniques in Hollywood and beyond, which led him to invite three writers to his home to create a story together. The successful session set Syllble in motion. 

Today, Syllble is enabling marginalized voices across the globe to conceive and tell the stories of their shared universes in order to disrupt modern-day inclinations toward disaster and doom. 

“Imagining radically hopeful futures allows us to replace the realities imposed by capitalism and technology and media with something that’s beautiful, nourishing, warm, and healing,” said Guerrier. “It is how we reclaim what it means to be human.”

Guerrier will share his story at EMU TenTalks, held on Saturday, Oct. 11, at 1:30 p.m. in Martin Chapel during Homecoming 2025. For a full schedule of Homecoming events and activities, visit emu.edu/homecoming.

Thousands of people have intersected with CJP over the years, and each of you has contributed to the work of making the world more just and more peaceful world. The 2020 event has been postponed to 2021. Visit the anniversary website for more details.

Read reflections by Phoebe Kilby, Muhammad Abu-Nimer, Maryam Sheikh, Howard Zehr and Ruth Zimmerman, Sanjay Pulipaka, and Shyamika Jayasundara- Smits.

Amy Potter Czajkowski MA ‘02 was a staff member at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding for more than 10 years. She offered leadership to several initiatives, including as the founding director of , an organization that works to address the legacy of enslavement in the United States.

‘Celebrating both/and: A challenging and worthy endeavor’

As I reflect on my experience at CJP, one of the unique aspects of CJP that I most appreciate and celebrate is the message and practice of embracing both/and. A both/and orientation matters because it makes the whole visible and opens the possibility of all the pieces showing up and working together. Much like a human body that works best when all its systems are acknowledged and cared for, it’s from the healthy whole that we can much better address conflict and create the conditions that foster peace. This is true at all levels, from the individual to international systems.

In our world right now, we see polarization everywhere. We are living on the foundation of many centuries of systems and beliefs that work to disconnect. Western civilization has honed the practice of pulling apart, creating oppositional polarities, pitted against each other and ranked in a hierarchical order. These polarities and hierarchical rankings create much of the turmoil and violence in our world.  

We need to see the whole and put the pieces back together or recognize the wholeness and connections that are there but remain unseen. Peacebuilders can be creators of that space where both/and is welcomed and where differences and seeming paradoxes can exist together and birth new creative ideas. They can invite us to acknowledge historical harms while seeing our innate magnificence, can help us see the ever-repeating patterns of colonialism while also uncovering the deep connectedness that we have with each other.  They can challenge the pull towards polarities.

I am currently engaged in a body of work that involves creating structures at the community level with representatives of the whole community in one body. They are explicitly non-partisian, intentionally inclusive and actively invitational of whole people. Organizers at each level of the process work very hard to convey the message that people’s full experience is welcome, answers will emerge to even the most challenging obstacles, and frank AND respectful conversation about what doesn’t work is welcome. These bodies have been successful at resolving conflict and creating collective priorities for economic, educational and community development, and have worked to prevent violence.

We have worked to connect these local bodies with municipal and national government. Likewise, these connections between normally hierarchically divided levels have resulted in a coordinated whole that draws on what each part is best positioned to do. Like an electrical circuit completed by holding hands and seeing a device light up or make noise when everyone is connected, when the parts of the whole are connected with each other and offering what they are best positioned to offer, there is power and possibility that’s absent when those connections are not there or are weak.

Human beings have potential strengths and perspectives that could greatly contribute to a more healthy and peaceful world. To tap into this potential, it’s important to invite capacities that haven’t been culturally valued such as emotion, intuition and knowing through experience and give voice and value to underrepresented perspectives so they can come into balance (both/and) with culturally dominant capacities and points of view. As I have contributed to creating and holding space for people to more fully show up with these different aspects of themselves as well as very different life experiences, I have seen what seem like oppositional strengths and perspectives come together. This convergence has led to real solutions that have moved institutions and communities forward, addressed long-standing conflicts, and invited motivation and energy.

