Find your spiritual refuge
If you've been looking for a faith community where you can be your full self maybe you've been looking for Quakers.
Upcoming Events
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.
Echoes of Simplicity: Feminism and Equality
Echoes of Simplicity: Feminism and Equality: Margaret Fell to Modernity In the beginning, simplicity was a blade, cutting through the falsehoods of a world drenched in stenches of power. It was a time of George Fox, the prophet of the Inner Light, who roamed by sea and land, calling out to the souls of people. […]
1. Find Quakers
Find a Quaker community near you.
2. Get ready
Want to know what to expect? Get ready for your first visit.
3. Experience it
Get in touch with your nearest meeting to find out how to connect during social distancing.
Or when it's safe, show up and experience a way of worshiping where we listen to God and each other.
Transcript
Title: Finding Spiritual Refuge
Matthew Sharp of Cherry Hill, NJ
I think my kids really benefit. I think it's a huge gift my wife and I have given them. Meeting gives them a kind of a chance, a practice, of being silent in a world where there's so many distractions, and there's so much data and information. So, the meeting's just kind of like a refuge and a place to be that we don't have to be super brilliant. We don't have to know everything. We can just kind of try to, you know, find that Light inside of us, that God inside of us. And what does that look like? How does that come out?
Title card: How My Family Found Spiritual Refuge in Quaker Meeting
It's a place where you can go and be yourself and find that Light inside yourself. You know that Light when you do something good, when you feel good, when you help others? That thing that comes out and shines.
And we were just attracted to the Meeting because of the service aspect, the social justice, and really, the conversations at Adult First Day School kind of were the things we were concerned about and thinking about as a family.
So, my name is Matthew Sharp, and I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and I go to Haddonfield Monthly Meeting.
Find your spiritual refuge
If you've been looking for a faith community where you can be fully yourself without creeds getting in the way, maybe you've been looking for Quakers.
Led by the Spirit
Open & Affirming
Centered on Community
Don't go it alone!
You deserve a faith community where you belong.
Be Free
We're a faith community that is refreshingly free in its approach. The most "dogmatic" it gets around these parts is "there is that of God in everyone."
Be Known
Small, close-knit communities give you the opportunity to really get to know others and be known by them. These small communities are connected to form the larger South Jersey Quakers community.
Share Values
Chances are, you want a community that shares your values. How do peace, integrity, equality, and simplicity sound?
