America's Dinner Table (ADT) is an independent non-profit organization that seeks to achieve an America without racism...one conversation at a time. America's Dinner Table sponsors an annual MLK Day Event for the public that provides space for productive and non-divisive discourse in a facilitated environment, as well as Private Dinner Tables for organizations.
ADT uses the “facilitated dinner table conversation” concept to encourage cross-cultural/racial communication that minimizes non-productive debate and division while maximizing understanding and communication.
The Dinner Table Experience covers a range of topics, from a racial healing perspective: Education, Economics, Health, Religion, Environment, Criminal Justice, the Arts, and a host of other issues that keep our communities from reaching their full potential as an equitable and inclusive society. ADT works hard to ensure conversational diversity and perspectives to provide the most optimal opportunity for our attendees to have authentic and honest dialogue in a safe judgment-free space where everyone is welcomed. ADT continues to provide the Dinner Table Experience via virtual dinner tables among both public and private organizations and communities and year-round Private Dinner Tables for corporations, nonprofit organizations, churches, and community groups.
Our annual MLK Day Event has inspired participants to appreciate our differences and agree that there is more about us that is similar than different. The facilitated format allows each participant to ask questions about race and those different from themselves in a safe space, without fear of being judged or offending others. We regularly receive feedback from participants about how the experience helped them to continue the conversation about race in their daily lives, inspiring one participant to write a weekly column on race called 'Building Bridges' over the following year and another to connect with their facilitator to bring two churches--one primarily Black and the other primarily white--together for combined book discussion events.