Members and attenders of Baltimore Yearly Meeting are cordially invited to join The Religious Freedom Center online for the second in a five-part series on Faith, Freedom in Action in Troubled Times. This program will lift up and honor the work of people of deep religious faith who have stepped forward and taken risks to help others in times of pandemics in American history. The topics below will be featured in the May 20 one-hour program, beginning at 1:00pm. Please register at http://tiny.cc/bbpyoz.
• The Wonderful Work of Indiana Quakers in Union Encampments of Arkansas During the Smallpox Epidemic of the Civil War. Enslaved families fled Arkansas plantations during the Civil War, seeking refuge in Union Army encampments, where they were protected from fugitive slave hunters. While in camps in Helena, Arkansas, many former slaves (as well as soldiers) fell victim to smallpox. Quaker missionaries from Indiana came to the camp to establish an orphanage asylum.
• The Selfless Service of Rev. John Misao Yamazaki as Flu Spread Across at St. Mary’s Japanese Mission in Los Angeles in 1918. Rev. Yamazaki cared for the spiritual well-being of a congregation of Japanese immigrants in Los Angeles when the 1918 influenza pandemic hit that community. He was forced to close the doors of the Japanese mission when quarantine orders went into effect. But he continued to make home visits to his congregants, as well as neighbors in need who had never been to the church.