After last Saturday’s SAYMA Representative Meeting, Sharon Smith celebrated in a circular email: How many people do you know, who can say they survived not just one, but two Quaker lynchings? That’s the way I feel today, after that botched attempt yesterday. I am so proud of me . . . lol But this was … Continue reading SAYMA Update: After the “Lynching” that Wasn’t
The Catholic Church is not a democratic institution. Even in my lifetime, it called for and accepted government favor and authority when it could; and such struggles continue in places like Poland. In the USA this call for official preference has been somewhat muted due to our First Amendment and (increasingly beleaguered) heritage of religious … Continue reading Religious Freedom, the Supreme Court, & the Catholic Hegemonic Impulse
Forty-eight hours from now, the long travail of Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association (SAYMA) could be over. By rights, it should be over. It certainly deserves to be over. But will it? All it would take is one word. That word is “No.”
Apropos of the King holiday, here’s a quick racial justice history lesson, with a moral: In January, 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was indicted by an Alabama grand jury on two counts of felony perjury, charges that could have tossed him into one of the state’s rotten, segregated penitentiaries for up to ten years. … Continue reading Activists, Money & SAYMA: How Dr. King Almost Got Ten Years
Friends, There’s been a good bit of feedback to yesterday’s post about SAYMA, some quite vitriolic. In reply, I can think of nothing better to than to offer this guest post, by the late Alan Robinson of Asheville NC Meeting. He was a longtime member there, and suffered through several years of Sharon Smith’s intrusions … Continue reading Response Re: SAYMA’s Travail; A Guest Post