Tag Archives ⇒ protest

Podcast on the 1688 Germantown slavery protest

December 11, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Via Hid­den City blog, I’ve learned of a new pod­cast called Found in Philadel­phia. It’s only one episode long so far but it’s a good one: a look at the Ger­man­town Protest of 1688. This was the let­ter writ­ten by four Dutch and Ger­man Quak­ers protest­ing slave­hold­ing — in par­tic­u­lar, slave­hold­ing as prac­ticed by lead­ing Philadel­phia Friends. The lan­guage and dic­tion is a bit awk­ward (Eng­lish not being their first lan­guage) but many of their argu­ments are sur­pris­ing­ly mod­ern. The next time some tire­some bot on Twit­ter or Face­book friend-of-a-friend starts whin­ing about how times were dif­fer­ent in the past and how were peo­ple to know slav­ery was so bad, just show them this let­ter. Clear-eyed peo­ple knew and spoke up.

Host Lori Aument inter­views two peo­ple known to Friends Jour­nal read­ers: Katharine Gerb­n­er, author of September’s Slav­ery in the Quak­er World; and Mary Crauderu­eff, who last wrote for us in Novem­ber 2017. I’m a big fan of uncov­er­ing the sto­ries of the 1688 protest, espe­cial­ly the dis­missal it received from Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing. My review of Gerbner’s book will appear in the Jan­u­ary books sec­tion of FJ.

Episode No. 1 – The Ger­man­town Protest of 1688

In Newly Found Audio, A Forgotten Civil Rights Leader Says Coming Out ‘Was An Absolute Necessity’

January 7, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Wow, this should be inter­est­ing! The pod­cast series intro is all we have so far but this NPR piece is dish­ing some of the details of what we’ll hear when this episode airs:

Despite the risks, Rustin felt it was his respon­si­bil­i­ty to be open about his sex­u­al­i­ty. He traces that duty back to an expe­ri­ence he had as a black man in the 1940s Jim Crow South, when he took his place at the back of a seg­re­gat­ed bus.

“As I was going by the sec­ond seat to go to the rear, a white child reached out for the ring neck­tie I was wear­ing and pulled it,” he recalled in the new­ly released audio. “Where­upon its moth­er said, ‘Don’t touch a n*****.’ ”

As Rustin tells it, here’s what ran through his mind in that moment after the white woman called him the slur: “If I go and sit qui­et­ly at the back of that bus now, that child, who was so inno­cent of race rela­tions that it was going to play with me, will have seen so many blacks go in the back and sit down qui­et­ly that it’s going to end up say­ing, ‘They like it back there, I’ve nev­er seen any­body protest against it.’ ” 

Rustin was fired from his work with orga­ni­za­tions like the Fel­low­ship of Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and he often had to work semi-anonymously behind the scenes. The famous March on Wash­ing­ton that we remem­ber for Mar­tin Luther King Jr.‘s speech was Rustin’s idea.

One of his catch-phrases in speech­es was that we should “speak truth to pow­er.” When he worked with the Amer­i­can Friends Ser­vice Com­mit­tee to write the famous 1955 pam­phlet of that name, not only was­n’t he not list­ed as one of the authors, but the oth­ers con­coct­ed some ridicu­lous sto­ry about the phrase being some ancient Quak­er say­ing. Shame­ful. I real­ly want to lis­ten to his sto­ry and can’t wait for the podcast!

https://​www​.npr​.org/​2​0​1​9​/​0​1​/​0​6​/​6​8​2​5​9​8​6​4​9​/​i​n​-​n​e​w​l​y​-​f​o​u​n​d​-​a​u​d​i​o​-​a​-​f​o​r​g​o​t​t​e​n​-​c​i​v​i​l​-​r​i​g​h​t​s​-​l​e​a​d​e​r​-​s​a​y​s​-​c​o​m​i​n​g​-​o​u​t​-​w​a​s​-​a​n​-​a​b​s​o​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​3​e​U​S​v​E​9​R​s​H​V​j​g​Q​U​3​z​C​m​D​s​6​z​4​9​b​I​u​K​3​i​j​T​t​1​J​B​z​n​V​7​B​V​z​p​e​k​H​7​G​2​k​w​C​m2c

Redefining rude

October 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

From Mol­ly Shee­han, one of a small “gray wave” of Quak­ers who ran for Con­gress this year (she lost her pri­ma­ry bid):

When the mar­gin­al­ized cry out for com­pas­sion, they are not cen­sor­ing any­body. They are fight­ing for their very right to exist. Non­vi­o­lent dis­obe­di­ence and rewrit­ing the rules of civil­i­ty is for these groups. It is our job, espe­cial­ly as white peo­ple, or those with more soci­etal pow­er and time to protest, to ampli­fy the voic­es of the most marginalized.

https://​mil​len​ni​alpol​i​tics​.co/​r​e​d​e​f​i​n​e​-​r​u​d​e​-​e​m​b​r​a​c​e​-​d​i​s​r​u​p​t​i​ve/

Sam Walton: Putting the protest back in Protestant

August 17, 2018
· Martin Kelley

From the Peace and Dis­ar­ma­ment Pro­gramme Manger for British Friends comes a plea for us not to be afraid of going back to Quak­er roots and chal­lenge the abuse of power.

