Many of you know by now that I have written a novel called A Peculiar Legacy. It is available at QuakerBooks, which I hope you are already in the habit of supporting.

Part of the novel depicts a fictionalized version of Jennie Mustapha, a very real, and very fascinating Black Quaker woman. She spent over 40 years in service to youth as a teacher and administrator in the District of Columbia Public Schools. She is notable for being reprimanded—twice—for inviting Pearl S. Buck to be a commencement speaker. Buck had been blacklisted by the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities for her so-called communist sympathies but was more likely on the list for her stance against school segregation. Miss Mustapha had a vibrant volunteer life, from her early years as a suffragist and advocate for economic and racial justice, and her later years as a board member for the Sidwell Friends School and committee membership in Friends Meeting of Washington.

I came across Jennie Mustapha’s name twice: once when browsing memorial minutes of Friends Meeting of Washington members, and again when reading the history book of the Washington, DC Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The Deltas had mentioned her Quaker affiliation, but the memorial minute was silent on her Delta affiliation. As a member of a Black fraternity, I found that to be an interesting decision that made me somewhat uncomfortable. Why had this been omitted, but other parts preserved? I then began to consider what Quakers—particularly white Quakers—even knew about Black fraternal memberships in the first place. Do we know that Bayard Rustin was an Omega Man? Do we know that Mahala Ashley Dickerson was a charter member of an Alpha Kappa Alpha chapter, the same sorority as former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris?

The question “What else has been overlooked by white Quakers?” was the establishing question of A Peculiar Legacy.

Now that the book has been written and published, I am clearer that there is peculiar invisibility about Black Joy. We, as a community, perhaps regardless of race, walk by the ways, the faiths, and the practices of Black folks and of other folks who don’t look like us, pray like us, or walk like us.

With that in mind, I want to share with you Black Joy as I see it, in a curated list. Save this email, and when you have time, see what joy looks like outside of your bubble:

In Friendship,

Rashid Darden

Associate Secretary for Communications and Outreach