Yale University plans to move a controversial stone carving from a pillar by the entrance to a renovated library to a museum setting for study. The carving shows an Indian with a bow facing a musket-carrying Puritan. (Below, two views of the carving: on top is the original, with musket; below, today’s version, musket covered. In … Continue reading Yale, the Indian, the Puritan, & the Politics of Display & Discussion
Below is a news photo from late February, 1965. It turned up several years back (hat tip to the sharp-eyed Lewis Lewis): it was taken on the steps of Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, when John Lewis (center-left, with a tie) announced the plan to march from Selma to Montgomery. The goal of the … Continue reading A Hidden piece of Black History: “White Lies,” Selma, Two Murders, & A Cameo
In both places, and along innumerable roads between, beginning mid-spring of each year the orange daylilies gawked and mocked at me from their roadside strongholds. I grimly respected their endurance, but it was clear my death stares failed to faze them.
And finally there was some relief, even during the tough southern summers: my mail delivery days were behind me. I had scrabbled over the threshold into the large category of southerners who wisely regard central air to be fully as vital to survival as water, barbecue or even Duke’s Mayonnaise.
Maybe it was only after I became re-acclimatized, several years into this southern sojourn, that I was ready to take in a startling revelation: turning a corner in some verdant neighborhood, I beheld a familiar green stalk, but one topped by a bloom of an unfamiliar hue.
Besides all her amazing exploits in the antebellum Underground Railroad (working very frequently with purportedly nonviolent Quakers), Tubman was no pacifist. And when the war broke out, she was eager to help the Union forces win it. After working with wounded soldiers, she also served as a scout and a spy behind enemy lines.
But she got her big chance after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation at the beginning of 1863.
The First Month 2019 issue of Friends Journal includes an article by Friend Adria Gulizia, “Greater Racial Diversity Requires Greater Theological Diversity.” At one level, I very much empathize with Adria Gulizia’s concern for what I would call “theological inclusiveness.” The widespread ignorance, apathy & avoidance of theology/Bible in “liberal” meetings I have known have … Continue reading Liberal Quakers Need More “Theological Diversity.” What could possibly go wrong?