A few of the practical ways I’ve seen CJP embrace both/and:

• Embracing practice AND academics. CJP recognizes that lived experience AND knowledge creation through systematic observation across contexts are valuable.
• Offering a wholistic curriculum.  At CJP, trauma healing AND conflict analysis share the curriculum. Visual arts projects AND thesis papers are expressions of learning. In classes, faculty include self-reflection AND research. This signals that the curriculum honors whole brains and whole people, holding these topics, often perceived as divergent, as core aspects of one curriculum.
• Valuing colleague AND student/professor relationships. At CJP, faculty are approachable and honor the experience students bring with them. Classes are designed in ways that give students structure to reflect on their own experiences, learn from each other AND receive the experience and structure from the faculty member.
•  Intentionally creating a global community, where experience from all over the world is welcome. 

I would invite and encourage CJP to continue making every effort to embrace both/and in the ways that it has and expand opportunities to offer spaces that cultivate one’s ability to resist polarity, to hold differences, draw on one’s whole self and experience, resist judgement and identify common visions that unite and create space for creative ways to move forward together.

 ***

Amy Potter Czajkowski is the director of global learning at Catalyst for Peace, a US-based operating foundation that uses an inside-out approach to forward social and structural change to address conflict and contribute to peaceful coexistence. She creates opportunities for people to learn and share about how inside-out approaches can apply in diverse contexts around the world. 

At Catalyst for Peace, she was part of the team that founded fambul tok, a national peace, reconciliation and development process in Sierra Leone, offering expertise on process and program design and designing teaching and learning spaces to move the work forward. Fambul Tok International (the organization created to support the fambul tok process) and CFP have remained close partners for more than 12 years.

Amy designs and learns from approaches that invite people’s whole selves, what matters most to them and deepens connection with others.  

Amy received her BA from Principia College in 1997 and an MA in Conflict Transformation from ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř in 2002. She lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, with her husband, two sons and stepson and stepdaughter.

October’s spotlight is on Fabrice Guerrier and his , (pronounced syll-a-ble). Guerrier, a 2015 graduate of the , started the business in August 2017 in Washington D.C. He is chief executive officer, and David Russell is chief marketing officer.

Syllble Studios – pronounced syll-a-ble – is a collaborative storytelling startup that publishes fiction books and original serialized stories through collaborative writing.

Here’s a few highlights of the business since it began:

• The first collaborative book was published December 2017.
• The studio hosted its first collaborative writing meetup in Washington D.C. in April 2018 at Social Tables.
• The first “One Book in One Week” titled “The Wall” was published July 15.
• Guerrier presented a few weeks later at the Street Entrepreneurs Community Driven Incubator Fundraiser, hosted at Amazon DC headquarters.
• The fourth book, titled Mike’s Coffee written by Taiwo Adesina, Valeria Lake and Brittney Jones, was published last month.
• The studio is completing the manuscript of a Novel titled “Caden and the Dangerous Fools” co-authored by four writers from four different continents (U.K., Palestine, U.S. and Brazil).
• To date, more than 112 writers from six countries are engaged in creative ventures with the studio.

  

Guerrier, a Haitian American writer and poet who also works for the U.S. Department of State during the day, brings a varied background to his business venture. As he explains below, he has always been attuned to storytelling, and his studies at CJP fed into that interest.

He has also worked at the United Nations advocating for Least Developed Countries; founded The LEEHG Institute, a social venture; and served as president of the board of directors at Coming to the Table, a national racial reconciliation organization. He earned his bachelor’s degree in international affairs and leadership studies from Florida State University.

Guerrier is a 2018 Gabr Fellow at the Shafik Gabr Foundation, and has been a PEN Haiti Fellow at the PEN American Center, a Senior Fellow at Humanity in Action, and a Seth Godin AltMBA participant.

Tell us how your business began.

At the age of 14, I moved to the United States from Haiti. And during my high school days here, I would often walk around these halls carrying in my small hands a small notebook filled with all sorts of business ideas I would conjure in and out of the classroom while dreaming of building something from the very ground up through perseverance.

I don’t really remember when exactly I ever decided to become a business owner. But I do believe ideas are alive and they are starving to find the right group of people to bring them to life. They absolutely found me early on. I just needed to find and sort out the right ones worth fighting for.

