Working Group on Racism Annual Reports
The text of recently received Annual Reports of the Working Group on Racism are below, with the most recently received at the top and older reports below. To jump to a particular report, simply click the year listed below.
| 2010 Report | 2011 Report | 2012 Report | 2013 Report | 2014 Report | 2015 Report |
| 2016 Report | 2017 Report | 2018 Report | 2019 Report | 2020 Report | 2021 Report |
2021 Working Group on Racism Annual Report
Major changes in 2020
Beginning in June 2020, attendance at WGR meetings tripled from about six attenders to about eighteen. Several local Meetings either started new racial justice Change Groups or revived moribund ones. Requests from BYM Friends to the WGR to help them address racism have increased substantially.
Since then, BYM Friends have begun to listen to what Black people have been sharing about their experiences in BYM and other U.S. Quaker communities. Both the January 3, 2021, email from a Black long-time Quaker camp director, Jesse Miller, and the Outgoing Epistle of the 2020 Pre-Gathering of Friends of Color and their Families have been widely shared and considered among BYM Friends.
In addition to the WGR’s long-time focus on addressing racial bias among BYM Friends and its occasional focus on structural racism in the larger community, the Working Group has begun to address structural and systemic issues within BYM that harm people of color. Those issues include inadequate responses to incidents of racial wounding within the camping program, unclear membership criteria that may allow racial bias to influence who can become a Meeting member, and the impression that a strong commitment to antiracism may disqualify someone from serving on the Supervisory Committee.
The 2020 BYM Annual Session Workshops
The Working Group sponsored two workshops for the 2020 Annual Session. One workshop facilitated by Peirce Hammond and David Etheridge was a “Connecting Local Meetings” session on efforts to lower racial barriers in those local Meetings. The other was “Racism 101: Having the Courage and Faith to Get Real About Race” facilitated by Donna Kolaetis and Tad Jose.
Change Groups and Related Activities
Much of the Working Group’s focus this past year has been on encouraging and supporting racial justice Change Groups within local Meetings. Some Meetings have established or are working on establishing formal Change Groups. That process itself has occasioned a focus on racial dynamics within those local Meetings. Other Meetings have done racial justice work without forming a Change Group. The WGR serves as a clearinghouse, soliciting updates on local Change Group activities shared three times a year to facilitate exchange of information and inspiration as to what may be possible.
Meetings have organized book discussion groups on White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad, My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, Black Butterfly by Lawrence T. Brown, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Ibram Kendi and Jason Reynolds, Trouble I’ve Seen by Drew G.I. Hart, and Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice, a Pendle Hill Pamphlet by Harold Weaver. Several Change Groups have had sessions to consider the local Meeting’s response to the Yearly Meeting’s declaration that it intends to be an antiracist faith community. Other workshop topics have included the biology of race, personal experiences of racism, white supremacy culture, code switching, Black Lives Matter, and microagressions.
Several Meetings have connected or are connecting with outside groups to work on racial justice issues. Those groups include NAACP local chapters, the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Offender Aid and Restoration, Courageous Conversations, Coming To The Table, Pendle Hill, Friends General Conference, and Friends Committee on National Legislation. Some Meetings have established ongoing relationships with local African American congregations to work on issues of common interest. A few Meetings work closely with interfaith groups on racial issues.
Workshops for 2021 BYM Annual Session
Two workshops are scheduled for the 2021 Annual Session. One workshop facilitated by Peirce Hammond and David Etheridge will be a “Connecting Local Meetings” session on efforts to lower racial barriers in local Meetings. The other workshop will be “Racial Wounding: Stopping It and Healing from It” facilitated by Tronette Anochie, Sabrina McCarthy, and David Etheridge.
Retreat
On March 21, 2021, the Working Group held a Zoom mini retreat to explore how the WGR should respond to the increased interest in addressing racism both within BYM and in the wider community. The focus on sharing of personal experiences and self-education seems to be unique among BYM committees. That aspect of our work is highly valued, and we were in unity that it should continue. The WGR is also appreciated for the services it provides through leading workshops and sharing electronic and written antiracism resources. Increasingly Meetings have been accepting the WGR invitation to form local Meeting Change Groups to do antiracism work at the local level. The Working Group has been helping to support those Change Groups, but there is a need for the WGR to provide greater support. The WGR has begun to address racial harm occurring within the Yearly Meeting and to advocate for institutional measures to reduce that harm. Our work in this area encounters more resistance than our other activities. We sense a need for further discernment about how best to proceed with that work.
Within the Working Group on Racism
Before doing other business, the Working Group makes time at its monthly meetings for Friends to share their recent experiences with respect to race. Friends share books, articles, films, and presentations on the topic of race that have come to their attention as well as personal experiences. Although this can take up considerable time, Friends feel it is an invaluable component of their meetings. Each month the Working Group also takes time to consider and discuss a different aspect of how “white supremacy culture” affects its work and that of the Yearly Meeting as well as what can be done about it.
WGR use of the BYM Antiracism Queries
The BYM antiracism queries have been read at each WGR meeting after their adoption by the Yearly Meeting. At our February 2020 meeting we recorded our response to the queries with respect to our budget request and our proposals for workshops at annual sessions. We found that exercise quite challenging. While some of our responses were positive, others were negative or inconclusive.
Communications within BYM
The Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. The clerk of the WGR meets once or twice a year with that Committee to keep it updated on Working Group activities and concerns and to seek counsel. The Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee and the Working Group on Racism held a joint meeting attended by 24 Friends on the possible racial impacts of membership decision making practices among BYM local Meetings.
