From the Bookstore
By MARGARET HOPE-BACON
It's 1837, and fourteen-year-old Quaker Myra Harlan's mother has died, forcing her to leave her home and family in the country to live in Philadelphia. Shocked by the racism she sees all around her and caught in the aftermath of the Orthodox-Hicksite split in the Religious Society of Friends, Myra longs for her mother and struggles to make friends until she finds the Female Anti-Slavery Society, Lucretia Mott, Sarah Douglass, and - ultimately - herself.
Black Hands, White Sails - The Story Of African-american Whalers
By PATRICIA & FREDERICK MCKISSACK
"The introduction links together slavery and whaling as "part of the growth and development of the American economy," and the book shows the important role of the whalers in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. Incisive accounts are given of significant African Americans in this industry; seafaring women are not ignored; and life aboard a whaling ship is thoroughly documented." - Horn Book. Captain Paul Cuffe is profiled, as are the Nantucket Quaker whalers and the Quaker involvement in abolition.
But One Race - The Life Of Robert Purvis
By MARGARET HOPE BACON
Born in South Carolina to a wealthy white father and mixed race mother, Robert Purvis (1810-1898) was one of the nineteenth century's leading black abolitionists and orators. Margaret Hope Bacon uses his eloquent and often fierce speeches to provide a glimpse into the life of a passionate and distinguished man, intimately involved with a wide range of major reform movements, including abolition, civil rights, Underground Railroad activism, women's rights, Irish Home Rule, Native American rights, and prison reform.
Slavery And The Meetinghouse - The Quakers And The Abolitionist Dilemma, 1820-1865
By RYAN P. JORDAN
This study explores the limits of religious dissent in antebellum America, and reminds us of the difficulties facing reformers who tried peacefully to end slavery. In the years before the Civil War, the Society of Friends opposed the abolitionist campaign for an immediate end to slavery and considered abolitionists within the church as heterodox radicals seeking to destroy civil and religious liberty. In response, many Quaker abolitionists began to build "comeouter" institutions where social and legal inequalities could be freely discussed, and where church members could fuse religious worship with social activism.
The Seed Cracked Open: Growing Beyond Racism
By Vanessa Julye
In this keynote address for the July 2005 New York Yearly Meeting annual sessions, Vanessa Julye addresses the reality of racism within the Religious Society of Friends. Stories from generations of her family, and the experiences of other Black Friends across time, make vivid the sense of isolation and barriers people of color face in the white, middle-class Friends culture. Vanessa Julye goes beyond critique, however, to present significant questions and additional resources as a ministry to heal and to empower Friends to "move further along the spectrum of racism."
Sarah Mapps Douglass, Faithful Attender of Quaker Meeting: View from the Back Bench
By Margaret Hope Bacon
Understanding the past is often key to changing the present. After 165 years the legacy of Sarah Mapps Douglass, African American scholar, educator, abolitionist, artist and faithful attender of Quaker meeting has much to say to Friends in the 21st century, especially those concerned with racism and the lack of racial diversity within the Religious Society of Friends. In the foreword Vanessa Julye places the lessons from Sarah Mapps Douglass' life in a vivid and painful contemporary context. In the biography that follows Margaret Hope Bacon explores Sarah's life.
Back to Africa: Benjamin Coates and the Colonization Movement in America, 1848-1880
Margaret Hope Bacon and Emma Lapsansky, eds.
Benjamin Coates was one of the best-known white supporters of African colonization in 19th century America. A Quaker from Philadelphia, he was committed to helping Black Americans relocate to West Africa. At the heart of the volume is a collection of over 150 recently recovered letters, either written by Coates or addressed to him between 1848 and 1880. Lapsansky and Bacon have provided a far-reaching essay that places them in the context. They led a team of young scholars who annotated the letters. This book provide new insight into the alliances and divisions within the antislavery movement, making it essential reading for every student of black studies or Quaker history.
Lifting the White Veil: An Exploration of White American Culture in a Multiracial Context
By Jeff Hitchcock
This is an enlightening, and often revelatory work. The main focus is on the development and current characteristics of the white subculture in the United States. Hitchcock is white, married to a black woman, and worked many years in the field of diversity training and racial reconciliation. He gives white Americans the information they need to start to move beyond ingrained beliefs toward a clearer and more accurate understanding of our society and relations with other races. For those of us who would like to face and overcome the racial exclusiveness incorporated in our culture and traditions this book provides inspiration and tools to move that work forward.
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
By Carole Boston Weatherford (Caldecott Honor Book)
Weatherford's poetic narrative and Kadir Nelson's magnificent paintings bear witness to an ecstatic event -- the Spirit of God communing with the flesh-and-blood of true humanity. "In this gorgeous, poetic picture book, Weatherford depicts Harriet Tubman's initial escape from slavery and her mission to lead others to freedom as divinely inspired, and achieved by steadfast faith and prayer. The author frames the text as an ongoing dialogue between Tubman and God, inserting narration to move the action along. On the eve of her being sold and torn from her family, Tubman prays in her despair. In response, God speaks in a whip-poor-will's song."-Publishers Weekly
