Celebrating Quaker Descendant’s Legacy and his Impact on our Life Today

By Nathan Shroyer for South Jersey Quakers in collaboration with The BlackQuaker Project

On this day, April 9th, 2026, we mark the 128th birthday alongside Dr. Harold Weaver (of the Black Quaker Project) of a great South Jersey personage in Paul Robeson (1898–1976)—a man whose voice shook concert halls, whose presence commanded the theatrical stage, and whose conscience challenged empire. While Robeson is often remembered as an athlete, actor, and activist, we in SJQ and Religious Society of Friends hold a special connection to his legacy. He was not only a kindred spirit but a direct descendant of Quaker Black heritage, spanning 250+ years of history in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Thanks to a lifelong advocacy of Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr. —convinced Friend, scholar, and founder of the BlackQuaker Project—we have a roadmap to justice, reparations and the proper gifts for how we might use Dr Weavers journey to help reclaim Robeson’s rightful place in history. In recognition of Robeson’s birthday, the BlackQuaker Project has released a personal statement from Dr. Weaver reflecting on Robeson’s “extraordinary achievements, humanism, and self-sacrifice,” as well as the “razing of his career during the cultural stranglehold of McCarthyism and the Red Scare.”¹ Today, our role as South Jersey Quakers, is to invite you to explore multigenerational patchworks connecting Meetings to learn from the history and life of a renaissance man.

Quaker Roots of a Human Rights Titan

Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, just a short drive from many of our Meetinghouses in Burlington and Camden Counties. His mother, Maria Louisa Bustill Robeson (1853–1904), was a school teacher.² Dr. Weaver notes that Robeson “was directly descended from over 250 years of Quakers in England and the British colony in North America.”³ This lineage included “the first mayor of Philadelphia, European-American Humphrey Moray, during the rule of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania.”⁴

Dr. Weaver further highlights that Robeson descended from “celebrated educators Grace Bustill Douglass (c. 1782-1842) and her daughter, Sarah Mapps Douglass (1806-1882), who were both relegated to the back bench of their Arch Street Friends meetinghouse in Philadelphia despite their commitment and contributions to Quakerism and to the improvement of health and women’s rights.”⁵

Robeson’s father, Rev. William Drew Robeson, was formerly enslaved. He escaped to freedom and later became the minister of the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton.⁶ Dr. Weaver writes that the crucial advice of his father—”(1) to attain the highest possible, (2) to pursue only worthwhile goals, and (3) to remain loyal to his convictions”—would influence Robeson throughout his life.⁷

Tragically, Robeson’s Quaker mother died in a house fire before young Paul entered primary school. Dr. Weaver observes, “Sadly, he had no memory of her. We can only imagine the impact of her genes and 250 years of direct Quaker ancestry on this incredible overachiever in so many areas of life.”⁸

Robeson’s Remarkable Career and Conscience

At Rutgers University, Robeson compiled what Dr. Weaver calls “a legendary academic and non-academic career, graduating in 1919 as a 2-year Phi Beta Kappa member, class valedictorian, four-letter athlete, 2-year All-American football star, and winner of every university oratorical contest for which he was eligible.”⁹ Prejudice was real. Though a member of the Rutgers Glee Club, “his African heritage prevented his participation in off-campus concerts.”¹⁰

Robeson later became “a world-renowned artist of screen, stage, music, and recordings. He starred in twelve films, performed in concert halls across the globe, and touched the hearts of people around the world with his recordings.”¹¹ Especially notable were “his pioneering stage performance of Othello and his recordings singing ‘Ol’ Man River,’ the lyrics of which he changed significantly as his politics—and the world’s politics—changed.”¹²