The Working Group on Racism and the Working Group on Right Relationship with Animals cosponsored a workshop about vegan and vegetarian people of color that was attended by about 50 people.
Several Working Group members participate actively on the BYM Growing Diverse Leadership Committee. The WGR Clerk is a member of the GDL Committee and the GDL Clerk is a member of the WGR.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination. It also maintains a Google group for distributing information about WGR work and resources related to racial justice work to about 175 interested Friends.
2020 Working Group on Racism Annual Report
No report received.
2019 Working Group on Racism Annual Report
The 2018 BYM Annual Sessions Workshops
The Working Group sponsored two workshops for the 2018 Annual Sessions. Phil Caroom of Annapolis Friends Meeting led a workshop entitled “Pretrial Criminal & Juvenile Diversion: Alternatives for Better Outcomes.” The workshop described alternatives to prosecution that involve problem-solving mediation, counseling, and treatment. Friends learned how they can promote this process in their own communities.
David Etheridge of Friends Meeting of Washington and Clinton Pettus of Stony Run Friends Meeting facilitated a “Connecting Local Meetings” session. Clinton Pettus presented the results of a series of focus groups he had conducted with Friends of color about their experiences with, and ideas about, BYM Friends Meetings. Friends from various BYM local Meetings shared actions they have taken to realize the BYM vision of being much more ethnically diverse.
Jennifer Vekert, who is a Young Adult Friend, Donna Kolaetis of Menallen Friends Meeting, and David Etheridge facilitated a joint WGR-YAF workshop. The group considered different definitions of racism, discussed why they wanted to reduce racial barriers among Friends, shared in concentric circle dyads their experiences on race, and ended with discussion among the entire group.
St. Clair Allmond of Richmond Friends Meeting led a workshop on the historical contributions that African Americans have made to the Religious Society of Friends.
David Etheridge showed the film 13th on racial profiling and mass incarceration and then facilitated an interest group discussion about the film.
Change Group Training
The Working Group continues to invite local Meetings to identify Friends who will take on the responsibility for helping their Meeting to lower racial barriers. Early in 2019 the Working Group joined with the Growing Diverse Leadership Committee to offer training to Change Groups. Amanda Kemp and Erika Fitz of Lancaster Friends Meeting led the training, which was funded from the Shoemaker Grant.
Thirty-six Friends attended the January training, which focused on white fragility and how to have a conversation about race that plants a seed with the other participants. The session ended early because of concerns about icy roads as temperatures dropped. A ZOOM call in February was used to cover the last part of the January curriculum. It focused mostly on how best to hold someone to account. The early March training focused on how white supremacy culture affects both individuals and Meetings. Time was also devoted to learning how to recognize and mitigate implicit bias. Participants concluded the training by developing individual action plans. A Google Group has been established for Change Group members across the Yearly Meeting to communicate among themselves.
Twenty-four were on the February ZOOM call. Thirty attended the March training. Sixteen attended all three sessions. As of March 2019, ten BYM local Meetings had formed Change Groups.
Workshops for 2019 BYM Annual Sessions
One workshop facilitated by Peirce Hammond and David Etheridge will be a “Connecting Local Meetings” session on efforts to lower racial barriers in those local Meetings. The other workshop will be a presentation by Historian Susan Strasser entitled “A White Historian Confronts Lynching.” Poet Marcia Cole will read her award-winning work, “A Bitter Suite” as part of that presentation.
Within the Working Group on Racism
Before doing other business, the Working Group makes time at its monthly meetings for Friends to share their recent experiences with respect to race. They also share books, articles, films, and presentations on the topic of race that have come to their attention. Each month the Working Group also takes time to consider and discuss a different aspect of how “white supremacy culture” affects its work and that of the Yearly Meeting as well as what can be done about it.
Communications within BYM
The Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. The clerk of the WGR meets once or twice a year including during Annual Sessions with that Committee to keep it updated on Working Group activities and concerns and to seek counsel. Greg Robb, a member of that committee who is from Friends Meeting of Washington, serves as liaison to the Working Group. Several Working Group members participate actively on the BYM ad hoc Growing Diverse Leadership Committee. The WGR Clerk is a member of the GDL Committee and the GDL Clerk is a member of the WGR.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination. It also maintains a Google group for distributing information about WGR work and resources related to racial justice work to about 145 interested Friends.
2018 Annual Report
The 2017 BYM Annual Sessions Workshops
The Working Group sponsored two workshops for the 2017 Annual Sessions. Phil Caroom of Annapolis Friends Meeting led a workshop entitled “Criminal Justice Advocacy.” David Etheridge of Friends Meeting of Washington facilitated a “Connecting Local Meetings” session where Friends from various BYM local Meetings shared actions they have taken to realize the BYM vision of being much more ethnically diverse.
The Working Group continues to enlist local Meetings in efforts to make the revised vision statement a reality. Local Meetings are being invited to identify Friends within their Meeting who will take on the responsibility for helping their Meeting to lower the barriers to involvement of people of color in the life of the Meeting. The idea is that these local “diversity change teams” can use their knowledge of their own Meeting and the surrounding community and the support of the Yearly Meeting Working Group on Racism to remove the barriers that are currently discouraging people of color from being involved in the local Meeting. To assist those efforts the Working Group has posted a document entitled Ideas for Lowering Barriers to Involvement of People of Color in our Meetings on the Yearly Meeting website.
Workshops planned for 2018 BYM Annual Sessions
The Working Group is sponsoring three workshops and an interest group at the 2018 Annual Sessions.
