Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Addressing Racism

It’s Your Journey – We are Here to Walk at Your Side with Support

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In the 1960’s Freedom Riders rode interstate bus lines in mixed race groups to advocate for desegregation in the south. Many Friends like Bayard Rustin, Norval Reece, and Samuel Snipes devoted their time to collaborative work on the civil rights movement.

Today, Friends and Friends Meeting communities are looking for modern equivalents as they work to embrace equity for all people.

That work often starts very close to home with an examination of one’s personal upbringing, habits, limits, and capacities. It also involves looking at the consequences of legislation designed to make it harder for people of color to access the same freedoms and rights that all people should benefit from. It’s important that this work not be done in isolation, and that it is spiritually grounded. Otherwise the work is much harder.

[Read more…] about It’s Your Journey – We are Here to Walk at Your Side with Support

Annual Sessions Final Keynote: “We Belong Together” With City Love

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Overall, we’ve had 386 people attend during six days of annual sessions’ virtual programming, including young people who participated in Youth Programs.

While the Community Engagement team ran a multitude of keynotes, worship sharing/affinity spaces and meetings for Business or Worship, devoted Youth Program staff built meaningful All Together Time, and facilitated morning and afternoon programs supported by Friendly Presences. There were also Bible classes, tech sessions, and very helpful, previously curated, advance documents and videos. Young Adult Friends (YAFs) did spiritual practices including lectio divina, welcomed two YAFs as keynote speakers, and convened contemplative prayer. Parents gathered for an evening worship sharing as an online version of the “Family Neighborhood.” Five plenaries, 18 workshops, and five meditation classes preceded everything as part of the ‘Runway to Sessions.’ [Read more…] about Annual Sessions Final Keynote: “We Belong Together” With City Love

The Fire of the Light: Abolition, Conflict, and Being Known in Quaker Community

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Friday night, July 31, before an audience of 160 people, Naomi Madaras made the case for faith to choose paths that embraced conflict, anger, protest and justice. A Master of Divinity candidate at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Naomi’s clinical training has been in hospitals and nursing homes in New York where she provides spiritual care to patients, families, and staff. [Read more…] about The Fire of the Light: Abolition, Conflict, and Being Known in Quaker Community

Plenary Session on Addressing Racism – Minutes

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Friends gathered for the Saturday, July 25, Plenary on Addressing Racism. The last of five Plenary meetings in preparation for Annual Sessions July 28-August 2, the meeting began with worship at 10:00 AM, followed by S. Boone O’Scheyichbi offering a prayerful acknowledgment that we meet on “traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape People, a vast land supporting the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting region.” This was followed by the reading of minutes (noted in full below), a Poor People’s Campaign presentation, a discussion, a group photo for those who wished to participate, and breakout groups. The breakout groups met to discuss queries and gave verbal and emailed reports on their discussions. The meeting ended at 1:00. [Read more…] about Plenary Session on Addressing Racism – Minutes

Willits Book Trust Participates in A Community Reading of Frederick Douglass’ July 4 Speech

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As a representative of the Willits Book Trust Committee, a grantmaking group of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Lisa Stewart Garrison, a member of Greenwich Friends Meeting in Salem Quarter, was invited to take part in a community reading of Frederick Douglass’ “4th of July Speech” sponsored by the National Park Service and the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

[Read more…] about Willits Book Trust Participates in A Community Reading of Frederick Douglass’ July 4 Speech

Quaker Communities Share Resources for Racial Justice

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Communities in our yearly meeting and in other yearly meetings have been increasingly focused on racial justice. We’ve assembled a summary of monthly and quarterly meeting e-news submitted to PYM news@pym.org this past month. This is by no means a complete portrait of all the work being done across the yearly meeting, but it testifies to the energy and breadth of work among Friends. [Read more…] about Quaker Communities Share Resources for Racial Justice

A Message Regarding State Sanctioned Violence from Fellowship of Friends of African Descent

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The Fellowship of Friends of African Descent was formed at a Gathering at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania in 1990. It arose among a group of committed Friends out of a desire for Quakers of African descent to get to know each other. It was incorporated with the following mission statement in 1991:

  • To publish and respond to the concerns of Friends of African descent within the Religious Society of Friends.
  • To provide for the nurture of Friends of African descent, their families and friends.
  • To address and respond to issues affecting people of African descent in their communities.

[Read more…] about A Message Regarding State Sanctioned Violence from Fellowship of Friends of African Descent

Black Lives Matter: Quaker Schools Share Powerful Messages and Resources

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Over the past week, people have been assembling in peace to express grief and voice concern over police brutality and racism in the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky; and Ahmaud Arbery in Southeastern Georgia.

Like many monthly meetings, Friends School communities were deeply affected by these issues. As a result, school administrations and trustees at schools in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware published powerful messages on their websites that were centered in the Quaker belief that there is that of God in everyone and Friends’ testimony of Equality. These have been basic tenets of the faith since the time of Margaret Fell and George Fox.

[Read more…] about Black Lives Matter: Quaker Schools Share Powerful Messages and Resources

Talking About Racial Injustice with Children

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Our children are watching, and listening, and learning. This is a deeply challenging time. Families are experiencing a global pandemic that has changed the shape of home and school life. There is economic uncertainty and hardship. Our children are watching and experiencing a nationwide response of fury and protest after the latest tragedies in centuries of Black lives brutally taken. For those of us who live with children and serve young people in our work, it is a moment to be present to them. [Read more…] about Talking About Racial Injustice with Children

Black Lives Matter: A Pastoral Care Message

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The shocking killings of unarmed African American men and women by the police continue to deeply distress and disturb Friends everywhere, though none more so than Friends of color—who may be feeling too unsafe and threatened to even go about their day-to-day lives.

The police brutality and the social unrest experienced in the wake of protests in response to these atrocities have created an atmosphere of fear in which many feel unsupported and alone.

These recent events have occurred during a global pandemic whose deadly outcomes and economic privations have dis-proportionally affected people of color and their communities. [Read more…] about Black Lives Matter: A Pastoral Care Message

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