Tag Archives: Quakers

Historic Golden Rule Anti-Nuclear Vessel Comes to Philadelphia and Swarthmore College

Golden Rule @ Swarthmore: Crew Members Talk & Archival Exhibit Poster

In 1958, an intrepid crew of (mainly) Quakers attempted to sail the small ship the “Golden Rule” to the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific, to try to “get in the way” of massive nuclear tests the United States was planning there. They were arrested in Honolulu, but they left a lasting legacy connecting peace and environmental justice concerns. Now, a new crew from Veterans for Peace is using the same ship to campaign against the MAD-ness [Mutually Assured Destruction] of nuclear weapons. Read more about the campaign in the Global Nonviolent Action Database at Swarthmore College.

The Golden Rule, a 34-foot wooden ketch, will visit the Delaware Valley May 9-14, 2023 as part of a 15-month voyage around the eastern half of the USA, making 100 ports-of-call.

The Peace Collection at Swarthmore College is the archival repository of the Golden Rule project and will join the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies and the VFP Golden Rule Project to co-sponsor a program by the crew when they arrive in our region. Members of the crew and other guests will offer a presentation, and archival material and memorabilia from the collection will be on display for visitors to explore.

When: Thursday, May 11, 2023, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Where: McCabe Library (Lib Lab) Room 104 at Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081 (Google Map)

Download and share a flyer.

The Golden Rule’s barometer resides in the Peace Collection at Swarthmore College.

This event is open to the public. See a map with parking details here. Drop off and accessible parking spots are available at the turnaround circle outside McCabe Library. Primary parking is available at Ben West House and in the North Lot.

Obviously, the Golden Rule is now sea worthy and under sail, but these short videos offer a brief history of the original Golden Rule project, its renovation, and its contemporary educational mission.

The crew, 1958. Photo VFPGoldenRuleProject.org

Here is a schedule for a range of related events in the Philadelphia area May 7-13. Download and share a copy.

Sponsors: Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project, the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College, and the Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Contact: Department of Peace and Conflict Studies 610-328-PEAC, peacestudies@swarthmore.edu

…

Vanessa Julye to deliver Cary Lecture at Pendle Hill: “Radical Transformation: Long Overdue for the Religious Society of Friends”

We are happy to share an important invitation from our friends and neighbors at the nearby Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat Center (in walking distance, just on the other side of Crum Wood).

This year’s Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture will be delivered on September 13, 2021 by Vanessa Julye. Her talk is titled “Radical Transformation: Long Overdue for the Religious Society of Friends”

“How have Friends collaborated with and sustained the global system of White Supremacy? George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends envisioned a revolutionary religion which professes the belief that every person has a direct relationship with God. Early Friends proclaimed our capacity for spiritual wholeness comes from the seed of God planted in our hearts. What structures are preventing Friends from living into these beliefs and growing God’s seed?“

This year’s lecture is online and free to the public, and we think it will be of interest to some in our peace and conflict studies program. Many thanks to Pendle Hill for their programming and hospitality

Please register for the event and read more about Vanessa Julye and the lecture on the Pendle Hill website…

The Quaker Indian Boarding Schools: Facing our History and Ourselves

“The Quaker Indian Boarding Schools: Facing our History and Ourselves”

A presentation by Paula Palmer, Friend in Residence at Haverford College

Thursday, November 6
4:30-6:00 p.m.
Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall
Swarthmore College

Paula Palmer is a sociologist, writer, and activist for human rights, social justice, and environmental protection. Since 2012 she travels in Quaker ministry, working with Native and non-Native people to build relationships based on truth, respect, and justice. Her Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples ministry recently became a program of Friends Peace Teams. Paula created and facilitates workshops titled, “Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change: Toward Right Relationship with America’s Native Peoples” (for adults) and “Re-Discovering America: Understanding Colonization” (for middle schools and high schools). As the 2016 Pendle Hill Cadbury Scholar, she conducted research and produced articles and videos about the role Quakers played during the era of the Indian Boarding Schools. She is a frequent speaker for faith communities, civic organizations, and colleges and universities, and has published widely.

Paula is a recipient of the Elise Boulding Peacemaker of the Year Award (given by the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center), the Jack Gore Memorial Peace Award (given by the American Friends Service Committee), the International Human Rights Award (given by the United Nations Association of Boulder County), and the Multicultural Award in the “Partners” category (given by Boulder County Community Action Programs). She is a member of Boulder (CO) Quaker Meeting (IMYM).