One workshop facilitated by Phil Caroom and others is entitled “Pretrial Criminal & Juvenile Diversion: Alternatives for Better Outcomes.” The workshop will describe alternatives to prosecution that involve problem-solving mediation, counseling, and treatment. Friends will learn how they can promote this process in their own communities.
Another workshop facilitated by David Etheridge will be a “Connecting Local Meetings” session on efforts to lower barriers to greater ethnic diversity. Friends from various Local Meetings will meet to connect and share with each other their experiences in working to remove barriers that currently exist for people of color.
The third workshop is a joint effort by the Working Group on Racism and the Young Adult Friends entitled “Confronting Racism.” Facilitators include Peirce Hamond, Donna Kolaetis, Tom Webb and Jenny Vekert. Participants will discuss the need for BYM to name, acknowledge, expose, and confront racism as it has been and as it currently exists in BYM and U.S. society and what to do about it.
The planned interest group will be a discussion opportunity for Friends who have seen Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th about the “punishment for a crime” exception to the 13th amendment. A screening of the documentary is also planned prior to the interest group during Annual Sessions.
Within the Working Group on Racism
Before doing other business, the Working Group makes time at its monthly meetings for Friends to share their experiences since the last meeting with respect to race and to share books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to their attention.
Communications within BYM
Our Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. We meet once or twice a year with that Committee to keep it updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel. Jessica Arends, a member of that committee, serves as liaison to the Working Group. The Working Group also participates actively on the BYM ad hoc Growing Diverse Leadership Committee.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination. It also maintains an email group list for distributing information about our work and resources related to racial justice work to about 145 Friends who have expressed an interest in our work. Additionally, we are sharing with local Meeting diversity change teams the work and experience of other change teams.
Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. Friends Meeting of Washington is currently engaged in an outreach and racial justice audit of the Meeting. Charlottesville Friends Meeting is sponsoring an organization called “Beloved Community C-ville,” which is engaging in frequent discussions about racism in schools and other venues throughout the Charlottesville area. Adelphi Friends Meeting has taken the lead in creating the “Beloved Community Interfaith Network of Prince George’s County” to work together to mend the gaps in the social fabric and address social concerns. The historic mostly-white Sandy Spring Friends Meeting is strengthening its connections to the equally historic mostly-Black Sharp Street United Methodist Church to, among other things, attend each other’s worship, raise funds for scholarships, and produce a combined cookbook.
2017 Annual Report
The 2016 BYM Annual Session Workshops
The Working Group conducted three workshops for the 2016 Annual Session. Phil Caroom of Annapolis Friends Meeting led a workshop entitled “Preventing Incarceration with Services at the ‘Front Door’—Pretrial Diversion.” A workshop led by Alex Bell of Bethesda Friends Meeting, Pat Schenck from Annapolis Friends Meeting and Elizabeth DuVerlie of Stony Run Friends Meeting provided an opportunity for sharing the experiences of BYM Friends at the 17th annual White Privilege Conference. David Etheridge of Friends Meeting of Washington facilitated a “Connecting Local Meetings” session where Friends from various BYM local Meetings shared how those Meetings responded to the proposal to revise the BYM Vision Statement.
Adoption of the addition to the Vision Statement
At the 2015 Annual Session the Yearly Meeting decided to ask its local Meetings to season a proposed addition to the BYM Vision Statement to state more explicitly that BYM is composed of people of all sexual orientations, racial, ethnic, gender and class groups and that it intends to work to overcome the existing barriers to that vision.
The Working Group sent letters and emails to about 50 local Meetings in BYM and about 20 of them responded. Some Yearly Meeting committees also shared their thoughts. The Working Group then revised the proposed addition in light of that seasoning and presented the result for consideration at 2016 Annual Sessions. Based on comments made from the floor and a subsequent threshing session, further revisions were made, proposed again at plenary session, and adopted by the Yearly Meeting:
We Friends are of many skin colors, ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, abilities, stages of life, and socially constructed racial identities. We are all seeking the Spirit’s presence in our lives, and in our life together. We recognize that some of us have experienced oppression and marginalization in ways that others have not. We aspire to live as members of the blessed community, which is one of liberation, equity, and great diversity across all differences.
Work on realizing the vision
The Working Group has begun to enlist local Meetings in an effort to make the revised vision statement a reality. Local Meeting are being invited to identify Friends within their Meeting who will take on the responsibility for helping their Meeting to lower the barriers to involvement of people of color in the life of the Meeting. The idea is that these local “diversity change teams” can use their knowledge of their own Meeting and the surrounding community and the support of the Yearly Meeting Working Group on Racism to remove the barriers that are currently discouraging people of color from being involved in the local Meeting. To assist those efforts the Working Group has posted a document entitled Ideas for Lowering Barriers to Involvement of People of Color in our Meetings on the Yearly Meeting website.
Workshops planned for 2017 BYM Annual Session
The Working Group plans to conduct two workshops and an interest group at the 2017 Annual Session.
One workshop will be on Quaker criminal justice advocacy and will explore how Friends can see the “big picture,” maintain a faith-based focus, stick together, and avoid despair. The workshop will include updates on criminal justice advocacy work in the various states where BYM local Meetings are located.
The other workshop will be a “Connecting Local Meetings” session on efforts to lower barriers to greater ethnic diversity. Friends from various Local Meetings will meet to connect and share with each other their experiences in working to remove barriers that currently exist for people of color.
The planned interest group will be an opportunity for those of us who attended the 2017 White Privilege Conference to report on what we experienced there.