Dr. Weaver describes Robeson as “a revolutionary humanist and influential Pan-Africanist” who was “committed to Black liberation and dignity worldwide. At great personal cost, he connected the liberation struggle of Africans, African Americans, and the people of the Caribbean in condemning Western imperialism.”¹³ Among those who called him a friend were “Trinidadian scholar-activist-playwright C.L.R. James, Chilean poet-diplomat Pablo Neruda, and anti-colonial Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere.”¹⁴ He was also internationally “a confidant of USSR political leader Nikita Khrushchev.”¹⁵

McCarthy Era Persecution and Harm

Dr. Weaver is unequivocal about the price Robeson paid for his convictions: “The USA government, economic institutions, cultural czars, and media united to take away his livelihood, to seize his passport for eight years (1950-1958), to institute an industry boycott of his records, and to bar him from concert halls.”¹⁶ He asks, “Is that not totalitarianism, exemplifying the unity and collaboration of the political, economic, and cultural? Robeson was never even allowed to appear on television—a total ‘white-out.'”¹⁷ He faced violence in New York, New England and elsewhere. Unflappable; Robeson never gave up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmOein76VbQ

Dr. Harold Weaver: Multigenerational Black Quaker Advocacy in PYM and New Jersey

Dr. Weaver’s own work bridges a gap from Robeson’s time to our own. Arriving as a professor at Rutgers University in 1970—Robeson’s alma mater—Weaver “found that not a single student in the first class of the introductory course had ever heard of Paul Robeson even though most were African Americans from New Jersey. He felt a mission to correct that.”¹⁸

Key advocacy milestones of Dr. Harold Weaver in New Jersey include:

1. May 1971: Weaver, alongside Pete Seeger, Ossie Davis, and Paul Robeson Jr., “broke the nationwide TV silence on Robeson, appearing as panelists in the Emmy-award-winning, 3-part PBS (then National Education Television) series, New Jersey Speaks: A Tribute to Paul Robeson.”¹⁹
2. 1972: He taught “the first course in the world on Robeson, Black Biography and the Times: Paul Robeson,” for which he produced and narrated the educational short film, “Paul Robeson: Identity, Political Economy, and Communications.”²⁰
3. April 1973: To celebrate Robeson’s 75th birthday, Weaver organized “the first USA Paul Robeson Symposium and Film Festival, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Johnson and Johnson International, and the university.” The week-long celebration began with “a keynote address from the great Trinidadian scholar, playwright, and political activist, C.L.R. James.”²¹
4. April 1973: Weaver’s advocacy “culminated in Weaver’s initiation of the action that led to the university’s awarding Robeson an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.”²²
5. 1973-1974: Weaver published two articles on Robeson: “Paul Robeson and Film: Racism and Anti-Racism in Communications” in The Negro History Bulletin and “Paul Robeson: Beleaguered Leader” in The Black Scholar (reprinted in Jacobin magazine in June 2021).²³

Dr. Weaver writes that in the decades since his resignation from Rutgers in February 1974, he has “continued to organize film festivals and symposia screening Robeson’s work and to lecture on Robeson at universities and other non-formal educational institutions in China, Mexico, Finland, Taiwan, Canada, and the USA.”²⁴ These include Beijing University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, and the Nordic Arts Institute in Kokkola, Finland.²⁵ Most recently, the BlackQuaker Project produced “50 Years of Advocacy for and Research on Paul Robeson,” an educational video, as well as the 2022 and 2023 Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival & Forum sessions featuring Joyce Mosley, Mark Solomon, and Dr. Weaver.²⁶

Queries for South Jersey Quakers

As we reflect on the life of Paul Robeson and the work of Dr. Harold Weaver, let us hold these queries in the Light:

