Give Living Word in Every Voice: Biblical Translation systems as a Quaker Invitation A Reading Transformed A reading of the Gospels was recently transformed for the writer when I picked up the International Children’s Bible (ICB). Its simplicity opened a view to living truth and many new versions. It cut out layers of theologic jargon. […]
Category: community
Love as Action September 16th
🕊️ STAND FOR PEACE. ACT WITH LOVE. 🕊️
This month, Love As Action is proud to stand in conjunction with the long-running Weekly Peace Vigil in Princeton. We are gathering to amplify our collective voice for peace and justice.
📅 When: Wednesday, September 16th
⏰ Time: 2:30 PM – 3:00 PM
📍 Where: Tiger Park on Palmer Square, Princeton
Quaker Call: New Resources to Protect Our Democracy – for South Jersey Quakers
Explore the growing election resource library: QuakerCall.net/election-resourcesWe are called to be “active mystics”—grounded in worship and moved to faithful action. Join Friends across the country in this vital work.Visit QuakerCall.net to learn more. #QuakerCall #ProtectOurDemocracy #SouthJerseyQuakers #QuakerWitness
Light, Please guide us out of this long, hot summer! Summer ‘26
Lettin’ your light in! A Crack in the rubble and how it pours over us on a dark week. I’m finally sittin’ down to write this out. It’s a travel missive from YAF. Writing on the last week of July, hotter than a pizza oven out here. I’m still tryin’ to process what I saw […]
These Songs Shook the Prison Gates
In 1653, a jailer beat George Fox with a cudgel. Fox “was made to sing in the Lord’s power.” The jailer brought a fiddler to drown him out — but the Spirit’s song won.
The Quaker tradition of spiritual singing in prison runs deep.
A Father’s Lost History of a Grandma’s Soother Day: Recovering Anti-War, Anti-Colonial Roots of Mother’s Day
“We ask for the ballot not as a privilege, but as a weapon. With it, we shall refuse taxation for war. Without it, we are but breeders of cannon fodder.”
— Julia Ward Howe, 1870
This is not sentimental. This is strategic.
Read the full South Jersey Quakers reflection.
Healing Earth’s InterWeb
Quaker Earthcare Witness is calling Friends and faith communities to take one practical step for the Earth this Earth Day: restore native habitat where you gather, worship, or live. Add your meetinghouse to the QEW Action Map and join a growing network of Spirit-led stewardship. #QuakerEarthcare #Sustainability #CreationCare
#FreedomWalk2026
#FreedomWalk2026 is a multi-week pilgrimage from historical sites of enslavement to sites of liberation, culminating on July 4th, 2026 (U.S. semiquincentennial). Walkers carry stories, names, and calls for reparative policy, land return, and truth-telling. The route includes partner stops with Burlington Meeting, Black churches, and land trusts.
Cultural Revival Takes Hold at Historic Burlington Meeting
Burlington Meeting’s Jazz Vespers blends quiet contemplation with live jazz improvisation. Open to all spiritual backgrounds, this monthly gathering reimagines evening prayer through the lens of jazz — a music of freedom, dialogue, and presence.
Birthday Homage to Paul Robeson
In recognition of Paul Robeson’s 128th birthday, South Jersey Quakers join the BlackQuaker Project in celebrating the life of this extraordinary Quaker descendant.
Paul Robeson—born April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey—was directly descended from over 250 years of Quakers in England and British North America. His mother, Maria Louisa Bustill Robeson, came from a prominent African American Quaker family that included educators Grace Bustill Douglass and Sarah Mapps Douglass, who were relegated to the back bench of their Arch Street Friends meetinghouse in Philadelphia despite their lifelong contributions to Quakerism and to the improvement of health and women’s rights.¹
Robeson’s father, the Rev. William Drew Robeson, was formerly enslaved. His advice to young Paul—to attain the highest possible, to pursue only worthwhile goals, and to remain loyal to his convictions—shaped the man who would become a two-time All-American football star at Rutgers, class valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa, and later a world-renowned singer, actor, and Pan-Africanist activist.²
Yet for all his achievements, Robeson was ruthlessly persecuted during McCarthyism. The U.S. government seized his passport for eight years, imposed an industry boycott of his records, barred him from concert halls, and never allowed him to appear on television.³
For over fifty years, Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr. —a convinced Friend and founder of the BlackQuaker Project—has worked to restore Robeson to his rightful place in history. At Rutgers University in 1970, Weaver discovered that not a single student in his introductory Africana Studies course had ever heard of Paul Robeson. He made it his mission to correct that, teaching the first course ever on Robeson, organizing the first U.S. Robeson symposium, and initiating the action that led Rutgers to award Robeson an honorary doctorate in 1973.⁴
As South Jersey Quakers, we are uniquely positioned to honor this legacy. Robeson grew up just miles from our Meetinghouses. His Quaker ancestors walked the same paths we walk. And his unwavering refusal to bow to injustice—even “one-thousandth part of an inch”—stands as a living query to us all.⁵
A Query for Reflection
Robeson was never allowed to appear on television—a total “white-out.” What voices of conscience in our own day are being silenced, and how are we called to amplify them?
For Further Reading
The full article, including all four queries, a complete bibliography, and additional resources from Dr. Weaver’s fifty years of advocacy, is available on the South Jersey Quakers website.
Peace and Blessings,
South Jersey Quakers in collaboration with the BlackQuaker Project
Footnotes for excerpt:
¹ BlackQuaker Project, “A Birthday Homage to Paul Robeson,” personal statement from Dr. Harold D. Weaver Jr.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid., “Pioneering Advocacy Activities of Prof. Weaver.”
⁵ Ibid., Weaver personal statement.