Society’s val­ues are so often in oppo­si­tion to God’s pur­pos­es. Slav­ery used to be legal. Love between two peo­ple of the same sex was ille­gal in our life­times. Our eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on greed and pays no heed to God’s cre­ation. Nation states exist and act for their own enrich­ment rather than loy­al­ties lying with the King­dom of Heav­en and work­ing for the enrich­ment of all human­i­ty. When being loy­al to God’s pur­pos­es runs counter to what soci­ety expects it can get pret­ty rough. There may be per­se­cu­tion, though it varies a lot: from tut­ting, telling you off for being veg­e­tar­i­an, being giv­en white feath­ers, right through to impris­on­ment, jails and the lions of the Colosseum.

Putting the protest back in Protestant

Red Hens, resistance, and love

June 29, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Johan Mau­r­er weighs in on the civility-in-politics ques­tions hap­pen­ing now. He makes use­ful dis­tinc­tions between mass behav­ior and spon­ta­neous protest and then lays out the sit­u­a­tion for those of us who fol­low the Prince of Peace.

I’m con­vinced that the USA is in a kind of dan­ger that is new to most of us. But even if our worst fears turn out to be exag­ger­at­ed, the scale of pain and despair among some (and wicked glee among oth­ers) is some­thing that demands a prophet­ic and pas­toral response from all who claim to rep­re­sent Good News.

Also check out his list of eight options for respond­ing to the cur­rent polit­i­cal crisis.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​s​o​w​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​t​e​a​r​s​-​p​a​r​t​-​t​w​o​-​r​e​d​-​h​e​n​s​.​h​tml

Hometown Heroes

May 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Josh Tal­bot is back look­ing at pub­lic recog­ni­tions that imply that patri­o­tism is exclu­sive to mil­i­tary ser­vice:

With­in the last month I became aware of the “Home­town Heroes” pro­gram. Hang­ing from lamp­posts in our down­town, and oth­er down­town dis­tricts in the region, are ban­ners with the pic­tures and names of for­mer mil­i­tary per­son­nel. I was look­ing at one of the ban­ners hang­ing out­side of my bank and I start­ed think­ing to myself. “Why is it always soldiers?

Off the top of my head I can think of plen­ty of oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty that are heros from my stand­point. Activists for jus­tice and con­science. Civic-minded gad­flies. Shopown­ers who pro­vide so-called “third places” for for peo­ple to con­grege­gate. Traf­fic engi­neers who push back against corner-cutting in safe­ty issues. The most impor­tant heros are often every­day peo­ple who sim­ply do the right thing when chance puts a dan­ger­ous moral dilem­ma right in their path.

I push back against a sim­ple military-are-heros nar­ra­tives because in times of author­i­tar­i­an­ism the mil­i­tary often become the enforcers. There’s the jin­go­is­tic non­sense you hear that the mil­i­tary is pro­tect­ing our free­dom to protest. No: in most cas­es our lib­er­ty has been pre­served by peo­ple stand­ing up and prac­tic­ing their lib­er­ty despi­tee intim­i­da­tion by author­i­tar­i­an bul­lies and their police forces. I have friends in the mil­i­tary and I respect their choic­es and hon­or their com­mit­ments. I know heros can be found through­out the enlist­ed ranks and in our police forces but so are scoundrels. We need to rec­og­nize home­town hero­ism wher­ev­er it hap­pens and resist the mind­set that it’s exclu­sive to state forces.

https://​quak​er​re​turns​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​h​o​m​e​t​o​w​n​-​h​e​r​o​e​s​.​h​tml

Shock and awe and pushback

January 31, 2017
· Martin Kelley

Shock and awe is the tac­tic of a bul­ly­ing invad­er who wants to demor­al­ize a coun­try into sur­ren­der­ing before a defense has been mount­ed. It a strat­e­gy you choose if you don’t think you can win in a long, drawn-out battle.

Trump has sur­round­ed him­self by a pro­tec­tive scrum of advi­sors who spend much of their time keep­ing him steady and mas­sag­ing his ego to assure him the peo­ple are all behind him. I don’t think he knows how to deal with the size of the oppo­si­tion so far. He turns to con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry to try to con­vince him­self that what he wants to be true real­ly would be except for evil “dudes” out there — George Soros hir­ing actors to protest, mil­lions of undoc­u­ment­ed aliens vot­ing, etc., and of course the orig­i­nal Trump con­spir­a­cy that refused to think a black Amer­i­can could be a legit­i­mate president.

https://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​h​o​c​k​_​a​n​d​_​awe

Banishing the demons of war plank by rotten plank

June 23, 2015
· Martin Kelley

In Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, Jane Brax­ton Lit­tle writes about the restora­tion of one of the most sto­ried protest boats of the twen­ti­eth century:

The Gold­en Rule project is an improb­a­ble accom­plish­ment by unlike­ly vol­un­teers. Mem­bers of Vet­er­ans For Peace, they are a mot­ley bunch that might have appalled the orig­i­nal crew, all con­sci­en­tious Quak­ers. They smoke, drink and swear like the sailors, though most of them are not. Aging and per­pet­u­al­ly strapped for mon­ey, the most­ly retired men sought to ban­ish their war-related demons as they ripped out rot­ten wood and replaced it plank by pur­ple­heart plank.

Friends Jour­nal ran an arti­cle by Jane, Restor­ing the Gold­en Rule,  back in 2011 when the VFP vol­un­teers first con­tem­plat­ed restora­tion, and a longer fol­lowup by Arnold (Skip) Oliv­er in 2013, The Gold­en Rule Shall Sail Again. Of course, the cool thing about work­ing at a estab­lished mag­a­zine is that it was easy for me to dip into the archives and find and com­pile our 1958 cov­er­age of the ship’s famous first voy­age.

You ca fol­low more about the restora­tion work on the VFP Gold­en Rule web­site or check out pic­tures from the re-launch on their Face­book page.

Golden-Rule-crew-1958