I have been writing my novel for about two years and with my passions for creative writing, storytelling and technology, building this creative company and if done right, I believe we can change the course of history but it will require hard work.

How did your EMU education impact your choice of career and business?

One might wonder how a master’s degree in conflict transformation can be relevant to business? I would say in today’s changing and disruptive technological age, more than ever it’s relevant in how business is conducted. I would argue bringing a different perspective to a field such as business is an advantage.

At the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, so much of what we studied has shaped key foundations for business acumen but most importantly how we relate with each other and how we live in right relationships with our customers.  For example, these concepts are all applicable: the theory of change, human centered design, strategic analysis, tenets of healthy organizations, implementing adaptive structures especially through Margaret Wheatley’s work and thinking deeply both on an international and interpersonal level through the lens of a reflective practitioner.

Storytelling is key to transforming the mindset and hearts of people, I learned that especially at CJP, also as a member of Inside Out Playback Theatre Troupe and working as national president of Coming to the Table. You see it in our dialogues, our novels, our TV shows and movies, they remain a key aspect on our capabilities to transform our collective psyche.

Creative writers can spend years writing to finish a book, get seen or even get published. We believe collaboration is the future of fiction. Through a sharing-economy-based approach, we connect writers locally and all over the world to build peer-to-peer production houses and get them to finish a compelling story in just a few weeks.

How do your values impact your business operations?

Values are the DNA of the company culture and what you are building. Values are the ways your business and team interrelate chooses to show up in the world and the impact you intend to make. You have to be clear on those values. A value-based approach of conducting business is the way of the future. At Syllble’s early stage now, values show up for me when I work directly with my cofounder David and all the creative writers we engage.

Share 3-4 “best business” insights.

• Execute: One of the best business insights I learned working on an early-stage startup is that you have to execute. It doesn’t have to be perfect but you have to ship and ship often, talk to your customers and bring them something they want!
• Team: The team and group of people you surround yourself with is key. If you don’t have the right team nor invest in the people you serve and work for, your company will not thrive.
• Vision: You need vision that can drive the direction of a company to inspire a shared vision for future employees and customers. My vision for Syllble is to have millions of writers all around the world collaborating, publishing many books, telling new and great stories and for our platform to be the center point of Hollywood’s next hit movies, tv shows, animation and more! But what remains key to ‘vision’ is having the ability to exactly show small step-by-step how to reach this vision. That is the challenge.

Read another Business Spotlight on The Emotional Health Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Guerrier, who works in the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C., and Geddes, a community organizing coordinator with (RJOY) in California, are serving as president and vice president, respectively.

“What comes to mind, first and foremost, about these two leaders is their youth and enthusiasm and commitment to truth, justice, mercy and peace,” said CTTT Executive Director . “Both Jodie and Fabrice bring a wealth of peacebuilding knowledge to this work from their education at CJP, but also life and professional experience.”

Coming To The Table “provides leadership, resources and a supportive environment for all who wish to acknowledge and heal wounds from racism that is rooted in the United States’ history of slavery,” according to their website. In 2016, CTTT held their at EMU, bringing together more than 90 people from around the United States.

With growing national attention on the need for racial healing, the organization has 18 groups in seven states and Washington D.C., including a multi-state Mid-Atlantic group. Six new chapters have recently been added.

‘Unpeeling the layers’

Fabrice Guerrier, a native of Haiti and 2015 graduate of CJP, has been involved with CTTT since hearing board president Phoebe Kilby GC ’04, a white woman, share the story of connecting with her cousin, Betty Kilby Baldwin, an African-American woman descended from slaves owned by Phoebe Kilby’s family.

Guerrier felt an instant connection to their story: he had grown up trying to understand the political and social legacies of slavery within his Haitian homeland, where former African slaves and free-colored men and women had risen against the French colonial empire in Saint Domingue to create the first independent black nation where all people, of all colors, were granted freedom and full citizenship.

With the knowledge that “the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade continue to impact billions of people around the world in many nations,” Guerrier helped found a Shenandoah Valley Local chapter of CTTT in 2014.