Organized by Peace and Conflict Studies and Co-Sponsored by History, Political Science, Religion, Sociology and Anthropology, The Intercultural Center, The Office of Inclusive Excellence, and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility

Other Paula Palmer events that may interest you:

Friday, November 1
7-8:15 pm
The Land Remembers:
Connecting with Native Peoples Through the Land
Interactive lecture
Co-sponsored with Family and Friends Weekend
Sharpless Auditorium
Haverford College

Saturday, November 2
1-3 pm
The Quaker Indian Boarding Schools: Facing our History and Ourselves
Slide Presentation
Delaware History Museum
505 N. Market Street, Wilmington DE 19801

Sunday, November 3
1-3 pm
Re-Discovering America
Interactive Workshop for Tribal Youth and Families
Dover, DE

Friday, November 8
1-2 pm
Where the Truth Leads: A Journey of Listening
Sharing her spiritual journey
Co-sponsored by Quaker and Special Collections
Lutnick Library Rm 232
Haverford College

Friday, November 8
4:30-6:15 pm
Two Rivers
The Film and Discussion
Co-sponsored by the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship
VCAM 001 Screening Room
Haverford College

Saturday, November 9
11 am-1 pm
Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change:
Toward Right Relationship with America’s Native Peoples
Interactive workshop
MCC: Stokes 106
Haverford College

Monday, November 11
7-9 pm
The Land Remembers: Connecting with Native Peoples through the Land
Interactive talk
Friends Center
15th and Cherry Street, Philadelphia

More about Paula:
In collaboration with the Ojibwe attorney Jerilyn DeCoteau, Paula founded Right Relationship Boulder, a community group that works with local governments and organizations to lift up the history, presence, and contributions of Indigenous peoples in the Boulder Valley. Through workshops and presentations, they promote formation of “Right Relationship” groups in other parts of the country.

For 17 years, as executive director of the non-profit organization Global Response, Paula directed over 70 international campaigns to help Indigenous peoples and local communities defend their rights and prevent environmental destruction.

In Costa Rica, where she lived for 20 years, she published five books of oral history in collaboration with Afro-Caribbean and Bribri Indigenous peoples, through a community empowerment process known as Participatory Action Research. With Monteverde Friends, she helped establish the Friends Peace Center in San Jose and began worshiping among Friends there. She has been a member of Boulder meeting, Intermountain Yearly Meeting, since the mid-1990s.

From 1995 to 2001, Paula served as editor for health and environment of Winds of Change magazine, a publication of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). She holds an M.A. degree in sociology from Michigan State University and has taught courses in the Environmental Studies Department of Naropa University. She is profiled in American Environmental Leaders From Colonial Times to the Present (ABC-CLIO, 2000) and Biodiversity, A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO 1998).

Welcoming Jordan Landes, Curator of the Friends Historical Library

Jordan Landes joined our community on March 11, 2019. Jordan joins us from the Senate House Library, the central library of the University of London where she was a Research Librarian for History. A true exemplar of the value of a liberal arts education, Jordan has worked in libraries whose foci are literature and theater (Shakespeare’s Globe), contemporary dance (the Laban Library) and computer science (University of Maryland, College Park).

Jordan is an alumna of Haverford and in addition to her Master of Library Science from the University of Maryland; she has degrees in History from the University of Maryland (M.A.) and from the School of Advanced Study at the University of London (PhD). Jordan has focused her studies in Quaker history. Her doctoral thesis on the role of London in the creation of the trans-Atlantic Quaker community in the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries served as the basis for her book, London Quakers in the Trans-Atlantic World: The Creation of an Early Modern Community; it was published by Palgrave in 2015.

Jordan thinks a great deal about community and its value in the context of libraries and scholarship. Jordan is also an innovator. As co-convener of History Day, she developed an event that brings several hundred historians, undergraduates, and post-graduate researchers together with information professionals from over sixty libraries, archives and research organizations. She has also worked with Wikimedia UK to host editithons in collaboration with the University of Birmingham over Twitter to address the dearth of information on women’s history. She recently curated several recent exhibits – one on dissent in WWI and another on protest movements, entitled “Radical Voices.” She is particularly interested in the way that libraries and archives preserve evidence of peace – when so much of the historical documents has focused on the opposite.

As both librarian and historian, Jordan has built trans-Atlantic networks like the Quakers she has studied. We are excited to see how she might expand our own networks, not only to England but beyond.

We would like to thank the search committee chaired by Sarah Willie-LeBreton with members, David Harrison, Ellen Ross, Celia Caust-Ellenbogen, Susanna Morikawa, Pat O’Donnell and Peggy Seiden. We would also like to recognize the phenomenal leadership of Pat O’Donnell since Chris Densmore’s retirement over a year ago and the support of Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Susanna Morikawa in not only sustaining the day-to-day work of FHL, but also managing a major grant project, In her own Right.

All of Us or None: Responses & Resistance to Militarism

All of Us or None: Responses & Resistance to Militarism

Across the globe, militarism directly impacts all of our lives. The American Friends Service Committee’s new traveling exhibition, All of Us or None, examines the effects of militarism at both the foreign and domestic policy levels. It also highlights alternatives and positive nonviolent solutions.

Exhibition: October 7–November 17, 2015
McCabe Libary Atrium, Swarthmore College

Panel Discussion and Opening Reception
October 8, 4:30 p.m.
McCabe Libary Atrium, Swarthmore College (directions)

Panelists: Sa’ed Atshan (Moderator), Nanci Buiza, Sharon Friedler, Keith Reeves, and Lee Smithey

Download a flyer and a postcard.

Sponsored by Peace & Conflict Studies and Swarthmore College Libraries.

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