• Query 1: Robeson “never bowed to injustice even ‘one-thousandth part of an inch.'”²⁷ Where in our own lives are we being called to resist injustice with that same steadfastness, even at potential cost to our power, status, reputations or livelihoods?
• Query 2: Dr. Weaver found that an entire generation of Black students at Rutgers had never heard of Paul Robeson. What voices of conscience from our own Quaker and South Jersey history have we forgotten or do we fail to teach our children? How are we called to remember and restore them?
• Query 3: The Religious Society of Friends has a complex history regarding race, as seen in relegation of Grace Bustill Douglass and Sarah Mapps Douglass to back benches of our Arch Street Meetinghouse. How do we hold the tension of living into our community’s historic abolitionism with its practices (past and present) of racial segregation? What steps can Meeting(s) take toward moving into repair and forming a Beloved Community?
• Query 4: Robeson’s passport was seized for eight years. He was barred from television and concert halls for political beliefs. In our current moment, what are subtle or overt ways conformity is enforced in our communities? How do we ensure Quakers remain a refuge for prophetic dissent?

Additional Resources from Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr. and the BlackQuaker Project

• “Paul Robeson: Beleaguered Leader,” The Black Scholar (1973).
• “Paul Robeson and The Pan-African World,” Présence Africaine (1978).
• Paul Robeson: Identity, Political Economy, and Communications, Rutgers University (1972).
• 50 Years of Advocacy for and Research on Paul Robeson (educational video produced by the BlackQuaker Project).
• Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival & Forum (2022 and 2023), including “Paul Robeson & His 200 Years of USA Quaker Ancestors” and “Paul Robeson 125th Birthday Celebration.”

Robesons of Today: From Peekskill to Abolition

Ongoing Work and a Way Opening to Share the Story among F/friends: How a Forgotten 1949 Riot Informs Modern Resistance

Archival photo of Paul Robeson singing to a crowd. Right: A modern photo of activists marching (e.g., 2025 racial justice protests).

The Hook:
In 1949, the greatest voice in the world was silenced not by a bullet, but by a riot. Paul Robeson—actor, athlete, linguist, and radical—was attacked by a mob in Peekskill, New York, simply for demanding that Black Americans have the right to fight fascism at home and abroad. Seventy-six years later, the “Robesons of today” are facing the same mob, albeit in digital and legislative forms. This package explores the direct lineage between the McCarthy-era riots and the modern abolitionist movement.

Key Article: “The Echo of Peekskill”
On August 27, 1949, a concert meant to celebrate unity ended in a state-sanctioned pogrom. The recent documentary “The Peekskill Riots” (2024/2025) revives this footage: cars overturned, concertgoers beaten with baseball bats, police turning their backs .

• The Link to Today: The violence at Peekskill was a reaction to Robeson’s intersectional politics—he supported the Civil Rights Congress, the labor movement, and anti-colonial struggles. Today’s “Robesons”—scholars like Robin D.G. Kelley or activists like Mariame Kaba—face similar coordinated attacks for linking racism to capitalism and militarism.
• Modern Context: As we see in the 2025 Anti-Racist Community Network presentations, the “Red Scare” tactics of 1949 are resurging. The labeling of abolitionists as “threats” mirrors the labeling of Robeson as a “traitor” .

Featured Video Embed:

Title: The Peekskill Riots (Episode 1: The Mighty Oak in the Forest)
Creator: Jon Scott Bennett
Synopsis: The first episode focuses on Robeson’s rise to fame and the misquote (the Pravda谎言) that cost him his career in America.
Call to Action: Watch the full series on [YouTube/JonScottBennett.com].

Visual Spotlight: “The Lost Archives”

• Source: Barbara Kopple Collection, NYU (TAM.307) .
• Content: Showcase a photo of the burned concert field or the original ACLU report titled “Violence in Peekskill.”
• Caption: “These documents lay dormant for decades. They prove that the ‘forgotten’ history of white terrorism is actually the history they didn’t want you to find.”

Resources for Further Investigation

The Robeson Syllabus: Articles, Archives & Film

This section provides primary sources and modern analysis for activists and researchers.