Within the Working Group on Racism
Before doing other business, the Working Group makes time at its monthly meetings for Friends to share their experiences since the last meeting with respect to race and to share books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to their attention.
Communications within BYM
Our Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. We meet once or twice a year with that Committee to keep it updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel. Marika Cutler, a member of that committee, serves as liaison to the Working Group and attends Working Group meetings. The Working Group also participates actively on the BYM ad hoc Growing Diverse Leadership Committee.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination. The Working Group also maintains an email group list for distributing information about our work and resources related to racial justice work to about 120 Friends who have expressed an interest in our work. Additionally, we are sharing with local Meeting diversity change teams the work and experience of other change teams.
Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. Friends Meeting of Washington has an on-going discussion group based on the book, Waking up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving. Charlottesville Friends Meeting has a similar group.
2016 Annual Report
The 2015 BYM Annual Session Workshops
The Working Group conducted two workshops for 2015 Annual Session. Phil Caroom of Annapolis Friends Meeting led a workshop about what is happening around mass incarceration and prison reform in the District of Columbia and each state where there are BYM Monthly Meetings. David Etheridge of Friends Meeting of Washington led a workshop entitled “Living into Right Relationship in our Multiracial Society” exploring resources available to Friends who wish to address individual, institutional or structural racism. The Working Group also played a role in arranging for two other workshops. One was a workshop on the Prison Ministry of Patapsco Friends Meeting. The other was about the Underground Railroad presented by Jenny Mazur of the National Park Service.
Vision Statement Discernment
At its 2015 Annual Session Baltimore Yearly Meeting decided to ask local Meetings to consider and season a proposal from the WGR to revise the BYM Vision Statement to state more explicitly that we are composed of people of all genders and sexual orientations, racial, ethnic, gender and class groups, and intend to work intentionally to overcome the existing barriers to that vision of ourselves. These changes would support the new commitment the Yearly Meeting is making to change our existing culture and to become a more multicultural Yearly Meeting. The support of the Shoemaker Fund is helping us work towards this goal with a 3-year $225,000 grant. The WGR has been in conversation with BYM Committees and local Meetings—and visited some of them—about the seasoning process.
White Privilege Conference
At the request of the Working Group on Racism Baltimore Yearly Meeting agreed to be one of the sponsors of the 2016 White Privilege Conference that Friends General Conference hosted in Philadelphia from April 14th to the 17th. The White Privilege Conference resembles the FGC Gathering in that it is composed of an abundance of workshops, presentations, films, youth programs, interest groups and networking, but instead of being about all things Quaker, it is about every aspect of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination and how to understand and address those issues. The Working Group and some of its individual members donated a total of $500 to support the White Privilege Conference. Several members of the Working Group attended the conference.
Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR)
In 2013 the WGR sponsored a one-book program encouraging Meetings to read and discuss Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The following year WGR participants who live in Maryland joined others in lobbying the Maryland Legislature to establish a taskforce to explore how the incarceration rate might be reduced. That proposed legislation was not passed. Those who had lobbied for creation of the taskforce decided that for 2015 they would instead urge the passage of seven bills addressing mass incarceration. To support that effort they established the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR), which succeeded in getting two of those bills enacted.
In 2016 MAJR is advocating for passage of the Justice Reinvestment Act. The bill would provide for earlier drug, mental health treatment and alternative dispute resolution programs. It would also require nondiscriminatory offender risk-needs assessments to avoid unneeded intervention for low-risk offenders and to target more effective services to mid- and high-risk offenders. Reduction of sentences for many drug-related and other non-violent offenses would be permitted as well as reducing the sentences for inmates currently serving time for similar offenses. Sentencing guidelines would be revised to expand alternatives to incarceration and to include suspended sentences in calculating guideline compliance. The legislation would establish graduated sanctions for technical parole violations rather than requiring all parole violators to be returned to prison. Other features of the bill provide more victim restitution, the parole of elderly and disabled inmates, grants for local reinvestment programs, training for staff who work with prisoners, and funding for a statewide network of local reentry programs
Protest of the Martin Luther King weekend Lee-Jackson commemoration
Since 2013 the Baltimore area Friends Meetings conducted a silent protest vigil on the Saturday before the Martin Luther King national holiday across from the commemoration of Confederate Generals Lee and Jackson by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). The BYM Working Group joined the vigil in January 2015. The increased Quaker involvement together with the involvement of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP led to media coverage. In January 2016 the Working Group showed up again for the vigil, but only other protesters, law enforcement and journalists were present. According to news reports, The SCV and UDC decided to cancel their commemoration due to what they called “the current climate.”
Workshops planned for 2016 BYM Annual Sessions
The Working Group plans to conduct three workshop at the 2016 Annual Session.
One of them is entitled, “Preventing Incarceration at the ‘Front Door’” and will discuss how Friends can support diversion services. Studies show that when youthful offenders are held in detention three to 30 days before trial their re-offending increases nearly 80%. This workshop will describe various early diversion approaches including mediation, drug treatment and mental health programs.
In another workshop three BYM Quakers who attended the 17th White Privilege Conference (WPC17) will facilitate a conversation about it. FGC hosted and BYM sponsored WPC17, where over 1500 people of all races examined concepts of privilege and oppression. They tried to discern solutions and strategies to work toward a more equitable world.
The third workshop is called “Discernment and Action on Inclusion in BYM.” For months local Meetings have seasoned a proposal to state explicitly our vision of BYM as including all races and ethnicities and to commit ourselves to making that vision a reality. This workshop will invite us to share with each other what we have discerned.
