Thomas Dewolf Email & Phone Number

United States

Oakland, California

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 (http://comingtothetable.org/). CTTT began with a weekend retreat attended by two dozen descendants of the enslaved and enslavers in 2006. Today there are thousands of people who are Coming to the Table via Local Groups, monthly conference calls, Facebook, and other social networks.

Tom travels the country speaking and leading workshops for universities, conferences, corporations and other venues on issues of racism, diversity, an inclusion.Tom is co-author, with Jodie Geddes, of The Little Book of Racial Healing: Coming to the Table for Truth-Telling, Liberation, and Transformation (Good Books, 2019). “This rare jewel of practical wisdom shows us how to embody racial healing in truth and kinship. It reads with such ease and affinity that you will want to treasure it and share it with everyone you know.” – Ruth King, author of Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out.Tom is also co-author, with Sharon Leslie Morgan, of Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade (Beacon Press, 2012). Over a three-year period the interracial pair traveled thousands of miles through 27 states and overseas, building an improbable relationship. They visited each other’s families, ancestral towns, courthouses, sites of racial terror, cemeteries, plantations and antebellum mansions, seeking to come to terms with the history out of which racism evolved. Gather at the Table is the story of two everyday people from diverse backgrounds who are on a mission to overcome the trauma of America’s legacy of slavery and the lingering effects of present-day racism.Tom is also the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History (Beacon Press, 2008). In 2001, Tom traveled with nine distant relatives on a life-altering journey through New England, Ghana, and Cuba to film the Emmy-nominated documentary film, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, in which he is featured. An Official Selection for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Traces of the Trade premiered on national television on the acclaimed PBS series P.O.V.

I was one of ten family members who participated in the filming of the Emmy-nominated film, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. It was from this experience that I wrote my book: Inheriting the Trade.

Served as president of the non-profit Tower Theatre Foundation in Bend, Oregon; an organization that raised $4.2 million to purchase, renovate, and operate a run-down, historic downtown theater as a state-of-the-art community arts and performance center. We achieved our goal and opened the theatre in January 2004

My wife and I owned and operated this family video rental business (with sidelines in frozen yogurt and comic book sales) for more than 13 successful years.

Along with two partners, I owned an operated this downton Bend, Oregon restaurant and movie theatre. More important than the wonderful independent, classic, and foreign films we showed, the delicious food we served, and the great live entertrainment we brought to town, I met my wife at Pat & Mike's.

Peacebuilding

Program Certificate, Senior Execs In State & Local Government

Bachelor Of Sciene, Speech, Communications

Bachelor Of Science, Biblical Studies, Speech

Bachelor'S Degree, Ancient Rhetorical Theory; Communications

Education record