When I heard of descendants of the enslaved and enslavers connected through slavery coming together to dialogue around the difficult issues of race and healing and address the legacies of slavery in the United States, it struck me as this revolutionary idea that can truly save the soul of America … CTTT shows us that as a nation, our futures and our lives are inextricably bonded together. That history and its inter-generational wounds deeply affect the lives of many, whether we choose to recognize it or deny the moral responsibility we each carry set by those who came before us. I truly believe that when people begin to engage in deep dialogue, we start to unpeel the many layers that divide us from each other. This important process calls for moral imagination and a healthy dose of realism.

Guerrier points to CTTT’s partnership with the Kellogg Foundation’s as one sign that the growing organization and its members, with work rooted in concepts of trauma awareness and resilience and restorative justice, are contributing to a larger national conversation. [CJP is also a partner. .]

CTTT’s shared vision for the future includes engaging youth, creating inter-generational spaces and collaborating across churches, colleges and cities. “We are at a critical point in America where people are hungry for something different,” Guerrier says. “I believe Coming to the Table can be this difference and allow individuals to self-organize, get the leadership and knowledge to engage their communities and begin to heal themselves and their communities.”

Visioning a national transformation process

Geddes says her friendship with Guerrier while both were graduate students had a lot to do with her eventual membership in  CTTT, but the process wasn’t as smooth. New to CJP and to the Harrisonburg community, with the death of Tamir Rice weighing heavily, she recalls being alternately led by the call to organize in the community and pulled by “my resistance to be in the space with white folks speaking about race.”

Confronting her own resistance is a familiar dynamic for Geddes, who was born in Jamaica and raised in The Bronx, New York, struggling, she says, with “a different kind of double-consciousness.”

As a Caribbean American, many things around sent the message that I was different from ‘African Americans.’ As I grew older and my accent began to change, the world of privilege saw me as ‘another black girl from the hood.’  My humanity is dependent on serving as a vessel to transform and heal from the wounds of slavery that encourage in some ways a reality of ‘Nobodyness’ as Marc Lamont Hill puts it … The history of slavery in the United States is deeply connected to the Caribbean. On multiple levels the Caribbean set the roadmap for how American slavery would function and the legacy we have today.

Noting that the work of CTTT is “collective” in nature, Geddes also points out that the leadership role is “an opportunity as young people for us to support the expansion of CTTT’s mission through an intergenerational lens to decolonize language and structures that be.”

She hopes for a broader establishment of CTTT chapters among more youth, on college campuses, in the Midwest and “across the world.”

“If I am really dreaming big,” says the 2016 graduate, “I hope to see a national truth and reconciliation process. Many people can do the work of uncovering history, making connections and telling the truth but transformation requires a different kind of action that dismantles and helps to reshape a new nation.”

She’s working to make that dream come true: RJOY is led by executive director Fania Davis, a and activist for a national process for racial healing and transformation. [Read more about Davis’s .]

With RJOY and CJP graduate students, Geddes is also involved in the first phase of a project to research and map various truth-telling, racial healing, reparations and/or memorialization initiatives around the country. The goal is to encourage synergy and cross-pollination of these initiatives, as well as publicize their ongoing work.

From Georgia, New York, Oregon, Illinois, Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, Hawaii and around the United States: more than 90 people have come to ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř for the four-day [June 9-12] National Gathering of (CTTT), an organization that brings together descendants of the enslaved with the descendants of slave owners.

Their introductions in the opening circle included a current residence, followed by, sometimes, a litany of locations using the phrase “by way of,” tracing genealogies several hundred years into the history of this country.

“I am from the future by way of the past,” said one creative participant, to a wave of laughter.

One welcome came from , an EMU employee with roots in the eastern shore of Virginia who co-founded the organization with Susan Hutchison. Both are descendants of white slave-owners. [Read more about the .]

“We hoped that we could help bring families together to fulfill Martin Luther King’s dream that ‘the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,’” Hairston told the group, quoting the words of CTTT’s mission statement.

Gathering helps to build momentum for the future

The organization is flourishing. Twelve chapters around the country exist, with three on the west coast, and others in Richmond, Virginia; Annapolis, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; and the Raleigh/Durham area in North Carolina.