Within the Working Group on Racism
The Working Group’s monthly meetings always make time for Friends to share their experiences with respect to race since the last meeting and to share books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to the attention of individual Working Group members. In addition to those who regularly attend our meetings, there are about twenty Friends who do not attend, but stay informed of our activities through an email list that spares them many of our more logistics-oriented emails.
Communications within BYM
Our Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. We meet once or twice a year with that Committee to keep it updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination.
Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. Friends Meeting of Washington has an on-going discussion group based on the book, Waking up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving.
Communications beyond BYM
Working Group members maintain contact with Friends in New England, New York, Philadelphia, South Central and Intermountain Yearly Meetings who are involved in racial justice work as well as with individual Friends around the country doing that work.
2015 Annual Report
The 2014 BYM Annual Session
The Working Group on Racism sponsored two workshops at the 2014 Annual Sessions. One, led by Tory Johnson from the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and Philip Caroom of Annapolis Friends Meeting, focused on current FCNL work to end mass incarceration and proposed legislation to be introduced to the Maryland General Assembly in 2015. For the second workshop members of the Working Group facilitated a discussion among Friends about how the One Book program on The New Jim Crow had gone that past year and what steps Friends may be led to take to address the issues raised in that book. It was led by Philip Caroom, Oliver Moles and Pat Schenck.
Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR)
Working Group on Racism participants who live in Maryland joined others in lobbying the Maryland Legislature last year to establish a taskforce to explore how the incarceration rate might be reduced. That proposed legislation was not passed in 2014. Those who had lobbied for creation of the taskforce decided that for 2015 they would instead urge the passage of seven bills addressing mass incarceration. To support that effort they established the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR). That organization introduced five bills, and two of them were passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. One bill establishes a council that will study best practices in criminal justice from around the country, working with the Pew Research Center, and make recommendations for Maryland. The other one allows people with a record of certain misdemeanors, after three years without an additional offense, to “shield” their record (hide it from the public, not from law enforcement), allowing them to gain employment, find a place to live, and thereby to support their families and become tax-paying contributors to society.
Other work in progress
The Working Group is working to promote attendance and otherwise support the White Privilege Conference in Philadelphia in the spring of 2016. Friends General Conference is hosting the conference.
The Working Group is also exploring ways to facilitate the involvement of Friends who do not live in the Baltimore and Washington areas in its activities.
The mission statement is being revised—primarily to include addressing some racial issues in the larger society (such as mass incarceration).
As part of the BYM visioning process, the Working Group is exploring with the Yearly Meeting whether it is prepared to make a commitment to becoming more racially, economically and ethnically inclusive than it currently is.
In recent years the Baltimore area Friends Meetings conducted a silent vigil on the Saturday before the Martin Luther King national holiday across from the commemoration of Lee and Jackson by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The BYM Working Group joined them in January 2015 and provided additional support to the vigil. The increased Quaker involvement together with the involvement of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP appears to have led to more media coverage than in the past. The Working Group intends to continue its vigil to urge the Sons of Confederate Veterans to hold their observance on a date other than the weekend of the Martin Luther King national holiday.
Plans for the 2015 BYM Annual Session
The Working Group is conducting two workshops for 2015 Annual Sessions. Tila Neguse of FCNL, Bob Rhudy of Patapsco Friends Meeting, and Phil Caroom of Annapolis Friends Meeting will be leading a workshop about what is happening around mass incarceration and prison reform in the District of Columbia and each state where there are BYM Monthly Meetings. David Etheridge of Friends Meeting of Washington will lead a workshop entitled “Living into Right Relationship in our Multiracial Society” exploring resources available to Friends who wish to address individual, institutional or structural racism. The Working Group also played a role in arranging for two other workshops. One is a workshop on the Prison Ministry of Patapsco Friends Meeting by Jean Pfefferkorn, Bob and Becca Rhudy, and Susannah and Jim Rose. The other is about the Underground Railroad presented by Jenny Mazur of the National Park Service.
Within the Working Group on Racism
The Working Group’s monthly meetings always make time for Friends to share their experiences with respect to race since the last meeting and to share books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to the attention of individual Working Group members. In addition to those who regularly attend our meetings, there are about twenty Friends who do not attend, but stay informed of our activities through an email list that spares them many of our more logistics-oriented emails.
Communications within BYM
Our Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. We meet once or twice a year with the Committee to keep it updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel. That committee has designated a liaison who has attended some of the Working Group's meetings.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination.
Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. Friends Meeting of Washington has begun a four-year discussion group using the book, Waking up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving.
Communications beyond BYM
Working Group members maintain contact with Friends in New England, New York, Philadelphia, South Central and Intermountain Yearly Meetings who are involved in racial justice work as well as with individual Friends around the country involved in that work.
2014 Annual Report
The 2013 BYM Annual Sessions
The Working Group on Racism conducted the Wednesday Plenary at the 2013 BYM Annual Sessions. Teenagers and adults at the annual sessions, led by Elizabeth DuVerlie and Gail Thomas, explored their experiences with privilege, exclusion and inclusion primarily with respect to race, gender, class, age and sexual identity. The inspiration for that plenary session came from a plenary session on privilege held a few years earlier at Northern Yearly Meeting.