Film & Documentary

• The Peekskill Riots (Docuseries – 2024/2025): Directed by Jon Scott Bennett. A five-part deep dive available on YouTube. Essential viewing for understanding the physical violence of the early Cold War.
• The Barbara Kopple Collection (NYU): While Kopple’s feature films were never finished, her collection of 11.75 linear feet of material (including court documents and photos) is available at the Tamiment Library. It is the definitive archival source for the event.

Articles & Reading

• “Peekskill, USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots” by Howard Fast: A firsthand account by the novelist who was present at the riot.
• “The Cold War at Home: Peekskill, NY, 1949” (Dissertation – Malcolm Call): The original research that revived interest in the topic in the 1970s, now held within the Kopple archives.
• The Examiner News Feature (March 2024): “Filmmaker Documents Robeson and Forgotten History.” Provides context on how local Peekskill historians (like Frank Goderre) preserved the visual evidence.

2025 Presentations: The Anti-Racist Community Network (ARCN)

The following are summaries of live, online presentations delivered in 2025 that connect historical anti-communism to modern anti-racism.

Presentation 1: “The Architecture of a Riot” (Recorded Jan 2025)

• Speaker: Jon Scott Bennett & Historians.
• Synopsis: A breakdown of how local media (The Peekskill Evening Star) and veteran groups coordinated the 1949 attack. Bennett argues that disinformation was the primary weapon, a tactic still used against BLM organizers today.

Presentation 2: “Immigration, Borders, and the Robeson Legacy” (Nov 17, 2025)

• Speaker: Kat Griffith (Sponsored by Northern Yearly Meeting Anti-Racist Working Group) .
• Synopsis: While not solely about Robeson, this presentation uses data from 1990-2025 to discuss “the human face of immigration.” It connects to Robeson’s legacy of internationalism—arguing that the same forces that tried to silence Robeson are those enforcing modern border violence.

Presentation 3: “Land Reparations & Voluntary Land Taxes” (Oct 2025)

• Sponsor: Madison Friends Meeting (Quakers) .
• Synopsis: Ties the concept of “returning wealth” to Indigenous communities. This resource is provided as a modern action item for groups looking to move beyond performative allyship, following Robeson’s model of material support for oppressed peoples.

Digital Toolkit for Organizing F/friends and Justice Activists

How to Host a Screening & Discussion

For the SJQ Community:

1. The Film: Screen Episode 1 of The Peekskill Riots (available for free on YouTube).
2. The Handout: Download the ACLU’s 1949 report “Violence in Peekskill” (Public Domain).
3. The Discussion Questions:
   • The Peekskill rioters were never prosecuted. How does selective prosecution (or lack thereof) in 1949 compare to the response to the Jan 6th insurrection or modern protest movements?
   • Robeson was targeted by the State Department. How do modern “anti-riot” laws target the “Robesons of today”?
   • The film shows labor unions protecting the concertgoers. Where is the labor movement in today’s fight for abolition?

Social Media Cards (Sample Text)

• Card 1 (History): “Before there was cancel culture, there was Peekskill. In 1949, a mob beat Paul Robeson’s fans because he said racism was tied to capitalism. Watch the new docuseries that proves history repeats itself. #SJQ #PeekskillRiots”
• Card 2 (Action): “The Anti-Racist Community Network is live in 2025. From the riots of 1949 to the borders of 2025—the fight for Robeson’s vision of a just world continues. Link in bio to the resource guide.”

From Peekskill to Retrospective Justice

Confronting Systemic Violence—Then and Now—Through an Anti-Violence Quaker Lens

In 1949, the world’s most celebrated voice was silenced not by critics, but by a coordinated mob. Paul Robeson—Rutgers valedictorian, international concert artist, and the son of a former slave—was attacked by thousands outside Peekskill, New York, simply because he dared to link racism at home with fascism abroad. As state troopers stood by, concertgoers were beaten, cars were overturned, and a cross was burned .