A three-day leadership training institute earlier in the week was filled to capacity. The gathering itself continues through Sunday with seminars and workshops around the topics of chapter creation and strengthening, genealogy, writing workshops, forgiveness and reconciliation, and restorative justice, among others.

“This is the one time that we can bring people from around our community together face to face to work on the mission and vision,” said executive director  who resides in Bend, Oregon, and has been involved with CTTT for 10 years.

DeWolf and Morgan are co-authors of the a “Gather At The Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade.” DeWolf has also written a book, “,”  about his family’s legacy in the slave trade, while Morgan is the founder of .

The organization, founded in 2006, “values the sharing of personal, family and community stories as a powerful vehicle for uncovering history, building relationships, healing wounds and inspiring action,” according to its website. Initial funders were the Fetzer Institute and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

National process beginning

At Thursday evening’s keynote address, Gail Christopher, vice president for policy and senior advisor for the Kellogg Foundation, highlighted the beginning of a national “” process. Announced in February, the multi-year project has garnered significant pledges of financial and moral support from a number of prominent organizations. More than 70 partners, including CTTT and EMU’s , have been in the effort “to address and transform present inequities linked to historic and contemporary beliefs in racial hierarchy.”

“Because this belief in the hierarchy of human value is the foundational value upon which this country built, I say we have nothing to reconcile,” Christopher said. “We have to transform this country … We have to have transformation of the belief and the spirit. And if we don’t do that work, we’ll be right back where we are.”

Christopher remarked that dozens of organizations around the United States, including CTTT, will be asked to continue their work with a now “holistic vision” to, among other goals, “change the narrative.”

“We’re talking about acknowledging the fact of this reality in our country, acknowledging the consequences, the implications and ultimately the feelings. That’s the schema of overcoming denial,” she said.

Librettist discusses requiem

On Friday evening [June 10] from 7-9 p.m., Edda L. Fields-Black hosted a discussion about writing the libretto for “,” a classical music piece written for the repose of the souls of the dead of Africans enslaved on rice plantations in the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry. She is collaborating with internationally renowned artists, visual artist Jonathan Green and filmmaker/director Julie Dash. Fields-Black discussed the work and read portions of the draft of the libretto.

The goal of the multi-year project, which has garnered significant pledges of financial and moral support from a number of prominent organizations, is “to address and transform present inequities linked to historic and contemporary beliefs in racial hierarchy.”

More importantly, this movement – called the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) initiative – comes when demonstrates that for the first time, a majority of white citizens acknowledge that more needs to be done to eliminate racism and to elevate black Americans, and Americans of other races, to equal status with whites. The percentage of white Americans who think race relations are fairly good has dropped significantly since 2008, according to Gallup.

“At CJP, we’ve been working towards the goal of racial reconciliation and healing for many years,” says Executive Director . “Social change movements are successful when they combine grass-roots ownership, effective leadership, adequate resources and the ‘right moment’ in history.  The Kellogg-led effort appears to have all these ingredients. We are thrilled to be part of this enterprise.”

, a CJP affiliate focused on racial healing by bringing together descendants of slaves and slave owners, is also a partner. Another group with CJP connections among the partners is (RJOY), led by Fania Davis, who will teach at the .

More than 70 partners have been named, only three of which are linked to institutions of higher education: CJP, the and the at University of Mississippi.

The initiative “aligns well with EMU’s mission and ethos,” says Provost . “We have a number of faculty with scholarly and practical experience who will be able to contribute their expertise, and we have a critical mass of undergraduate and graduate students who will also be energized by these goals.”

The initiative is currently collecting input through working groups. CJP staff and faculty involved in this first stage include Byler, Professor and Professor , who is also co-director of the.

“Kellogg leadership are building consensus and collecting input in the design stage with working groups that address broad topics,” says Byler. “The input will determine the shape and location of the healing events and the hearings that will enable voices and perspectives in local communities to be heard.”

, CJP program director, anticipates more of the center’s faculty and staff will be involved as specific activities and conversations take shape. “I anticipate that CJP will be involved on several levels, both locally but also in other work we’re involved in with restorative justice and trauma resilience around the country.”