The Working Group also arranged for a simultaneous separate session for elementary school age children and their parents led by Marcy Seitel and Meg Meyer entitled “That’s Not Fair.” Participants experienced what it is like to have unequal classroom resources available to different children and discussed those inequalities and what they might do to address them. That source for that activity was Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Working Group on Racism also sponsored two workshops at the 2013 Annual Session. Pat Schenck and Rosemary Davis led the first workshop entitled, “Coming to Terms with Race and Ethnicity.” A panel of white Friends and Friends of color addressed several questions related to their own experiences including whether race has been a constant concern or a minor factor in their lives and how race has affected them. Ollie Moles and David Etheridge led a second workshop in which participants viewed and discussed the World Trust DVD, “Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity.” The workshop provided a foundation for understanding the existing system of race in the U.S. and for addressing the barrier to creating communities with equitable and sustainable access to resources for all.
Also during annual sessions the Working Group invited Monthly Meetings to participate in a “One Book” program by inviting Friends and neighbors to read and discuss The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. That book describes how the campaign known as the “War on Drugs” resulted in dramatically expanding the U.S. prison population as well as incarceration rates among African-Americans and Hispanics that dwarf the rate of incarceration among white people even though studies show that people of all races use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates.
Other work in progress
The Working Group continues to keep abreast of developments at Detroit Friends School, the only Quaker school with a majority African-American student body. It also continues to work on improving its BYM website, reducing barriers to involvement of Friends under the age of 60 in its work and discerning how t0 respond to participants who seem to make that work more difficult. This past year we learned about how changing policies of the U.S. Census affect, and are affected by, perceptions of race in the U.S. We took time at several meetings of the Working Group to discuss The New Jim Crow among ourselves. The Working Group is also exploring how Baltimore Yearly Meeting might work with Friends General Conference when that organization hosts the annual White Privilege Conference in Philadelphia in 2016.
Plans for the 2014 BYM Annual Sessions
The Working Group is planning two workshops for 2014 Annual Sessions. One is to be led by Tory Johnson from the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) that will focus on current FCNL work to end mass incarceration. For the second workshop members of the Working Group will facilitate a discussion among Friends about how the One Book program on The New Jim Crow has gone this past year and what steps Friends may be led to take to address the issues raised in that book.
Within the Working Group on Racism
The Working Group’s monthly meetings always begin with Friends’ sharing their experiences with respect to race since the last meeting followed by sharing books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to the attention of individual Working Group members. In addition to those who regularly attend our meetings, there are about twenty Friends who do not attend, but stay informed of our activities through an email list that spares them many of our more logistics-oriented emails.
Communications within BYM
Our Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. We meet once or twice a year with the Committee to keep it updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel. That committee has designated a liaison who has attended some of the Working Group's meetings.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination.
Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. The Baltimore area Friends Meetings conducted a silent vigil on the Saturday before the Martin Luther King national holiday across from the commemoration of Lee and Jackson by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Our Working Group has decided to hold its January meeting at Stony Run in 2015 so we can provide additional support to the vigil.
Members of the Working Group traveled to Williamsburg and Richmond Monthly Meetings, Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting and the Maryland Peace and Justice Conference to conduct presentations on race issues.
Communications beyond BYM
Working Group members maintain contact with Friends in New England, New York, Philadelphia, South Central and Intermountain Yearly Meetings who are involved in racial justice work as well as with individual Friends around the country involved in that work.
2013 Annual Report
The 2012 BYM Annual Sessions
The Working Group on Racism presented three workshops at the 2012 Annual Session. One focused on the life of Gordon Hirabayashi, a long-time member of University Friends Meeting of Seattle, who went to prison for refusing to obey an internment order during the Second World War. A second was based on Working Group member Pat Schenck’s recent Pendle Hill Pamphlet entitled Living our Testimony on Equality: A White Friend’s Experience.
A third workshop was entitled “What Is This Thing Called Privilege? And What Do We Do With It?” Participants helped the Working Group test ideas for a plenary session being designed for the 2013 Annual Sessions. Over the past year this workshop was also conducted at Stony Run and Bethesda Monthly Meetings and at Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting.
Plans for the 2013 BYM Annual Sessions
For 2013 Annual Session we will lead the Wednesday afternoon multigenerational (JYFs and older) plenary exploring the concept of privilege. While the plenary is under way Marcy Seitel and Meg Meyer will be leading a program called, “That’s Not Fair!” based on materials prepared by the Teaching Tolerance program of the Southern Poverty Law Center for elementary school children and their parents. We anticipate having both an interest group and a conversation table in the quieter part of the dining hall for Friends who wish to have further conversation concerning privilege.
The Working Group is also planning to offer two workshops at Annual Session. On Thursday Rosemary Davis and Pat Schenck will lead one called “Coming to terms with race and ethnicity,” which will feature a panel of Friends from diverse background discussing their life experiences with race and ethnicity. On Saturday Friends will have the opportunity to view and discuss the DVD, Cracking the Codes, to help them understand the existing system of race in the U.S. and provide a foundation for addressing barriers to creating communities with equitable and sustainable access to resources for all.
Other work in progress
The Working Group wrote to Friends who attended the FGC Gathering for Friends of Color last fall about an effort to develop a nationwide network of Quaker supporters for Friends School in Detroit similar to the one that exists for Friends School in Ramallah. Detroit Friends School is the only Quaker school with a majority African-American student body.
We are also working on plans to encourage Friends to read and discuss The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander over a period of a year. We continue to work on improving our BYM website and on reducing barriers to involvement of Friends under the age of 60 in our work. We are also exploring using queries as way to address issues of race.