Seventy-seven years later, the “Robesons of today”—activists, abolitionists, and truth-tellers—face the same structural violence, though often in legislative and digital forms. But what if the Quaker response to such violence required more than passive nonviolence? Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr., an African American Quaker scholar-activist, challenges Friends to move beyond individual racism and embrace anti-violence: an active, confrontational stance against systemic harm. This media package traces a direct line from the Peekskill riots of 1949 to the anti-racist work of 2025, grounded in Weaver’s call for retrospective justice .

Key Article: “The Echo of Peekskill: State Violence and the Quaker Call to Anti-Violence”

On August 27, 1949, a benefit concert for the Civil Rights Congress was scheduled to take place in Lakeland Acres, just north of Peekskill. Paul Robeson, whose mother came from a family of Quaker abolitionists, was the headliner . But before he could sing, a mob of American Legionnaires, VFW members, and Ku Klux Klan sympathizers—egged on by local media and tacitly supported by the District Attorney—blockaded the roads. They smashed the stage, set fire to chairs, and chanted, “Every n***er bastard dies here tonight!” and “Every Jew bastard dies here tonight!” .

“Peekskill was a reminder that civil rights activism of any variety across the political spectrum was controversial,” says Thomas Sugrue, a historian at New York University and the author of Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. “White Americans found the demands for racial inequality unsettling. And that was true even in the ostensibly liberal North, places like New York.”

The concert was canceled. But Robeson refused to be intimidated. On September 4, 1949, he returned. Surrounded by a union security detail of World War II veterans who disarmed men with rifles on a nearby hill, Robeson sang “Let My People Go” to a crowd of 20,000 . After the concert, however, the violence resumed. As concertgoers departed, the mob pummeled cars with rocks, dragged Black attendees from vehicles, and beat them. One of the victims was Eugene Bullard, a Black military hero of both world wars, attacked by a mob that included local police .

The State’s Complicity:
No members of the mob were arrested. New York Governor Thomas Dewey blamed “communist provocateurs.” A grand jury investigation absurdly concluded that the violence “was basically neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Negro in character” . This erasure—the refusal to name the systemic nature of the violence—is precisely what Dr. Harold Weaver identifies as the mechanism that sustains injustice.

Weaver’s Anti-Violence Framework:
In his Pendle Hill pamphlet Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice, Weaver draws on the work of Palestinian Quaker Jean Zaru to distinguish between direct violence (the rocks and fists at Peekskill) and structural violence—the invisible, embedded systems that enable such attacks . Structural violence includes:

• Political Structural Violence: The refusal to prosecute the attackers.
• Cultural Structural Violence: Media narratives that blame the victim (e.g., “Robeson Asked For It!”).
• Educational Structural Violence: The erasure of Peekskill from history textbooks .

Weaver argues that traditional Quaker nonviolence, while valuable, is often passive. He proposes anti-violence as an active, confrontational practice that names and disrupts these structures. “Our unjust world is maintained by misinformation and disinformation,” Weaver writes. Friends are called not merely to witness violence, but to dismantle the systems that produce it .

The Link to Today:
The “Robesons of today”—from prison abolitionists to pro-Palestinian student activists—face the same playbook: red-baiting, police non-intervention, and media distortion. When we see mask-less crowds bearing guns at school boards or protesters labeled “domestic terrorists” by politicians, we are seeing the heirs of Peekskill. The question for South Jersey Quakers is not whether we condemn the violence of 1949—but whether we are willing to confront the structural violence of 2025 with the same courage Robeson showed when he declared, “I’m going to sing wherever the people want me to sing… and I won’t be frightened by crosses burning in Peekskill or anywhere else” .

Featured Video: “The Peekskill Riots (Episode 1: The Mighty Oak in the Forest)”

• Creator: Jon Scott Bennett (2024/2025)
• Access: YouTube (free)
• SJQ Discussion Guide: Available upon request. Includes queries on state violence and the role of complicit bystanders.

