This week I had the amazing opportunity to go to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture with my 8-year-old’s 3rd and 4th grade class. It was a powerful experience in many ways and brought many emotions to the surface for all of us—sadness, pain, anger, joy, and hope. After touring the museum the whole group met in the cafeteria for lunch and as we sat there discussing what we had seen and the many emotions and thoughts it had brought up for us I looked up and saw this quote:
I’m concerned that Americans are losing that place of meeting. There are very few times we can be more intimate as to share food together.”
-Maya Angelou
As I sat there, sharing a meal with these children and the other chaperones, I was struck by the fact that in that little moment we were living out the power of Maya Angelou’s words: we were sharing in the intimacy and the power of the experience we had just had, while we ate together….