Aftermath — Part 2 Amelia Boynton was my landlady in Selma, Alabama. She was also a prominent local civil fights activist, one of the handful of Black Selmians who had managed to badger her way onto the voting rolls despite segregation. When she was knocked out cold on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge during the “Bloody … Continue reading Aftermath — Part 2: A Constant Struggle
A long time ago, before we crossed paths, the Fair Wendy rode a motorcycle from Ohio to Pittsburgh and back, then later to Chicago. She loved the independence, the adventure, and the wind. She still has the motorcycle, under a tarp behind the house. Fortunately (from my perspective) it’s too rusted to be cranked up.
NOTE: Besides being a columnist for the New York Times, John McWhorter is also a professor of linguistics, and a survivor of some years in a Friends school. He also publishes an online “newsletter,” in which these observations appeared for thy edification. Why doesn’t English have a plural ‘you’? By John McWhorter Fish don’t know … Continue reading Why No Plural “You” in English? Blame It On Quakers?? John McWhorter Says No, Y’all . . .
I don’t hear or read much about William Penn among Friends these days. It appears he has been canceled and erased, wiped away in the Great Dismantling. (Indeed, Penn seems to get the most attention today from ultra-right wing activists, who are busy trying to turn him into an avatar of their drive to turn … Continue reading October 16 Was William Penn’s Birthday. I’ll still celebrate it, even if others won’t.
I did a great deal of reporting over the last year and a half on the turmoil in the white evangelical church in America. And . . . I can’t underscore this one enough, because I’ve spent a lot of time talking with leading religious figures, scholars, academics, people who know this world inside … Continue reading Quote of The Week: Guns & “Religious Fervor”