CJP’s connection to the Kellogg Foundation has deep roots. It began in 2006 with a successful grant application that aided in the formation of Coming To The Table. Lately, CJP has been working with Kellogg in a restorative justice project in urban schools, which again strengthened ties.

“Kellogg is looking at the big picture and has found some significant partners to aid in their goal of long-term systemic change. They’re also looking to engage with much of the ongoing truth and healing work that is going on already around the country,” said Byler.

One of those efforts, which pre-dates the Kellogg partnership, is being explored in February at a meeting which will bring together representatives from the three co-sponsors, RJOY, Coming To The Table and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Davis, the founder of RJOY and an Alabama native, has been delving into the concept of a national truth and reconciliation process for years; in fact, she’ll co-teach a course at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute on the topic with Stauffer, who worked on the South African truth and reconciliation process after apartheid.

The vice president of Kellogg’s TRHT commission, Gail Christopher, is slated to attend.

At the 2014 annual meeting of Coming to the Table, two participants read emotionally charged poems that they exchanged after learning they were descended from the same plantation in Missouri. During one discussion, a participant of European origins shared her suspicions that the systematic abuse in her family was a legacy of the psychological impact of owning slaves.

More than 150 years after the end of slavery, the historical trauma of a system that turned people into property remains throughout the nation. It’s a trauma that members of Coming to the Table are trying to address through a four-step process:

(1) uncovering and acknowledging history,
(2) making deep connections across racial lines,
(3) working toward healing together, and
(4) taking action to make systemic and institutional change to end racial inequality and injustice.

Conference was at capacity

Coming to the Table held its 2014 national gathering May 23-25 at ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř, a site chosen in recognition of the organization’s birth at EMU in 2006. EMU professor and expert joined this year’s meeting for a keynote talk – he was also present at the 2006 gathering. The 2014 gathering occurred on a weekend break in EMU’s annual . Some participants extended their time at EMU to take institute courses.

Initially Coming to the Table focused mainly on exploring the stories and experiences of people linked by their ancestors’ enslaved-slaveholding relationship. But the group’s focus has expanded far beyond this over the last eight years.

With 80 enrollees, the 2014 conference was at capacity, said organizers. During the three days participants focused on each of the four steps in the change process.

Taking four steps

As an opening activity, participants created a map that highlighted linkages, including shared ancestry. They deepened their connections during workshops and activities, which included light-hearted events like shared meals and a talent show. As a step toward healing, people of both races dialogued about their encounters with privilege and discrimination. For the taking action step, participants discussed ongoing economic and social discrimination in areas like the criminal justice system, and they wrestled with how to tackle these problems.

Two members of Coming to the Table – Sharon Morgan, who is black, and Tom DeWolf, white – met at one of its early gatherings and eventually co-authored . The book describes their painful yet ultimately hopeful journey over a three-year period, covering thousands of miles through 27 states and beyond the U.S. border.

“We embarked on this journey because we believe Americans must overcome the racial barriers that divide us, the barriers that drive us to strike out at one another out of ignorance and fear,” they explained in their book. “To do nothing is unacceptable to us. The legacy of slavery remains a horrendous and unhealed wound, a disease that must be diagnosed, treated and cured.”

Interviewed at the 2014 conference, Morgan, a genealogist, said Coming to the Table has “gone beyond [genetic] linkages because it is difficult for many descendants of enslaved people to find reliable genealogies.”

Coming to the Table was launched with a four-day gathering in January 2006 at EMU. The idea for the gathering came from , EMU’s supervisor of grounds, and Susan Hutchison, both white descendants of significant American enslaving families.

Words from Martin Luther King Jr.

, a white woman who raises funds for EMU’s , followed in Hairston’s footsteps and became an early member of Coming to the Table after discovering connections with the descendants of slaves on a farm owned by her ancestors. She got in touch with Betty Kilby Baldwin, an African-American woman who wrote Wit, Will & Walls (Cultural Innovations Inc., 2002). They now call each other cousins.

As seed money, Coming to the Table received grants from and the and initially was formally a program of EMU. Since then, the group has moved toward more autonomy while maintaining an EMU affiliation. It has attracted growing interest, with a mailing list of 985 persons and a with over 1,100 members.

