Coming To The Table's 2027 National Gathering

Gathering at the River

Journey to Liberation, Healing, and Love

Richmond, Virginia 

Virginia Union University

COME TO THE RIVER

Water remembers. The James River carried enslaved people to this city in chains, and that same water still moves through Richmond today, witness to everything that happened on its banks. Rivers hold our hardest history and they don't stay still. They flow, they ebb, they carry us onward, and they make things new.

That is the current we're stepping into. Water heals. Water witnesses. Water restores what was broken and reconciles what was torn apart. When we gather at the river, we join a movement that runs from the deepest roots of our past toward the flowing tide of what we're becoming, together.

For four days, we'll gather by the river to do the work we've always done together: telling the truth, honoring our dignity, and cultivating the kind of love that refuses to look away. This is a journey toward liberation, healing, and love, and none of us walk it alone.

(photo: 2025 National Gathering Attendees in St Paul, MN))

WHY RICHMOND

We'll gather at Virginia Union University, a historically Black university founded in 1865, in the very months after Richmond fell and the Civil War ended, to educate people newly freed from enslavement. Its first campus rose on the site of Lumpkin's Jail, once a prison that held enslaved people in Shockoe Bottom.

A place built to hold people in bondage became a place that set them free through education.

For a Coming to the Table gathering, we could not imagine a more fitting home. Here we sit steps from the history of Shockoe Bottom, near the archival treasures of the Library of Virginia, and in the heart of our strongest region, home to nine Virginia groups whose presence will fill these rooms.

(Historic Slave Trail/Ancarrow's Landing; photo: Allan Greller 2024)

WHAT TO EXPECT

Four days of connection, reflection, and shared purpose, Thursday evening through Sunday. Opening reception, full programming Friday and Saturday, and the fellowship, hard conversations, and moments of grace that make this community what it is.

SPEAKERS

Our engaging line-up for dynamic speakers will be announced soon.

CALL FOR BREAKOUT SESSIONS

The Call for Breakout Sessions will be announced soon!

THE ESSENTIALS

When: Thursday, May 20 – Sunday, May 23, 2027

Where: Living and Learning Center, Virginia Union University, Richmond, VA

Lodging: Hilton Richmond Downtown, just 1.8 miles from the venue, is housed in the former Miller & Rhoads department store. Once one of Richmond's grandest stores, it was segregated for much of its history until Black Richmonders boycotted and picketed the downtown stores, and Miller & Rhoads desegregated in 1961. The building became the Hilton in 2015.  

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR ROOM at our conference rate ($179). Reserve Early!

(Photo: The original Miller & Rhoads Building; open source)

THE MOM SHAY SCHOLARSHIP FUND

We believe no one should be kept from this TABLE by the cost of being here. In honor of Mom Shay, whose fierce and faithful love for racial justice lit the way for so many of us, we've set aside a small fund to help ease the cost of registration for those who need it. Her legacy lives in every seat we can fill.

Need support to attend? Apply here.

Want to help someone else get to the river? Donate here.

RESERVE YOUR PLACE AT THE TABLE

If you've been part of this work, you already know what these gatherings hold.  If this is your first National Gathering, be prepared to leave with a full heart.

Gather at the River.

Come back to the Table.

TESTIMONIALS FROM THE 2025 NATIONAL GATHERING


 

Want to hear more?  Click HERE.