Visual Spotlight: “The Lost Archives of Peekskill”

• Source: Barbara Kopple Collection, Tamiment Library, NYU (TAM.307)
• Content: 11.75 linear feet of materials, including court documents, photographs of the burned concert field, and the ACLU report Violence in Peekskill.
• SJQ Caption: “These documents lay dormant for decades. They prove that the ‘forgotten’ history of white terrorism is actually the history they didn’t want you to find. As Weaver reminds us, truth-telling is the first step toward retrospective justice.”

New Section: Quaker Complicity and the Call for Retrospective Justice

Dr. Weaver does not let Friends off the hook. In his pamphlet, he directly addresses Quaker involvement in the slave trade, slaveholding, and resistance to abolitionism—a history often sanitized in Meeting houses . He writes that structural violence is “maintained by misinformation and disinformation in the media, formal education, scholarship, and political discourse”—and that includes the selective memory of Quaker institutions.

Weaver proposes a three-part program for retrospective justice :

1. Acknowledgment: A formal, public confession of the offense (e.g., South Jersey Quakers acknowledging any historical complicity in economic systems that benefited from slavery or Jim Crow).
2. Truth-Telling: A commitment to uncovering and disseminating the full, unvarnished history (e.g., hosting a screening of The Peekskill Riots followed by a public accounting).
3. Amends: Material action in the present to give substance to regret (e.g., reparative giving to descendant communities, supporting the BlackQuaker Project, or divesting from carceral systems).

For South Jersey Quakers, this is not abstract. The region was a crossroads of the Underground Railroad—but also a site of sundown towns and segregated schools. Weaver challenges us to ask: What does it mean to make amends for a riot we did not stop, or a system we still benefit from?

Further Investigation, A Robeson-Peekskill Syllabus: Articles, Archives, Film & Quaker Frameworks

This section provides primary sources, modern analysis, and specifically Quaker frameworks for action.

Film & Documentary

• Peekskill Riots (Docuseries – 2024/2025): Directed by Jon Scott Bennett. Five-part deep dive available on YouTube. Essential viewing for understanding physical violence of early Cold War. SJQ Note: Episode 1 includes archival footage of the cross-burning and union security details.
• The Barbara Kopple Collection (NYU): While Kopple’s feature film was never finished, her collection of 11.75 linear feet of material (including court documents, photos, and oral histories) is available at the Tamiment Library. It is the definitive archival source for the Peekskill event.

Articles & Reading

• Peekskill, USA (1951) by Howard Fast: A firsthand account by the novelist who was present at the riot. Includes an introduction by William L. Patterson of the Civil Rights Congress . SJQ Note: Fast describes specific roles of WWII veterans’ organizations in organizing the mob.
• “Fascist Terrorism at Peekskill” (Labor Action, Sept 12, 1949): Contemporary Trotskyist analysis that names the event as “an act of fascistic terror incited by local reactionary leaders” and notes that “state troopers looked on or joined the jeering” .
• “75 Years Ago, the KKK and Anti-Communists Teamed Up to Violently Stop a Folk Concert in NY” by Nina Silber (The Conversation, Aug 2024): A historian’s account that includes the personal story of her mother, who was sexually assaulted by the mob and who later opened the second concert singing the national anthem . SJQ Note: Silber directly connects Peekskill to Jan 6th and modern red-baiting.
• The Examiner News Feature (March 2024): “Filmmaker Documents Robeson and Forgotten History.” Provides context on how local Peekskill historians (like Frank Goderre) preserved visual evidence.

Harold D. Weaver Jr. Core Texts (Quaker Anti-Violence Framework)

• Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #465, 2020): The foundational text. 34 pages. Available from Pendle Hill Bookstore. Key concepts: anti-violence vs. passive nonviolence; the eight forms of structural violence (adapted from Jean Zaru); retrospective justice as a three-part process .
• Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (co-edited, 2011): A broader anthology situating Weaver’s work within a tradition of Black Quaker prophetic witness.
• The BlackQuaker Project (blackquakerproject.org): Weaver’s ongoing initiative. Includes the “Selected Forms of Direct and Structural Violence against African Americans” chart—a tool for Meetings to audit their own practices .

