We are excited to announce a new round of Tables of Conscience book-themed dinners to raise money for the 2025 scholarships in the names of Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas. These dinners will be held in October and November in order to raise the amount needed by March 1, 2025 for two $3000 scholarships for Alexandria City High School students.

ACRP Members have volunteered to host three dinners in their homes for 8-12 people from 6-9 p.m. Those interested in attending will select one of the books listed below and reserve a space through our ticketing system. About a week before the dinner, those who reserved spots will receive an email with the name and address of the hosts.

We hope to once again sell out all three dinners, so please don’t hesitate and make your reservation and donation today to join other ACRP members to discuss one of these racial justice topics.

If you are unable to attend one of the dinners, you can still support the Memorial Scholarships at any time by donating through our campaign page with the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria.

This series will return. Watch for upcoming dates.

Saturday, October 26, 2024, 6-9 p.m.
Book: The Hate You Give, By Angie Thomas

This award winning book is about an African American teen, Starr Carter, who sees a white police officer kill her best friend from childhood. Mississippi Author, Angie Thomas, shares a no holds barred story about how Carter experiences this murder and reacts to the racism surrounding her at home, school and in the world. Although this book is classified as a Young Adult Novel, it has been recommended for adults and has been described as a compelling, thought-provoking read. As this book has been banned in multiple places and is on several additional challenged book lists, readers will be participating in a bit of activism  by choosing to discuss it.

12 Tickets Available

Saturday, November 2, 2024, 6-9 p.m.
Book: Into the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning, By Grace Elizabeth Hale

When she first heard her mother’s story about a thwarted lynching in a small Mississippi town where Hale’s grandfather was the sheriff and seeming hero, the author of In the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning, was a college student. The family lore inspired Hale, who is white, to focus her graduate studies on “whiteness,” which led to the publication of her earlier book (and a ToC dinner book in 2023), Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South 1890-1940. During a visit to her grandmother’s house, Hale discovered a 1947 front page article detailing the lynching of Versie Johnson. The graduate student immediately realized the news account - and family lore - wasn’t true, but she wasn’t sure what to do with the new insight. But after watching her students protest the white supremacists march through Charlottesville in 2017, Hale knew she had to research this piece of racial terror history and tell the truth. Bryan Stevenson called her book, “courageous and compelling” and an “essential and critically important” read.

12 Tickets Available

Saturday, November 16, 2024, 6-9 p.m.
Book: The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future, Robert P. Jones

The roots of white supremacy reach back to the 15th century and the Doctrine of Discovery - a belief that God gave Christians the right to dominate any land not already inhabited by the faithful, according to its author Robert P. Jones, who is also founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute. This book explores the connection of past injustices and massacres perpetrated against native and Black Americans, while also examining current attempts to repair these historic wrongs. The New York Times said it is “full of urgency and insight.”

8 tickets available.