Quaker History - Period ended 9/30/2005

Quaker History/Arts/Painting/Holmes, Lucy/Dinner caps 'exciting year' at historical society/Today's Sunbeam/Salem/NJ/USA/25-Sep-05//... The prized raffle of the evening was a full-framed canvas reproduction of noted Salem Quaker artist Lucy Holmes' 1892 painting, "A Holiday Occupation." The ...

Quaker History/Business/Native Americans/Rosemary Roberts: Exploring forgotten hamlets of NC/Greensboro News Record/Greensboro/NC/USA/16-Sep-05//... This sign explained that Saxapahaw was “settled by the Sissipahaw Indians and was the site of a pioneer cotton mill built by Quaker John Newlin in 1844 ...

Quaker History/Business/Strawbridge, Justus/The last of the old stores/Doylestown Patriot/Doylestown/PA/USA/18-Sep-05//... Justus C. Strawbridge was a 15-year-old Quaker from Mount Holly, NJ, when he came to Philadelphia in 1853 and got a job in a dry goods shop. ...

Quaker History/Business///19th-century developer helped point Point Pleasant Beach toward .../Asbury Park Press/Asbury Park/NJ/USA/19-Sep-05//... Born in Monmouth County in 1818, he was the son of Ann Williams Arnold and John Arnold, an English Quaker, who died before his birth. ...

Quaker History/Paul, Alice//Cherry Hill producer up for Emmy Award/Cherry Hill Courier Post/Cherry Hill/NJ/USA/19-Sep-05//... to 4 pm Oct. 2 at Paulsdale, 128 Hooten Road. Paulsdale is the birthplace of Quaker suffragist Alice Paul. Attendees can tour the ...

Quaker History/Quaker-Shaker//Fruitlands' seasonal specialties feature old favorites and new .../Fitchburg Sentinel/Firchburg/MA/USA/30-Sep-05//… Fruitlands founder Clara Endicott Sears purchased the house and had moved to the site in the early 1920s, after the Shakers left town.
The Shakers, a branch of the Quaker religion, was founded in England and brought to the United States by Eldress Ann Lee and a few followers in 1774.
A communal sect with central tenets that included celibacy, Shaker communities were industrious and innovative and the simple grace of their architecture and furniture are still distinctive styles today. The sect thrived in several areas of the country, including New England, for nearly a century before its numbers began to dwindle. ...

Quaker History/Religious Diversity//Who's grass is greener?/goTriad.com/Raleigh/NC/USA/22-Sep-05//... where a retired history professor from Guilford College tackled the differences between the Twin City's Moravian heritage and the Gate City's Quaker background ...

Quaker History/Religious Diversity//She Wears Constitutionally Protected Rights on Sleeve/Bremerton Sun/Bremerton/WA /USA/18-Sep-05//... speaking out. In 1964, Tinker was 13, one of six siblings whose father was a Methodist preacher teaching Quaker peace activism. He ...

Quaker History/Religious Faith//Happy Trails/Elmira Star-Gazette/Elmira/NY/USA/25-Sep-05//If you learn a little about the area's history, the trip becomes more interesting as you pass early settlements and sites of more than 200-year-old grist mills. The first, Friend's Mill, was built in 1790 by Jemima Wilkinson, a Quaker zealot who brought her religious followers to the creek from Rhode Island, Rummel says.

Quaker History/Religious Faith//Covered Bridge Festival has rich history/Linton Daily Citizen/Bloomington/IN/USA/29-Sep-05//... The historic Quaker community of Bloomingdale demonstrates apple butter making and guests are invited to attend the old style church service on Sundays. ...

Quaker History/Robeson, Paul//A tribute to his hero/Elmira Star-Gazette/Elmira/NY/USA/20-Sep-05//…With a deep voice reflecting sincerity, Kenneth Anderson, 77, speaks about the profound admiration and respect he has for world-renowned activist, singer, actor, lawyer and scholar Paul Robeson.

"Paul Robeson's my hero," says Anderson, of Butler, Pa..

He will perform a "Tribute to Paul Robeson (1898-1976), In Story and Song," at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Frederick Douglass Memorial AME Zion Church in Elmira.

Anderson is a noted musician with a rich bass-baritone voice and a commanding presence on stage and off. He has lived a life of adventure, having served in the U.S. Seventh Army Special Services from 1952 to 1954. Anderson also became a registered nurse and a nurse anesthetist, joining the faculty nursing staff at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1969.

He is a civil rights activist, having demonstrated for affirmative action and fair and affordable housing. Anderson became the regional director of the Long Island National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and has served on local and regional boards of directors for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Boy Scouts.

Throughout his life, Anderson has continued to sing and it was through this love of music that he was introduced to Robeson.

"I became attracted to Paul because my focus was on singing and celebrating the Negro spiritual as America's premiere folk music art form. And if you're serious about your craft and you study it, eventually you encounter the giants who are involved in that arena ... so, just for that reason, Paul Robeson leaps to mind because he was the first solo artist of his caliber to ever give a performance solely of Negro spirituals ... in (April) 1925 at a Greenwich Theater in New York City."

