06/19/2024
This Juneteeth, we recognize and honor the African-American Quakers who have worked tirelessly to abolish slavery (click to read more about some incredible individuals).
19 June 1895 - Juneteenth
Happy Freedom Day!
This August, our ministry will be participating in the Friends World Committee For Consultation’s 2024 World Plenary Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr. Harold D. Weaver, Jr. and frequent collaborator, Friend Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, will be delivering a joint-presentation on using Retrospective Justice as a Quaker model for healing historical injustice. In recognition of this event, we have decided to celebrate Juneteenth with a re-release of our 2021 e-newsletter spotlighting the remarkable lives of historical African American Friends featured in Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011). Registration for online attendance of the World Plenary Meeting is open until 30 June, click here to sign up: https://fwcc.regfox.com/fwcc-world-plenary-meeting
As we celebrate Juneteenth this year let us also acknowledge the contributions of African American Quakers to the anti-slavery movement.
Benjamin Banneker (9 November 1731 - 9 October 1806) was a friend of Friends, free African American, astronomer, surveyor, and mathematician. Banneker corresponded with Thomas Jefferson as he was writing early drafts of the Declaration of Independence, and later, petitioning him to recognize racial equality.
Cyrus Bustill ( 2 February 1732 - 1806), an ancestor of Sarah Mapps Douglass and Paul Robeson, was a founding member of the Free African Society. Early in life, he refused to marry and have children as he did not want to bring them into slavery.
William Boen (1735 - 1824), Mt. Holly, NJ, escaped enslavement. He petitioned to join the Religious Society of Friends for four decades, putting pressure on the Religious Society of Friends to allow more people of color into its body. His applications were deferred until 1814.
Paul Cuffe (17 January 1759 - 7 January 1817) was a New England Quaker philanthropist, ship captain, and Pan-Africanist. He served jail time after protesting his inability to vote by refusing to pay taxes, constructed an in*******al school for his children, guaranteed the construction of the Westport (MA) Friends Meetinghouse, and built trade connections between Sierra Leone, in West Africa, and the USA. Most important, he organized efforts for enslaved Africans in the USA to return to freedom in Africa.
Elizabeth (1766 - 1866) was a Methodist minister who attended Quaker worship and received support from Friends in defending her right to minister as a woman. She established a school for Black orphans.
Sojourner Truth (1797 - 26 November 1883), broke free from slavery and successfully sued for custody of her son who had been sold to an Alabama slave owner. She was an active speaker before Black and White audiences, regarded as an honored orator who traveled throughout the various states on behalf of Black Freedom and women’s rights. There is a statue of her in Northampton, Massachusetts, among many others throughout the USA, celebrating her anti-slavery activism.
Sarah Mapps Douglass (9 September 1806 - 8 September 1882), a prolific educator, author, and abolitionist, published in various anti-slavery journals. She encountered racial prejudice in the Religious Society of Friends, being forced–like her Quaker mother, Grace Bustill Douglass–to sit in segregated seating on the back bench in Philadelphia’s Arch Street Meeting. She was a founding member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.
Robert Purvis (1810 - 1898) was an abolitionist and chair of the General Vigilance Committee, which coordinated operations of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia. While not a Quaker, he, like Sojourner Truth, had close ties to Friends. He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and served as president of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society from 1845-1850.
You will find additional information on these Friends, friends of Friends, and other Black Quakers in Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011).
To learn more about the 2024 World Plenary Meeting, we recommend visiting the FWCC’s website.
