photo credit (above): Jonathan Newton, The Washington Post
Guests on our New Orleans tours have met Chef Meli – either assisting at Chef Amy’s home in the French Quarter or at NOLA Craft Culture where she hosted a gumbo-making lesson. I want to let you know about an upcoming FREE online event this Tuesday, April 13, 2021 from 4:00 – 5:30 PM (PST) about Chef Meli.
Chef Meli has been at Georgetown University for 4 years. I encourage you to read about her incredible journey, and I will let her incredible story speak for itself.
A native of New Orleans who began her studies at Georgetown in 2017 at the age of 63, Mélisande Short-Colomb is a direct descendant of Abraham Mahoney and Mary Ellen Queen who were among the 314 members of the group known today as the GU272, enslaved people owned and sold by the Maryland Jesuits in 1838 to rescue Georgetown University from insolvency and bankruptcy. More than an autobiographical chronicle, this ritualistic experience weaves narrative, music, and imagery, inviting the audience on an experiential journey exploring Colomb’s loving and complicated relationship with the institution that enslaved her ancestors. Interrogating uncomfortable truths, rather than offering easy answers, HERE I AM challenges participants to bear witness and to reckon with their own histories, and to imagine the future of racial justice in America.
Washington Post article about Melisande Short-Colomb:
Register HERE to view the event.
