By Jess Bidgood — September 23, 2024
The latest, with 43 days to go
It was about an hour into the 11 a.m. service on Sunday, and Bishop Patrick Wooden Sr. of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, N.C., was at the pulpit, wearing a suit of deep plum. The music had drawn quiet. The morning announcements had been made. And now, the bishop said, he had something to address.
“Everybody’s talking about Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson,” Wooden said, explaining to the congregation that he’d gotten a call from a local reporter on Friday and that the news media — me — was sitting among them that morning. “I called him Friday,” Wooden said, referring to Robinson, “and spoke to him myself.”
21. 1994-1995 — In a 1994 statement to the NC Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel Committee, Willie wrote,
“It seems somehow odd to be on trial for heresy within the Society of Friends, when Quakerism itself was born amid charges of heresy. It is not surprising that, in Puritan England, a group that rejected creeds, depended on the guidance of the Spirit, believed in the Inner Light, taught the equality of all people, advocated a universal priesthood, and allowed for diversity of individual religious experience would be suspect. It seems almost bizarre now, however, to be put on trial for believing these very articles of faith on which the Society of Friends was founded and for which Fox and others suffered so much.”
Nevertheless, the “trial” dragged on. Still stalled over the demand for an antigay manifesto, as well as the matter of banishing Willie and the calls for a broader purge, desperate finding a way out of the impasse, NCYM leaders agreed to undertake a “Listening Project.” This would be a series of in-depth, non-directive interviews with Friends from each of its 80-plus meetings and churches, in search of enough common ground to recover civil, patient Quaker seeking.
The project took time and faced obstruction, opposition, even intimidation; nevertheless it seemed a temporary success. At least, many tempers had cooled enough by 1995 for NCYM to set aside the stalled 1992 minute (but the issue did not vanish). Much of the talk of division and expulsion seemed to subside (though a few churches did leave NCYM). Willie’s recording was left intact.
Willie finished a 1996 report on the experience on an optimistic note:
“[The Listening Project] played a key role in helping the yearly meeting avoid a serious division, drop the idea of disowning people over the issue of homosexuality, and begin the process of attempting to communicate.
Perhaps its most important contribution was that it served to bridge the gap between a complete lack of communication to the beginnings of dialogue. . . .”
Perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
22. 1995-2007 — For Willie and Agnes at least, their public, if impromptu “coming out” in 1993 as committed parents in an affirming family, may have closed many doors to them in NCYM, but it also marked a way opening into a much broader emerging community, namely that of openly LGBTQ Friends, friends of Friends, and family members. These made up a rainbow chorus of voices that, despite frequent setbacks, were becoming inexorably more visible.
In an address at the 1998 mid-winter gathering of the national lesbian-gay Friends network, Willie said,
“When homosexuality became a prominent issue in NC Yearly Meeting, Agnes and I took what was to become a very unpopular stand. There were times in the 1993 sessions when we stood virtually alone and people became very upset with us.
We’ve not only been disappointed and frustrated by the hostility of our fundamentalist Friends toward our positions on social issues; we have been equally disappointed and frustrated by the reluctance of liberal Friends to stand with us.
We were reflecting recently on the fact that so many liberal Friends have remained silent both during the social issues of the 1960s and 1970s and now during the gender issues of the 1990s.”
Yet Willie and Agnes found a renewed and deeper sense of ministry as they began to share and speak to the spiritual needs of LGBTQ Quakers. They helped to form Piedmont Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (PFLGC). They also started a non-sectarian chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Mt. Airy and another in Clemmons.
With all this, his pastoral work at Mt. Airy continued. He wrote gratefully that:
Mt. Airy Friends, Surry County, “Mayberry” North Carolina
“We are in a meeting that supports us. They don’t raise a hue and cry every time I appear on TV or do an interview for the newspaper. They have clearly given me not only their permission to carry out this ministry, but they have given me their blessing. . . .”
With this home support, the scope of their work kept growing:
Kathy: “Willie and Agnes partnered to minister to gay individuals and their families. They were surrogate parents to men and women whose biological parents had rejected them because of their sexual orientation. They attended Friends General Conference gatherings all over the US as they formed close relationships with Friends in the FLGC group.”
23. — In 2001, Willie retired from full-time ministry, but he and Agnes continued to participate in organizations that supported LGBTQ persons. Willie participated in “Gay Pride” events, even marching in “Gay Pride Parades.”