Within the Working Group on Racism
The Working Group’s monthly meetings always begin with Friends’ sharing their experiences with respect to race since the last meeting followed by sharing books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to the attention of individual Working Group members. Most months one member of the group shares with the group her or his spiritual journey with respect to racial justice. In addition to those who regularly attend our meetings, there are about twenty Friends who do not attend, but keep informed of our activities through an email list that spares them many of our more logistics-oriented emails.
Communications within BYM
Our Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. We meet once or twice a year with the Committee to keep the Committee updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel. That committee has designated a liaison who has attended some of the Working Group's meetings.
The Working Group assisted the Faith and Practice Revision Committee in revising the history portion of the proposed new Faith and Practice addressing BYM Quakers and enslavement based on research by the Working Group on Racism and other BYM Friends.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination. Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. Several Monthly Meetings have been quite active this past year. Patapsco Friends Meeting conducted a discussion series on Fit for Freedom, not for Friendship by Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel. The Baltimore area Friends Meetings conducted a silent vigil on the Saturday before the Martin Luther King national holiday across from the commemoration of Lee and Jackson by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Langley Hill Friends hosted a brunch discussion of The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter.
Members of the Working Group offer to travel to local Meetings to conduct presentations on race issues, but very few such visits actually occur.
Communications beyond BYM
BYM Working Group members maintain contact with Friends in New England, New York, Philadelphia and Intermountain Yearly Meetings who are involved in racial justice work as well as with individual Friends around the country involved in that work. This past year we also wrote to the Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund expressing concern and solidarity after recent attacks on Sikhs in northern Virginia.
2012 Annual Report
The 2011 BYM Annual Session
After having organized three plenary sessions and conducting three workshops and a program for Young Friends at the 2010 Annual Sessions, the Working Group on Racism had a reduced presence at the 2011 Annual Sessions. David Etheridge and Sabrina McCarthy gave for a second time their presentation on the Quaker Response to Enslavement in BYM Territory. The 2011 presentation was notable for the contribution by workshop participants of new information on the topic not previously known to the presenters. At an interest group the DVD Teens Talk Racial Privilege, which Young Friends saw the previous year, was screened for adults to consider whether it might be appropriate for use in their Meetings and schools. The Working Group also had tables with books on issues of race for all age groups at the All Age Celebration.
Visit to the Sandy Spring Slave Museum
Working Group member Ellen Cronin took the lead on organizing a visit to the Sandy Spring on November 19, 2011 Slave Museum and inviting Friends from throughout the Yearly Meeting attend. The initial plan was to limit the number of visitors to 60, but the museum docent accommodated more than 70 Friends who showed up by giving her presentation twice. The variety of visuals helped all generations readily get a sense of the real history of African Americans in this country and in the Sandy Spring area. In addition to addressing enslavement, the museum also celebrates the progress and accomplishments of African Americans. Friends were touched by the story of the formation and founding of the Museum, how it attracted community support, and how people are invited to continue sharing their history.
Within the Working Group on Racism
The Working Groups monthly meetings always begin with Friends’ sharing their experiences with respect to race since the last meeting followed by sharing books, articles, films and presentations on the topic of race that have come to attention of individual Working Group members. Each month one member of the group shares with the group her or his spiritual journey with respect to racial justice. There are nine Friends who regularly attend our meetings and twice that number who do not attend, but have asked to be kept informed of our activities (while sparing them many of our more logistics-oriented correspondence). At the end of 2011 Working Group members expressed their appreciation for the five and a half years that Elizabeth DuVerlie has clerked the Working Group. David Etheridge became clerk in January 2012.
Communications within BYM
The Working Group is under the care of the BYM Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. Members of our Working Group meet once or twice a year with the Committee to keep the Committee updated on our activities and concerns and to seek counsel. At the 2011 Annual Sessions the Working Group met with the Committee to share our plans for the near future, our interest in assessing what impact our work is having, and our interest involving younger Friends in our work (our meetings are rarely attended by anyone less than 60 years of age). We shared with the Committee our interest in lowering the barriers to participation by people of color in the activities of BYM Friends (while noting progress in that area in the camping programs), encouraging Monthly Meetings to do locally based anti-racism work and helping Friends be more comfortable in addressing racial issues. The Committee encouraged the Working Group to set a limited number of priorities for the next few years in order to make it easier to track outcomes.
The Working Group has been assisting the Faith and Practice Revision Committee revise the history portion on BYM Quakers and enslavement based on research by the Working Group on Racism and other BYM Friends.
The Working Group maintains a list of Monthly Meeting liaisons who receive a monthly item for their newsletters or other means of dissemination. Active Monthly Meeting Working Groups on Racism exist at Langley Hill Friends Meeting, Baltimore area Friends Meetings (Stony Run, Homewood and Gunpowder) and Annapolis. The Working Group has kept apprised of some local Monthly Meeting issues involving race such as efforts to preserve the site of an African-American and a Quaker cemetery in Washington, DC and the annual celebration of Confederate War Heroes on Martin Luther King Day at a park near Baltimore Friends Meeting (Homewood). Working Group members offer to travel to local Meetings to conduct presentations on race issues, but very few such visits actually occur.
Communications beyond BYM
Members of the Working Group maintain contact with Friends in New England, New York, Philadelphia and Intermountain Yearly Meetings who are involved in racial justice work as well as with individual Friends around the country involved in that work.