The name “Coming to the Table” is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic March on Washington speech, in which he prayed that one day “…the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners… will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Authors , who met at ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř (EMU), launched Gather at the Table at EMU in early October 2012.  A couple of weeks after this launch, the two were interviewed for “Race Talk” with on MSNBC. This appearance that boosted the sales of their book from around #40,000 to #149 on Amazon.com, with the book listed among Amazon’s “Movers & Shakers.” Random House also recommended the book for its list of new freshman-year readings.

The book uses a joint journey through 27 states over three years ­– visiting ancestral grounds, courthouses, plantations, and civil rights sites – as a framework for exploring “the journey toward understanding and peace and reconciliation . . . understanding how slavery affected the psyche of everyone who still lives in America today and how it informs the social structures that govern our lives,” as Morgan explained in a J for “Weekday” on KUOW, Seattle’s NPR station.

“I think what we were trying to do is to look at things from both sides of the equation as a black person and a white person, and a man and a woman, and people who were in opposition in a lot of ways,” she said.

Morgan is a black woman from Chicago’s South Side, a descendant of slaves on both sides of her family. She speaks of living much of her life with a deep fear of white people. DeWolf is a white man from rural Oregon, a descendant of a slave-trading dynasty.

Opposition to Reconciliation

“The intense and non-trusting relationships were so very fragile and suspect at the beginning of the journey but gradually they were able to begin to reach out to each other in order to understand their misunderstandings regarding each race and reach a mutual respect and love,” posted a reviewer on amazon.com on Dec. 20, 2012. That reviewer was one of nine, all giving the book a five-star rating as of Jan. 9, 2013.

Morgan and DeWolf met at Coming to the Table, a program launched by EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in 2006 with the hopes of bringing together descendants of slaveholders and enslaved people to explore history, uncover truths, build relationships, promote healing, and inspire action for a more just society.

The new book credits teachings by both STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) and Coming to the Table,  each developed out of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU. As a result, the authors are dedicating part of the book’s royalties to EMU’s work in this field.

Hope Springs at EMU

“The actions of one or two people rarely make a significant difference in the world,” wrote Morgan and DeWolf. “But the commitment of many people, acting individually and collectively, has great potential.

“Hope springs when people take the STAR training: when members of Coming to the Table congregate on a conference call to discuss restorative justice, genealogy, or relationship building, when six women in Seattle create a weekly ‘Healing Together’ workshop, and when a man in Virginia inspires people in his community to explore the history and impact of slavery through Negro spirituals and to raise their voices together in song.

“This is our work,” they added, “to repair unhealed wounds from the past and challenge systems that remain unjust and either dismantle them or work to heal the damage they continue to cause.”

The Morgan/DeWolf book tour includes presentations at universities, churches, musuems, libraries, and book-selling venues around the country. To invite the authors to speak or to learn of their scheduled appearances, visit .

In mid-April, 2013, EMU will be hosting a workshop pertinent to Morgan’s and DeWolf’s story, titled “Transforming Historical Harms.”  The two-day training will provide tools for analyzing the legacies and aftermath of historical trauma, and will examine the beliefs, narratives and structures that perpetuate that trauma. It will also cover strategies and practices for addressing historical trauma, including facing history, making connections, healing wounds, and taking action. to the public.

“,” will be taught 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Feb. 6-7, by Amy Czajkowski, former director of Coming to the Table, and Ann Holmes Redding, a Seattle based religious leader who is part of Coming to the Table and has developed materials for them.

Strategies and practices covered during the seminar will address healing historical harms (HHH), including; facing history, making connections, healing wounds and taking action.

“The training will present the HHH frameworks, which are drawn from STAR models and the experience of Coming to the Table,” said Czajkowski. “The concept of historical trauma explains that traumatic responses to events originating decades or centuries earlier can be passed between generations, and necessitate a more comprehensive analysis and healing approach than issues originating in one’s lifetime.”

In addition, the seminar will train participants in the theoretical underpinnings of HHH framework, give examples of HHH practices in different settings, and provide opportunities for participants to work with their own case studies to analyze and create a healing approach specific to their contexts.

Cost of the two-day training period is $175.