2025 Presentations: The Anti-Racist Community Network (ARCN)

Summaries of live, online presentations delivered in 2025 that connect historical anti-communism to modern anti-racism, with specific Quaker applications

Presentation 1: “The Architecture of a Riot: Disinformation, Police Complicity, and the Making of a Mob” (Recorded Jan 2025)

• Speaker: Jon Scott Bennett & Historians.
• Synopsis: A breakdown of how local media (The Peekskill Evening Star) and veteran groups coordinated the 1949 attack. Bennett argues that disinformation was the primary weapon—the false claim that Robeson had said “Negroes should refuse to fight for America” was deliberately planted by the FBI. This same tactic is used today against BLM organizers and pro-Palestinian campus protesters. Quaker application: How do we discern truth from state-sponsored disinformation?

Presentation 2: “Immigration, Borders, and the Robeson Legacy: Anti-Violence in Practice” (Nov 17, 2025)

• Speaker: Kat Griffith (Sponsored by Northern Yearly Meeting Anti-Racist Working Group).
• Synopsis: Connects Robeson’s internationalism (his support for anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia) to modern border violence. Griffith uses Weaver’s framework to argue that border enforcement is a form of political and economic structural violence—separating families and criminalizing movement. Quaker application: How does our immigration testimony align with anti-violence rather than charity?

Presentation 3: “Land Reparations & Voluntary Land Taxes: A Retrospective Justice Model” (Oct 2025)

• Sponsor: Madison Friends Meeting (Quakers).
• Synopsis: Ties the concept of “returning wealth” to Indigenous and African American communities whose land was taken. This presentation explicitly cites Weaver’s three-part retrospective justice model (acknowledgment, truth-telling, amends) and proposes voluntary land taxes as a material practice. Quaker application: What would amends look like for South Jersey Quakers whose ancestors may have owned land previously held by Lenape people or worked by enslaved Africans?
• Weaver’s Typology of Structural Violence – A Quaker Audit Tool

Dr. Weaver, drawing on Jean Zaru, identifies eight forms of structural violence that permeate U.S. society . South Jersey Quakers can use this typology to audit their own Meeting practices:

Action Step: Download the full chart from the BlackQuaker Project website. Bring it to Ministry & Counsel for a self-audit.

Digital Toolkit for South Jersey Quaker Activists

How to Host a Screening & Retrospective Justice Circle

Step 1: The Film

• Screen Episode 1 of The Peekskill Riots (available for free on YouTube, ~25 min). Trigger warning: Depictions of mob violence and racial epithets.

Step 2: The Handout

• Download the ACLU’s 1949 report Violence in Peekskill (Public Domain).
• Download the one-page summary of Weaver’s “Retrospective Justice” framework from the BlackQuaker Project.

Step 3: The Quaker Queries (New – Expanded from original)
*Open with a moment of silence. Read these queries aloud and allow 3-5 minutes of silence after each.*

• Query 1 (Acknowledgment): “What does ‘justice’ mean to Friends in this Meeting? How does our Meeting respond to the need for justice—not as charity, but as repair?” .
• Query 2 (Truth-Telling): “The Peekskill rioters were never prosecuted. How does selective prosecution (or lack thereof) in 1949 compare to the response to Jan 6th or modern protest movements? Where is our Meeting’s testimony on equal protection under the law?”
• Query 3 (Amends): “Robeson’s mother came from Quaker abolitionists. Yet 1949 Quaker institutions were largely silent. What are we silent about today? Are we open to new light, from whatever source it may come?” (adapted from Britain Yearly Meeting) .
• Query 4 (Anti-Violence): “Weaver distinguishes between passive nonviolence and active anti-violence. When have we mistaken quietism for faithfulness? What would it look like to actively confront structural violence in our town?”