This closing period of broader ministry only ebbed in 2007, when Willie’s health began to give way to an advancing cancer, to which he at length succumbed in September 2013.
Their final round of wider work had brought much consolation to Willie and Agnes, especially after their hopes for reconciliation and progress within the yearly meeting they had served so long were dashed. The Listening Project’s “cooling off” proved to be only a temporary truce: at the 2014 sessions of NCYM-FUM, a year after Willie’s passing, the “urge to purge” burst out in its sessions again.
Now the demands went beyond a statement to a massive purge. Meeting and individuals who had opposed the 1992 statement or its underlying doctrines were called on to leave NCYM immediately.
Among the targets of this effort was Spring Meeting, which this writer attends. Spring had taken a public affirming position a few years earlier. We too were told we should either leave NCYM, or we would be expelled; words like “unsound” and “abomination” were directed at us.
Spring calmly but steadfastly stood its ground: we had done no wrong, violated no provision of Faith & Practice, and hoped any differences in NCYM could be patiently and civilly worked through.
A handful of the surviving meetings have formed small, loose associations; some others (e.g., Spring) continue as independents; many have simply withered and disappeared.
24– The saga of Willie and Agnes Frye remains both an inspiration for many (like this writer) and a solemn warning about the costs of pursuing authentic witness in turbulent times. Willie Frye, with much struggle, managed to keep up and complete his career of ministry through decades of racial strife, war, and continuing cultural conflict.
NCYM-FUM was once, in the early 1900s, one of the largest Quaker bodies in America. Since its founding, it had weathered the American Revolution, the Civil War, the tragedies of failed Reconstruction, deep economic depressions, a century-plus of Jim Crow, successive waves of KKK terror and many other trials. But it succumbed to the multiple-pandemics of homophobia, militarism, racism and fundamentalism after 320 years. (This sad tale is chronicled in detail in the book, “Murder at Quaker Lake.”)
But if there is hope here, it can be glimpsed in the life and witness of Willie and Agnes Frye as examples and precursors.
Such examples should be preserved, remembered and celebrate, in my view at least twice a year. Once could be around the date of a significant life event, which for Willie points to September, as Willie & Agnes Frye Month.
The other occasion would be any time those who are striving to follow examples like theirs, in the beleaguered Society of Friends or other faith communities, need encouragement and models.
Which in these days, is pretty often.
It’s been a century since this anti-Kan editorial was published. As an organization, the KKK has again largely faded from the North Carolina scene. But its “state of mind” and basic agenda are still very much present.
[In 1966, Willie Frye Jr., a Quaker pastor in Goldsboro, North Carolina, had not been active in the civil rights struggles that were convulsing much of the South in those years. But his situation was about to change.]
Willie’s wife Agnes had begun working with the new HeadStart preschool program. As it was federally-funded, HeadStart was integrated, both staff and kids. There she was approached by a Black colleague, who asked if Willie could conduct her wedding.Weddings being a pastor’s specialty, Willie was agreeable. But also cautious: He first offered to do it in their parsonage, informally. But soon the woman reported that RSVPs were piling up, more than would fit in the parsonage; could it be moved to the meetinghouse?
Willie new such events were outside the limits of established Jim Crow segregation. So he took that request to Goldsboro’s business meeting, which approved.Willie presided at the nuptials in the meetinghouse, and they were carried out in what Quakers call “good order.”Well, some Quakers called it good order. Continue reading Part Two: Why September Should Be “Willie Frye” Month (For Quakers & Justice Seekers)→
The Western Friend is continuing evidence (tho it’s still news to some) that there is lively Quaker periodical publishing outside Philadelphia. When the editor learned about Tell It Slant, she didn’t hesitate: Friend Mitchell Santine Gould’s review, the first, was included in its current online newsletter edition.
Mitch is a distinguished independent historian with a theological bent. His special interest in the quasi-Quaker poet Walt Whitman has produced many impressive essays, including Walt Whitman: 10 Misconceptions, Least to Greatest, which is here, and very much worth a look (but read this review first . . .)
Reviewed by Mitchell Santine Gould, Multnomah Monthly Meeting (6/19/2024):
Emma and Chuck at a 2017 history roundtable at Earlham School of Religion.
