In celebration of her retirement and the legacy of her transformative work, Friends recently created the Vanessa Julye Fund to support FGC’s Ministry on Racism (MoR). Donate today!

Vanessa’s 30 years of service to FGC started with volunteering and culminated with her role as Associate Secretary for Organizational Cultural Transformation. A faithful advocate for deep spiritual transformation within FGC, she worked with key volunteers to lead the recent governance restructure.

As a writer and researcher, she is widely known for her book, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice. She also helped create FGC’s Ministry on Racism, which hosts online and hybrid retreats and worship opportunities for Friends of Color. These programs offer joyful fellowship, deeply spiritual worship sharing, and opportunities for healing. For many Friends, this support is critical to remain active in their local and broader Quaker community.

Vanessa is thoroughly enjoying her retirement in Hawaii, where she relocated with her husband and mother last year. Read Vanessa’s Minute of Appreciation below.

Minute of Appreciation for Vanessa Julye

24^th October, 2025

Today we express our enormous gratitude for Vanessa Julye’s many years of service to FGC and her ongoing impact among Friends, especially Friends of Color. We recognize Vanessa as a leader, an advocate, a changemaker, a visionary, and a friend. We are grateful for her faithfulness in doing hard work and inviting others to walk with her along a path to justice. We feel seen and held in her presence, as individuals and as members of the body of Friends.

Vanessa began her work with FGC in 1994 as a volunteer and convened FGC’s ad hoc committee on racial diversity in 1997 before serving on the standing Ministry on Racism Committee, which was established in 2000. She started as FGC’s part-time Ministry on Racism Coordinator in 2005, working both full- and part-time for many years, and finally moving into the role of Associate Secretary for Organizational Cultural Transformation. She has built and nurtured FGC’s Ministry on Racism through many iterations over the last 25 years and welcomed many Friends into the work of uprooting racism in FGC and beyond. Vanessa has led workshops, planned retreats, and helped committees complete many varied tasks, and the material impact of her work can be seen throughout FGC’s programs and governance, as well as in her invaluable 2009 book, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice and other publications. But she has also formed deep human connections through travel among Friends, bringing her soft voice, unwavering witness, and wonderful laugh all over the Quaker world.

Friends of Color have found Vanessa to be a faithful, courageous, and deeply compassionate leader and collaborator. Vanessa has nurtured leadings and gifts among Friends of Color and held FGC accountable for meeting the needs of those who have often been ignored and neglected in the status quo. At every step of the way, she has shown that the paths of healing and justice are fundamentally intertwined. She has been an anchor for Friends of Color finding their own ministry, and modeled authenticity, integrity, and humility in all of her work, forming connections and community that will endure far beyond her time at FGC.

White Friends recognize Vanessa as a mentor and a model who invites everyone to find their work and keep moving toward a better Quaker community and a better world. She is profoundly skilled at calling in Friends as they become aware of white supremacy culture and their part in it. White Friends value Vanessa’s friendship and her willingness to continue engaging, lifting up work that white Friends need to do themselves, and fostering truth and trust between white Friends  and Friends of Color.

We know that Vanessa will continue to follow faithfully where Spirit leads her, listen and uplift others, and bring her whole self to new places in retirement, lovingly accompanied as always by husband Barry Scott. We have been blessed to walk with her during her time at FGC, and we are joyful for those who have yet to meet her in her future travels. We wish her rest and rejuvenation, and we know that we are privileged to love and be loved by her. 

Thank you and aloha, Vanessa Julye!

From the volunteers and staff of Friends General Conference

Your gift to the Vanessa Julye Fund supports the Ministry on Racism. Donate today!