Fit for Freedom Co-Authors Speaking - VOICES: Audacious Freedom Community Conversation Series

Date: Jan 16, 2010 - Jan 01, 1970

Location: 2pm at 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102

In their book, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel challenge common misconceptions surrounding Quaker roles in aiding fugitive slaves, promoting abolitionism, and supporting the campaign for civil rights. Their work reveals that racism has been as insidious, complex, and pervasive among Friends as it has been generally among people of European descent. The Quaker co-authors, one an African American and one of European descent, will share what they have learned from their research to foster a dialogue about racial inequality and white privilege in the modern-day Religious Society of Friends as well as in the wider community.

This Community Conversation Series of public dialogues about slavery/freedom/race is hosted in collaboration with local organizations and institutions. These conversations/dialogues propose to question the issue of race and freedom in early Philadelphia and explore how it impacted the free black and enslaved communities in the 18th & 19th centuries. VOICES is intended to connect a broad public to the Audacious Freedom exhibition and to provide a platform for everyday people to talk about the struggle for freedom, give voice to issues that affected the African American community, especially those which continue to impact their lives today.
Supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, this series of community conversations about slavery/freedom/race is hosted in collaboration with local organizations and institutions and the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.