Emma Lapsansky-Werner offers us a sprawling biography of Quaker journalist, activist, and gadfly Chuck Fager, in Tell It Slant. I read the first half with growing appreciation for two essential aspects of Chuck’s life. The first is his truly impressive involvement with so many historic moments in politics, society, and religion. The second, which nicely humanizes this history, is a very frank, very modest account of his own life – warts as well as triumphs. It must be rare that a biography succeeds so admirably on both aspects.
Chuck’s long experience as a professional journalist and author gives perfect clarity to his parts of the overall narrative. However, he had so much to say, that in order to marshal some flow and organization to so many anecdotes, memories, and histories, he was lucky that Emma Lapsansky-Werner extended her invaluable editorial contributions into the role of co-author.
As she put it, “In crafting this narrative, I have echoed Chuck’s scaffolding, weaving my spin together with many of Chuck’s own words; biography is interwoven with autobiography.” Although Dr. Lapsansky-Werner is an academic — a professor of Quaker history — she delivered the kind of powerfully clear and simple journalistic prose that seamlessly matched Chuck’s own. I think given all the constraints, Lapsansky-Werner acquitted herself well.
We’re no longer in an age of book-reading — info-snacking is more like it — and one might set the book aside rather read the whole thing at once. But should you resume in the middle of the book, its humor, charm, interest, and insight will even more deeply impress you. Tell It Slant is inspiring and above all, highly relevant. In addition to his decades of involvement with Quaker faith, practice, and internal politics, Chuck really kept his finger on the pulse of American society and politics — precisely because of his investment in his faith, of course.
When the stories are this compelling, you want the book to be perfect. Viewing Friend Chuck as the modern-day equivalent of history’s Publick Friend, I wanted him to be the exponent for liberal Quaker faith as I understand it. I hoped to see a conscious allegiance to the key innovation of Quakerism: its Inner Light theology. Informal polling that I did years ago revealed that Friends today have reduced the doctrine of Inner Light to little more than a sentimental “that of God in everyone.”
But historically, the Inner Light was recognized as a secret, silent hotline to the Divine, quite specifically as a source of guidance in times of an ethical crisis. Crucially, it was seen as capable of over-riding the two ubiquitous avenues for all moral supervision: the Bible and the clergy. Chuck mentions the Inner Light only twice, exclusively in anecdotes about an old Quaker lady he once admired. In reality, the Light is the power behind the often-praised Quaker virtue known as “discernment.”
Mitchell Santine Gould
Having said all this, let me turn to the controversial proposition that Quakerism can be succinctly described as SPICE: simplicity, peaceableness, integrity, community, and equality. I could write a whole sequel review showing how Chuck hits quite robustly on all these cylinders. And that ultimately trivializes all my criticisms of his book. I believe every Quaker should read it, and non-Quakers will also be deeply inspired, as I have been, by it.
Yet Willie and Agnes found a renewed and deeper sense of ministry as they began to share and speak to the spiritual needs of LGBTQ Quakers. They helped to form Piedmont Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (PFLGC). They also started a non-sectarian chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Mt. Airy and another in Clemmons.
Nice thoughts, but no chance. The purge efforts became a struggle to the death, and the yearly meeting ultimately 
NCYM-FUM was once, in the early 1900s, one of the largest Quaker bodies in America. Since its founding, it had weathered the American Revolution, the Civil War, the tragedies of failed Reconstruction, deep economic depressions, a century-plus of Jim Crow, successive waves of KKK terror and many other trials. But it succumbed to the multiple-pandemics of homophobia, militarism, racism and fundamentalism after 320 years. (This sad tale is chronicled in detail in the book, “
was federally-funded, HeadStart was integrated, both staff and kids. There she was approached by a Black colleague, who asked if Willie could conduct her wedding.Weddings being a pastor’s specialty, Willie was agreeable. But also cautious: He first offered to do it in their parsonage, informally. But soon the woman reported that RSVPs were piling up, more than would fit in the parsonage; could it be moved to the meetinghouse?
We’re no longer in an age of book-reading — info-snacking is more like it — and one might set the book aside rather read the whole thing at once. But should you resume in the middle of the book, its humor, charm, interest, and insight will even more deeply impress you. Tell It Slant is inspiring and above all, highly relevant. In addition to his decades of involvement with Quaker faith, practice, and internal politics, Chuck really kept his finger on the pulse of American society and politics — precisely because of his investment in his faith, of course.