Our blog poss about the end of NCYM-FUM have been read widely. And a question has recurred in comments across Facebook and in other media. It is: How did this happen?? It’s a legitimate question; and it’s one we’ve been grappling with for three years. It’s also one this blogger is feeling a bit overwhelmed … Continue reading How North Carolina YM-FUM Did Itself In: A Blog Review
There’s a notorious set of photos from St. Louis, of a public housing project called Pruitt Igoe, being brought down in a controlled detonation of high explosives. The story is that the project, meant to provide sturdy housing for the poor, had become toxic and uninhabitable. It could be a fitting parable for North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM – NCYM for short)
The “curtain” will rise at 8 PM July 6, 2-17, for “The Sword of Peace.” This gripping outdoor drama is based on actual events related to the American Revolution, in which many Quakers were involved.. Convictions of patriotism, Quaker religious devotion to peace, courage, suffering and mercy all clashed in the historic Battle of Guilford Court House in 1781. This will be its 44th season.
I wish Sumner was still here, though, so I could meet and interview him.
I’d want to explore one question in particular: how did he manage to write this story of interracial cooperation, without falling into the “white rescuer” narrative pattern so typical of many such stories by white writers?
In current argot, how did he manage to get so “woke” twenty-five years ago, at the age of seventy to boot?
At the Quaker Historical Roundtable, there was a sense of immediacy and connection. Many events that presenters wrote about, some of us had lived through, or had personally felt the reverberations. And in some cases, though the “history” goes back many decades, it is far from over yet.
Willingness to open up tough questions: Does FUM have a future? Was there militant segregation, war fever & homophobia in a large southern yearly meeting? (And how much still lingers?) Communists working with AFSC? Other socialist influence among Friends then?