Category Archives: Signs of the Times

Women’s History: Angelina Grimké, Breaking Taboos, & Gaining Religious Liberty

Maintaining religious liberty within the Religious Society of Friends has not always been easy. For instance, contrary to popular Quaker legend, work in the abolitionist movement was very unpopular among Friends, and especially repugnant to the entrenched power structure of recorded ministers and elder. They thought it was “creaturely,” needlessly dangerous — and many highly-placed Friends, while not own slaves, yet had extensive business interests connected to the slave economy. These were threatened by connections with abolition “agitation.
The result was what I have called “The Great Purge”; many Friends were forced out of the Society, and others resigned, to uphold their antislavery principles. Even some meetings were laid down by “executive action” for being tainted by the reforming virus.

Some Friends did not wait for the Overseers and elders to show up to apply this “discipline.”

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Authentic Religious Liberty Day, May 24: More Testimony

“I have seen periods of progress followed by reaction. I have seen the hopes and aspirations of Negroes rise during World War II, only to be smashed during the Eisenhower years. I am seeing the victories of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations destroyed by Richard Nixon.”

Bayard, there have been ups and down since then. But I think it’s been increasingly tough in recent years, and this year is really awful. Maybe it’s better that you’re not here to see it. But I’d sure appreciate your counsel.

“I think the movement contributed to this nation a sense of universal freedom. Precisely because women saw our movement in the sixties, stimulated them to want their rights. The fact that students saw the movement of the sixties created a student movement in this country.”

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Religious Liberty Day: for Friends & Others

If I was the Quaker Pope, Fifth Month (May) 24 would be one of the biggest Quaker holidays/festivals on our [non]liturgical calendar. That’s because it is (or should be), “Religious Liberty Day.”

It was on the 24th of Fifth Month, in 1689, that the Toleration Act, in official jargon, “received the Royal Assent,” and thus became law in England and its dominions.

Why is this important to Quakers?

Because that’s the day when Quakers & Quakerism became legal. It marked the successful conclusion to almost thirty years of suffering, organizing and lobbying.

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OMG! It Hit The Fan This Week!

And Oh, The SHAME of It! Another big fan was spinning in New York City’s Town Hall Saturday night. And the stuff splattered in a distinctly southern direction. And alas, the bathroom humor allusions were all too, er, apt.

That is, North Carolina became a splattered, a punch line on Garrison Keillor’s nationally-broadcast Prairie Home Companion Saturday night:

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