For more information, including partial scholarships and continuing education units, contact Kate Bergey at kate.bergey@emu.edu or 540-432-4996.

The CNN feature highlights the .

Betty (left) and Phoebe Kilby, part of , an EMU/CJP program devoted to transforming the legacy of slavery.

Betty, an African American and author of “Wit Will and Walls” met Phoebe, a European American and the associate director for development for Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU, in 2007 as the descendants of an enslaved/slaveholder family. They now travel the country as members of telling their story.

CNN’s most shared story of the day

May 20 the CNN story was featured on the CNN home page for several hours and logged more than 600,000 hits. It was the most read, linked and shared story of the day on CNN.com, said Wayne Drash, author of the piece and reporter for CNN.

Online comments numbered nearly 2500 less than 48 hours after the original posting. The majority of discussion underscored the difficulty and importance of reconciliation.

Twitter came alive, too, with mentions of the unique program. One young woman tweeted that she found CTTT after meeting kin from the family that enslaved her great-great-grandmother. By mid-day she was one of dozens of new members of the program’s online community, which doubled in membership in just 24 hours.

And visitors to the CTTT website hit a historic high. The site logged 30 times more readers than the day before.

Story spreads across the globe

Interest in the program and the story of the Kilbys and Coming to the Table went global quickly.

Program Director Amy Potter Czajkowski was interviewed for an upcoming Voice of America segment on Coming to the Table.

By mid-day, international broadcasting service had interviewed Phoebe Kilby, CTTT Program Director Amy Potter Czajkowski, and CTTT Community Coordinator Susan Hutchison for a segment to be aired in Asia.

“This is a story that resonates in many cultures,” says Kilby. “It bridges racial, ethnic and religious divides. In the last day I’ve gotten so many positive e-mails, calls, and Facebook postings. I’m glad our story of racial reconciliation has touched so many.”

About Coming to the Table

Coming to the Table was created in 2005 to address the traumatic effects of slavery on individuals and communities. Initially the program focused on the stories and experiences of people linked by their ancestors’ enslaved-slaveholding relationship,but focus has since expanded to addressing historical harms in communities, a point Kilby is quick to emphasize.

“While our family histories provided a window through which we could connect, Betty and I are focusing on creating a new relationship now, a new legacy for the future,” she says.

The program’s continued focus on building community, making peace, and providing service to others are core values of the EMU community.

The name “Coming to the Table” is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic March on Washington speech, in which he prayed that one day “…the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners… will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

About EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuliding

Coming to the Table was started at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, which is comprised of the and the , which houses the , and other intensive training, program, and partnership opportunities in peacebuilding.

Learn more

• Center for Justice and Peacebuilding
• EMU core values
• Undergraduate major in peacebuilding and development

Betty (left) and Phoebe Kilby, descendants of slaves and slave owners, connected in 2007 and are part of , an EMU/CJP program devoted to healing the wounds of slavery and its aftermath.

The following is an excerpt of .

Betty Kilby was gripped with apprehension. Descendants of the white family that enslaved her kin were coming to dinner.

She scrolled through a mental Rolodex of relatives who might flip out. Her brothers had already asked her: Why would you want to meet the family of those who held our loved ones in bondage?

"When they ask that question," she says, "you kind of scratch your head. It makes sense. Why would you want to do that?"

Learn more

• EMU core values
• Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

]]> /now/news/2010/jfp-person-of-the-day-amy-czajkowski/ Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000 http://www.emu.edu/blog/news/?p=2146
Amy Czajkowski, program director of

Amy Czajkowski‘s experiences as a facilitator in peacebuilding goes beyond countries devastated by war. As the program director of , Czajkowski, 34, is bringing her skills to Tougaloo College for a round table discussion on the impact of slavery on today’s society.

On Saturday, Czajkowski and a group of facilitators will host “Creating New Legacies Inspired by the Dream,” a half-day conference that will address current issues resulting from our country’s history of slavery. Coming To the Table is a program based out of ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in Harrisonburg, Va. that works to promote racial reconciliation.

Works, who is white, learned that he has black cousins, and he wanted to meet them.

That sent him and his family on a years-long journey of mending race relations.

Learn more about