Summary
Workshop Number: P-52
Leaders: Judy Hinds
Who May Register?: Intergenerational (50% high school and young adults, 50% older)
Worship/Worship-Sharing: 10%
Lecture: 10%
Discussion: 60%
Experiential Activities: 20%
Who May Attend?
only full time attenders (participants should attend all week)
We will bring to life the unflinching Delaware Quaker abolitionist, Warner Mifflin (1745-1798). We will put together a life-size silhouette – on wheels. He was nearly 7 ft tall & traveled thousands of miles to persuade Friends and others to manumit their enslaved people. Our week will unfold in a series of scenes: We will…
Workshop Description
We will bring to life the unflinching Delaware Quaker abolitionist, Warner Mifflin (1745-1798). We will put together a life-size silhouette – on wheels. He was nearly 7 ft tall & traveled thousands of miles to persuade Friends and others to manumit their enslaved people.
Our week will unfold in a series of scenes: We will pause often to reflect on connections between Mifflin’s life and witness and some of the intransigent, systemic issues in the world today and some of the many ways Quakers are responding to them.
1. Setting the stage: situating Warner Mifflin in time and space by creating timelines and maps; Mifflin’s early life, Quaker foundation, and convincement of the evil of slavery; we will practice “elevator pitches” in telling his story
2. Warner Mifflin’s expanding Quaker network & witness: as peace envoy between British & Patriot during the Revolutionary War; exploration of the range of Quaker positions during the War
3. Mifflin’s several journeys during and after the War: through New York and New England, including Nantucket; to Richmond VA to lobby for the right of individuals to free their enslave people; and to the first Continental Congress in New York to oppose participation in the slave trade
4. Mifflin’s interest in the transatlantic abolition movement and how this relates to his second marriage – to Ann Emlen – which we will recreate.
5. Envisioning and recreating a Memorial Service for Warner Mifflin – with tributes from those who knew him then & know him today; Warner Mifflin as a bridge between earlier 17th & 18th Quaker abolitionists and the emancipationists of the 19th century.
Leader Experience
Judy Hinds uses imagination, simple props, journals, and letters to tell story-plays about historical figures. An educator and museum docent, she belonged to the NJ Storytelling Guild for many years. She grew up in Montclair (NJ) Meeting, and is the current clerk of Kendal Monthly Meeting in Kennett Square, PA.