Demanding Freedoms

Demanding Freed: Article Review

Title: (Implied) The Unyielding Demand: How Black Resistance Forced Quaker Abolition
Author: Jim Fussell
Publication: Friends Journal, August 2025

In a powerful and necessary corrective to the standard historical narrative, Jim Fussell’s recent article in Friends Journal challenges a notion that Quakers’ renunciation of slavery was a product of internal moral awakening alone. Drawing from oral traditions and records of Meetings, Fussell argues compellingly that a primary catalyst for Friends’ shift was relentless and courageous resistance of enslaved Black people themselves.

The article opens with a poignant scene at the Third Haven Meetinghouse, where an unnamed Black woman’s prophetic voice, though unheeded in the moment, symbolizes the constant pressure applied from within and without. Fussell immediately establishes his central thesis: for over 120 years, Quakers were active participants in slavery, and their eventual turn toward abolition in the late 18th century was “forced by the relentless resistance of the enslaved.”

Fussell structures his argument by categorizing the forms this resistance took, giving names and stories to the individuals who fought for their freedom. He movingly recounts the story of James, whose piercing question to a young Warner Mifflin about inequality shattered the enslaver’s complacency and directly led to Mifflin’s later abolitionism. The author highlights the profound economic and psychological impact of escape, detailing the flights of individuals like Dolphin, Jack, Ash, and Peter from their Quaker enslavers. These acts of self-livation, Fussell suggests, made the institution unstable and untenable.

Perhaps the most stark examples are those of overt rebellion. The piece does not shy away from the brutal reality, recounting the story of Nace, who was killed leading a group escape, and Grace and Jane, who were hanged for burning a tobacco barn. Fussell uses these tragedies to underscore a critical point: these acts of “malice aforethought” were deliberate strikes against the economic foundation of their oppression, and they sent a clear message that “enslavement was never secure.”

The article successfully reframes Quaker history by placing Black agency at the center of the story of abolition. While acknowledging the important work of white Quaker abolitionists like John Woolman and Benjamin Lay, Fussell insists that the real catalysts were the enslaved who “refused to submit.” He powerfully quotes Frederick Douglass to drive the lesson home: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”

Fussell’s article is a vital contribution to ongoing work of truth-telling within Quuakerism and beyond. By excavating these stories of defiance, he issues a challenge to modern Quakers and readers of history: to fully reckon with the fact that Black resistance made Quaker abolition possible. This review serves not only to summarize a compelling historical argument but also to highly recommend seeking out the original article in the August 2025 issue of Friends Journal for its full emotional and scholarly impact.

Citation:
Fussell, Jim. (2025, August).Friends Journal.