Step 4: The Action Commitment

• Individual: Sign the petition to the Peekskill school board to include the 1949 riots in the local history curriculum.
• Meeting: Commit to reading Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice as a Meeting for Business or adult religious education series.
• Yearly Meeting: Propose a minute calling on Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to adopt a retrospective justice program acknowledging Quaker complicity in systemic racism, modeled on Brown University’s Slavery and Justice report (which Weaver cites) .

Social Media Cards (Expanded for Quaker Audiences)

• Card 1 (History): “Before there was cancel culture, there was Peekskill. In 1949, a mob beat Paul Robeson’s fans because he linked racism to capitalism. 77 years later, Dr. Harold Weaver asks: Will you move from nonviolence to ANTI-violence? #SJQ #PeekskillRiots #BlackQuakerProject”
• Card 2 (Weaver Quote): “‘Our unjust world is maintained by misinformation and disinformation in the media, formal education, scholarship, and political discourse.’ – Harold D. Weaver Jr., Pendle Hill Pamphlet #465. South Jersey Quakers, join us in reading this challenge. #RetrospectiveJustice #QuakersForRacialJustice” .
• Card 3 (Action): “The Anti-Racist Community Network is alive in 2025. From the riots of 1949 to the borders of 2025—a fight for Robeson’s vision of a just world continues. Link in bio to SJQ’s resource guide, including Weaver’s typology of structural violence and queries for your Meeting.”
• Card 4 (Quaker Complicity): “Did you know some Quakers owned slaves? Did you know Quaker institutions were silent during Peekskill? Weaver calls us to retrospective justice: acknowledge, tell the truth, make amends. It’s uncomfortable. It’s faithful. #TellingTheTruth #SJQ”

Appendix: Key Sources for South Jersey Quaker Libraries

Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr. closes his birthday homage by recalling the advice of Robeson’s father: to attain the highest, to pursue only worthwhile goals, and to remain loyal to one’s convictions. As South Jersey Quakers, we are uniquely positioned to honor this legacy. Let us ensure that the name Paul Robeson—and his Quaker ancestors—are never relegated to the back bench of our collective memory.

We invite you to share your feelings and thoughts about Paul Robeson by writing to the BlackQuaker Project at theblackquakerproject@gmail.com.

Peace and Blessings,
Religious Society of Friends (South Jersey Quaker Project) in deep appreciation and gratitude for Dr Weaver & TheBlackQuakerProject

Footnotes

¹ BlackQuaker Project, “A Birthday Homage to Paul Robeson,” opening paragraph.

² Ibid., “personal statement from Friend Harold D. Weaver Jr.”

³ Ibid., Weaver personal statement.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ BlackQuaker Project, “Pioneering Advocacy Activities of Prof. Weaver.”

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid.

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ BlackQuaker Project, “Conclusion.”

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ BlackQuaker Project, “A Partial List of Resources.”

²⁷ BlackQuaker Project, Weaver personal statement.

Bibliography

BlackQuaker Project. “A Birthday Homage to Paul Robeson!” Provided to South Jersey Quakers, April 2026. Contains:

• Personal statement from Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr.
• “Pioneering Advocacy Activities of Prof. Weaver on Behalf of Paul Robeson, Rutgers University, 1970-74: Honorary Doctorate, Course, Film Festival-Symposium, Film, and Publications.”
• “Conclusion.”
• “A Partial List of Resources by and from Harold D. Weaver Jr.”

Media package was prepared by South Jersey Quakers (SJQ) as part of a 2025 initiative to confront systemic violence through retrospective justice and active anti-violence, drawing on the legacies of Paul Robeson and the scholarship of Harold D. Weaver Jr. Version 2.0