Robeson led an extraordinary life, succeeding in a number of fields in his lifetime including academics, athletics, the performing arts and as an activist for civil rights and the working class. He was born April 9, 1898, to a runaway slave and a free black American Indian Quaker in Princeton, N.J. He excelled in school and performed theater as well as playing football at Somerville, N.J., High School.

Robeson was only the third black American to attend Rutgers University where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in 1918 and was also chosen for the All-America college football team. He later attended Columbia University Law School while at the same time performing on stage in New York and London.

Robeson's powerful bass was heard around the world as he performed in concerts throughout Europe. He was a star on stage and screen, performing in Eugene O'Neill's "All God's Chillun Got Wings" and "The Emperor Jones" in 1924 and 1925. He also made the silent movie, "Body and Soul" for black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux during this time.

Robeson is equally well-known for becoming an outspoken advocate for civil rights in the late 1920s, decades before Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and other famous black activists brought to the forefront inequalities experienced by blacks and the working class in the United States.

"This man was a giant who recognized what was going on and stood tall, stood firm and protested ... with facts," Anderson says. "It was a simple case of simple justice that he asked for when he was protesting the oppression of our people here in this country."

Anderson said he began performing "Robeson concerts" in 1990 because he felt that young people, especially young black people, were not being educated adequately about black American history.

"I realized that we were not passing on this wonderful heritage. We have no one to blame but ourselves."

Consequently, Anderson incorporates into his concerts historical timelines that highlight Robeson's life. Panels taken from "Paul Robeson's Living Legacy," a 1999 24-page booklet by Barbara Armentrout and Sterling Stuckey detailing Robeson's accomplishments and important events in his life, will be projected onto the walls around the church during Anderson's performance here.

"One of the things that I hope to do - that every comment that I make about Paul in between the songs - is to drop some of the historical facts that we ought to know but don't know," Anderson says. "I hope to raise the curiosity of young people ... so then they'll go check it out."

Education is one of the driving forces behind Anderson's concerts and it's one of the reasons the congregation of Frederick Douglass Memorial AME Zion Church chose this type of performance for its fund-raising effort.

Cal Brewer, a member of Frederick Douglass Memorial AME Zion Church and secretary of the church's trustee board, heard Anderson sing at Elmira's Juneteenth Celebration this summer and was impressed.

After speaking with Anderson and learning about the singer's mission, Brewer thought his program reflected the church's philosophies perfectly.

"We want to educate the public about Paul Robeson ... help educate the people about who he was," Brewer says. "Why does the world love Paul Robeson, and we (the U.S.) pulled his passport?"

Robeson was controversial for his politics. In the 1930s, he began performing at political rallies and speaking out for social and racial justice. Labeled by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as a Communist Party supporter in the late 1940s, Robeson had his passport revoked by the State Department in 1950.

Years of FBI surveillance and the scrutiny and criticism he received for supporting the labor movement and for refusing to denounce the Soviet Union and communism virtually ended his professional career. He died Jan. 23, 1976, at the age of 77 in Philadelphia, where he lived with his sister.

"We want to help people realize that this (communist) label may not have been warranted," Brewer says.

In addition to a variety of patriotic songs, Negro spirituals and Robeson's signature song "Old Man River," Anderson's concert will intertwine anecdotes and facts about Robeson's life and the legacy he leaves behind for Americans of all ethnicities. ...

Quaker History/Unity///Among Friends, a 200-year-old progress report/Palladium-Item/Richmond/IN/USA/18-Sep-05//... moral and religious decisions. "A sense of the meeting" is Quaker jargon for the way Friends make decisions. Instead of voting, Quakers ...

Quaker History/West Indies/Slavery/Holy Experiment/HERITAGE MATTERS by DR. EDWARD HARRIS MBE/Mid-Ocean News/Nassau/Bermuda/UK/17-Sep-05//... The plantation on Guana Island was a part of the Quaker Experiment in the West Indies, whereby in the mid-1700s its adherents were sent there to settle and spread the faith. The experiment failed in the British Virgin Islands and all that is now to be found are the remains of the factories, great houses, slave dwellings and a few desecrated headstones at the Quaker Cemetery at Fat Hog Bay, Tortola. ...

Quaker History/Whaling///NHA loses director to DC post/Nantucket Island Inquirer/Nantucket/MA/USA/29-Sep-05//…Milligan, a native of Canada, joined the NHA as its executive director in 1999, and was instrumental in the $15 million renovation and expansion of the organization’s downtown Whaling and Peter Foulger museums and the restoration of its 1800 House and Quaker Meeting House. ….

Quaker History///Dig reveals much about lost city of Herrington/Annapolis Capital/Annapolis/MD/USA/19-Sep-05//…He said he'll have a masonry base made for the plaque and install it just off the road near the dig site.

An interpretive sign was unveiled at the ceremony amid the historic village created by marina owner Steuart Chaney's family.

That sign depicts the type of homes likely to have been built at Herrington, the Quaker presence in the area, plus the artifacts found and the effort to unearth them. ...