Help to End the Devastating War. Over the last two weeks Friends across NC, including folks at New Garden, have met with staff in Sen. Tillis & Sen. Burr’s offices. We are urging our Senators and Representatives to co-sponsor S.J. Res. 56/H.J Res 87 – the Yemen War Powers Resolution. We need your help to build on that momentum – they need to hear from you! Let them know that North Carolinians care about what…
This week the focus will be on African American inventor Richard B. Spikes (1878-1965). Between 1907 and 1946 he was awarded 8 patents. We can thank him for, among other things, innovations in automotive technology. “Spikes’ gear shifting device aimed to keep the gears for various speeds in constant mesh, enhancing the turn-of-the-century invention of the automatic transmission. His automatic brake safety system was also significant; according to the patent application, it provided a reserve…
It is time to VOTE in our local elections – for mayor, city council and five bond issues. Election Day is July 26; early voting ends July 23. Hopefully all readers will exercise that right and privilege, and in doing so, think about African Americans like Henry Frye, who was denied the right to vote upon returning from military service, due to a failure to pass the “literacy test” (given to Black citizens only) prior…
Reading from Meeting for Worship on July 3, 2022 / Britain Faith and Practice / Carl Heath, 1922 Social problems, like religions, when we do our best and earnestly desire the highest, are often seen in the wrong perspective due to limited horizon, the lack of essential knowledge, the impossibility of dealing with them in any genuinely detached sense, or of seeing the wood for the trees. Such conditions present no case for a stern…
From an AMERICAN ABOLITIONISTS Knowledge Card by the New York Historical Society: “Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) ‘He told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave.’ When Harriet Jacobs published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in 1861, readers were shocked by its brutality. Jacobs told of enslaved women with no control over whose children they bore. She described…
Visit with our Bolivian students, graduates and staff on our Virtual Quaker Study Tour in honor of our twentieth anniversary. Join BQEF supporters around the world for three sessions: July 11 7 p.m. The Founding, Development, and Fruits of BQEF, starting with Newton Garver and Bernabe Yujra’s efforts to overcome family poverty with education. July 20 / 7 p.m. Climate Change in Bolivia. July 23 / 4 p.m. Current students speak about their experiences of…
Email and call Rep. Kathy Manning’s office and urge Rep. Manning to be a co-sponsor of the Yemen War Powers Resolution. The resolution will end U.S. participation in the Saudi-led coalition war and blockade in Yemen. The U.S.’s role has exacerbated the devastating and growing humanitarian crisis. The Triad FCNL Advocacy team met with Rep. Manning at the end of April. While Manning is in agreement that the war in Yemen is horrible, and the…
We are accepting book donations for the upcoming Little Free Anti-Racism Library! As many of you know, Peace & Social Concerns is working on setting up a Little Free Anti-Racism Library at NGFM. The committee is accepting book donations that would be appropriate for an anti-racism library. As you come into the Connector/breezeway of the Meeting house, there is a table with pamphlets to the immediate left. There will be a big box underneath that…
Several New Gardeners met in the middle of the night at Shiloh Baptist Church to pile into buses headed towards Washington DC. Their mission: to participate in a June 18th powerful and passionate march and moral assembly of poor and low-wage workers and faith leaders. The Poor People’s Campaign gathering drew thousands of people from every state in the nation, all committed to a visible witness against injustice that robs people of human dignity. Tens of thousands…
From the Black Quaker Project – INDEPENDENCE DAY, RETROSPECTIVE JUSTICE, & QUAKERS: REMEMBERING THE WORDS OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS Dear F/friends, For this Independence Day, the Black Quaker Project invites you to reflect on the words of Frederick Douglass, whose tireless advocacy for African American liberation and Women’s Rights as an abolitionist, orator, author, and statesman often goes overlooked by historians and remains unknown to the general public. Among Douglass’s most famous words was his speech,…