More than a few New Gardeners have read Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands. Even if you have not, you may find his The Quaking of America , published in 2022, even more compelling, filled with insights on the perils facing our fragile democracy. With practices to confront ‘White Body Supremacy’ and build resilience, the book’s subtitle calls it ‘an embodied guide to navigating our nation’s upheaval and racial reckoning’. It is that and much more,…

Register & more information • Lobbying in the Quaker Public Policy Institute (11/16-11/17) will focus on increasing funding for environmental justice Programs. • FCNL’s Annual Meeting provides a rich opportunity to gather with F/friends from all over the country, learn more about FCNL and come together to move the world toward the ‘World We Seek.’ • Financial support is available both through FCNL & New Garden Friends Meeting.

On Saturday, October 8, FCNCL will hold its Annual Meeting from 9:15 am to 12:30 pm. We look forward to your joining us to conduct the business of our Committee! During our Annual Meeting we will hear from a guest speaker, Rob Schofield of North Carolina Policy Watch, on the topic: “Protecting Democracy in North Carolina.” After Rob’s remarks we will break out into discussion groups to generate ideas as to how we can act…

From Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship by Donna MacDaniel and Vanessa Julye: “The first Quaker voices against the enslavement of Africans were raised in the late 1600s. . . In 1676 William Edmundson was the first Friend of European descent in the British Empire to write of his conviction that it was unchristian to enslave Africans. [He] spent many years traveling to and living in Quaker communities in the British Caribbean and North American…

The Quaker Pilgrims set out on Friday, September 16 on a bus driven by Friend Tommy Hayes of Marlboro Meeting (Friends Church of NC). They visited Cedar Grove Meeting (NC Yearly Meeting-Conservative), Piney Woods Meeting and Upriver Friends Meeting (un-affiliated), and concluded their journey at Somerton Friends Meeting in Suffolk, VA (North Carolina Fellowship of Friends). The Pilgrims themselves belonged to seven meetings and three yearly meetings in North Carolina: New Garden, First Friends, Jamestown…

Those of us on the Quaker Pilgrimage to eastern North Carolina and Virginia heard an inspirational message from Pastor Richard Wilcox of Somerton Meeting (VA) on Sunday, September 18. He very effectively made the case that it is much easier to look at practices in the past, such as slavery, and agree that they were evil and wonder how they could persist. It is much more difficult to recognize current evils, such as institutional racism,…