The Friends' Freedmen Committee of the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends established an asylum for lost and abandoned children at Helena, Arkansas. It was one of the first private institutions in the South dedicated to educating African Americans. Five years later the curriculum was expanded and the school became Southland College.

hat began as a modest project to update the book Black Quakers: Brief Biographies has rather quickly evolved into a full treatment of the relationship of Quakers and African Americans in North America from pre-colonial times to the present. Given this more comprehensive treatment and to the abundance of material uncovered so far, this project will be a multi-volume, multi-year effort.

Our research reveals surprising, perhaps to some shocking, levels of ambivalence and ambiguity in Friends' relationships with African Americans throughout our history. We believe Friends today will see their own thoughts and struggles reflected in those who have preceded us. The book will reach for the truth about Friends who, even as they strongly advocated for the freedom of enslaved African Americans and education, were reluctant to invite African Americans into membership in their own Society. "They will give us good advice," wrote Samuel Ringgold Ward, a noted African American abolitionist who escaped slavery on the Underground Railroad. "They will aid in giving us a partial education-but never in a Quaker school, beside their own children. Whatever they do for us savors of pity, and is done at arm's length."

Drawn primarily from the wealth of resources available in the work of Quaker historians and others, the book will trace the complex relationship between Friends and African Americans from the days of William Penn as a slaveholder and John Woolman as the gentle manumission advocate, Grace Mapps and Sarah Mapps Douglass' challenge to be seen as equals within the Religious Society of Friends through the struggles of Barrington Dunbar to the present-day. It will tell of Quakers committed to the often-dangerous work of freeing and educating slaves, of the ambivalence surrounding their abolitionist activities, and of both their participation and hesitancy to participate in the racial ferment of the 20th century and the hard work Friends of African descent have undergone to become and remain members of the Religious Society of Friends. The intention is to offer Friends who struggle with the concern about our lack of racial and ethnic diversity some insight into how it is to be an African American who visits, becomes acquainted with, and eventually applies for membership in a Friends meeting.

All of us involved in this project believe that telling the story of our past and listening to the voices of African American Friends in the present will open the way for a more diverse Religious Society of Friends that will be a testimony to our belief of that of God in every one.

Racial Justice in the 20th Century Authors Seek Information on Friends Activities For our work on the relationships between Quakers and African Americans over the years, we are especially interested in learning about what individual Friends and monthly, quarterly, or yearly meetings were doing in the areas of civil rights, fair housing, equal employment opportunity, and any related endeavor for racial justice in the 20th century. The research for the work, to be published by Quaker Press of FGC, is under the care of FGC's Committee for Ministry on Racism, Religious Education and Publications Committees. Much has been written of Friends' work in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, but, other than a few publications and the archives of AFSC, FCNL and FWCC, little has been written about the witness of Friends in the 20th century. We hope Friends and others who worked with Friends' organizations can help us fill in the blanks. One of the most interesting questions is why Friends' activities in Civil Rights declined markedly in the 1970s. Please share any memories, names of activists, and any thoughts about that question. Send information to: Quaker Press of FGC, 1216 Arch Street, 2B, Philadelphia, PA 19107; E-mail: barbarah@fgcquaker.org

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