Plans for the near future
For 2012 Annual Sessions we are planning two workshops on the Annual Sessions theme, of Spirit Led Social Action. One will focus on the life of Gordon Hirabayashi, a long-time member of University Friends Meeting of Seattle, who went to prison for refusing to obey an internment order during the Second World War. The other will based on Working Group member Pat Schenck’s recent Pendle Hill Pamphlet entitled Living our Testimony on Equality: A White Friend’s Experience. In a third workshop entitled What Is This Thing Called “Privilege”? And What Do We Do With It? Participants will help the Working Group test ideas for a plenary session being designed for the 2013 Annual Sessions.
The Working Group also plans to explore with Yearly Meeting staff how best to use the newly renovated BYM website to promote BYM Quaker discussions and discernment on racial issues as well involvement of the wider Quaker community through the existing Quakers and race dialogs on Facebook.com and QuakerQuaker.org.
2011 Annual Report
The 2010 BYM Annual Gathering. The 2010 gathering in Frostburg was a rewarding experience for the Working Group on Racism (WGR). The overall theme, Leading for Today; Lessons from History, reflected the work of, and suggestions from, the WGR, which had proposed the three main speakers. Tuesday evening’s talk was by Maurice Jackson, author of Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism. He described his motivations for choosing to research Benezet’s contributions and how Benezet’s work influences us today. The Wednesday afternoon plenary was led by Amanda Kemp, Quaker, playwright, theater troupe founder (Theatre for Transformation: Black History on Stage), and advocate for racial justice and equity. Her troupe performed Sister Friend, about enslaved (and later freed) poet Phillis Wheatley’s correspondence with an enslaved woman in Virginia; the troupe then led a riveting, hour-long Q&A. The WGR was pleased that we were able to sponsor this event, by raising the funds from within our ranks. This was an all-age gathering, with Young Friends participating in the Q&A. The Carey Memorial lecturer was New England Yearly Meeting Friend Betsy Cazden, speaking on “The Uses and Misuses of History,” especially as related to Quaker history with African-Americans.
Following up on the positive response to an activity at the dining hall entrance in 2009 (a quiz based on the book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship), we organized another activity this year. We invited Friends to “Ask a question about race that you have not had a chance to ask before, or to which you have not had a good answer.” Over 50 questions were placed in the box provided, and they were shared and discussed at an Interest Group on Friday. They are also available on the WGR blog at racism.bym-rsf.net>.
We had a rich shared meeting on the library porch with the Committee on Ministry and Pastoral Care, under whose care we serve. Just as we were concluding the joint session so each group could also pursue its own agenda, a double rainbow appeared. It lasted a long time. It took our breath away.
As in past years, we offered workshops at BYM. Jean-Marie Prestwidge Barch led Talking about Race, Age and Class, Elizabeth DuVerlie and Gail Thomas led Children Can Discriminate – This Can Be a Good Thing, and David Etheridge presented the results of his research with the workshop BYM Response to Slavery. David Etheridge also facilitated a discussion of the new video Teen Voices on White Privilege with Young Friends.
Within the Working Group on Racism. An ongoing part of our work is to support one another‘s growth in recognizing racism in our daily experience and in responding responsibly to it. At each of our meetings (monthly except December, July and August), we spend time on this personal sharing.
Communications within BYM. We have maintained our list of monthly meeting liaisons, and expanded it, to 49 contact persons, covering almost all Meetings, worship groups, and preparative and indulged Meetings within BYM. We send to these contacts, via email, a monthly item for their newsletters or for other means of dissemination. The purpose for doing this is to keep concerns about issues of race, racism and racial justice in the consciousness of all Friends, not just those who already feel committed to acting on these issues. In addition to the regular monthly items, we are instituting, starting in May 2011, occasional queries, so Friends who cannot attend our regular meetings or our special events can participate with each other and with us in reflecting on and responding to these issues.
With the able assistance of Jim Rose, the BYM webmaster, we established a website, (racism.bym-rsf.net), which also functions as a blog. Anyone can read it, while those who register (by emailing webmanager@bym-rsf.net) can submit comments. All monthly newsletter items now appear there, as well as many other documents of interest, and links to other Yearly Meetings’ working group or working parties dealing with racism and racial justice.
Young Friends has expressed interest in some collaboration with our Working Group. To date, that collaboration has been via the film showing and discussion in August. We hope for further collaboration with Young Friends.
Communications beyond BYM. The members of the WGR maintain regular contact with Friends in New England, New York and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings, where there are also organized groups working on racial justice. In addition, we maintain contact with Atlanta Monthly Meeting and Intermountain Yearly Meeting, and other individuals we have identified nationwide. We learn about each other’s activities. We share with the readers of this year’s report these sentences from NYYM’s Task Group on Racism: Racism is a difficult issue and it is easy to look the other way when it is not staring us in the face. Our task is to remind Friends that it is staring us in the face if we open our eyes.
International. MaryHelen (Mel) Snyder and Barbara (Babs) Williams, of Langley Hill Meeting’s working group on racism attended the Friends Women’s International Triennial Conference in Mombasa, Kenya during the summer of 2010, along with six other women from BYM. Mel and Babs followed this remarkable conference with a week of teaching at Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya.
We welcomed Friends Adrian Bishop, Paul Didisheim and Ellen Cronin to our group this year.
Active members: Adrian Bishop, Ellen Cronin, Jane Meleney Coe, Elizabeth DuVerlie, Paul Didisheim, David Etheridge, Carol Phelps, Pat Schenck, Maryhelen Snyder, Gail Thomas
Corresponding members (= were not able to attend meetings): Jean-Marie Prestwidge Barch, Rosalie Dance, Jeanne Houghton, Elizabeth Smith, Sharon Smith.
Elizabeth DuVerlie, (Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Stony Run), Clerk
