Black Fire
Harvey Gillman gives a personal response to a powerful anthology of writings by African American Quakers
The subtitle of Black Fire is African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights, though no definition of spirituality is given. I would offer: spirituality – a growing into relationship of self with deeper self; self with neighbour; self with cosmos; held together in an embrace of Spirit.
What, then, would be a Quaker take on spirituality? Or an African American one? Or should it be ‘spiritualities’? How do these relationships deepen if you are told that as an individual you have no worth; that your group is inferior to others; that you have no land on which to place your feet and that the God you are taught to believe in holds you in contempt?
Personal experiences
These issues were raised for me by this powerful anthology of writings by African American thinkers and activists, born before 1930, who were influenced by Friends. Some joined Quakers after a long struggle. One had to remain an attender for forty years because, after all, he was black. Others were forced to sit on seats at the edge of the Meeting room. Some of those mentioned resented Quakers doing good to the world but treating them as second-class citizens. Some became powerful prophetic voices both amongst us and in the wider society in which they lived. One question in particular unsettles me: why have I not heard of some of these people before?
Spirituality may be a universal – we all have the potential, the root of connectedness, the light within. We can each make connections through the particular experiences, genetic makeup and social milieu of our lives. To talk of an African American spirituality itself is questionable as place, psychology and experience differs in each case. Yet there are traits in common that give a flavour to the experiences recounted in this book. There are the assumptions of white Americans about their black neighbours, who themselves form a variety of people throughout time and space. There is the experience of slavery and its legacies. There is the confrontation with Christianity, whose tenets seem, so often, to have been reversed by its upholders – Quakers included. There are also questions of identity, which some Friends will find challenging.
Powerful voices
After the various introductions and prefaces (there are three editors), which themselves are revealing about the rationale of the anthology, the book is divided into twelve chapters – the first being extracts from before the twentieth century.
Right from the beginning we hear prophetic words, directed at legislators, conferences of progressive activists and Friends. Benjamin Banneker in 1791 wrote to Thomas Jefferson of the one universal Father: ‘however variable we may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or religion, we are all of the same family and stand in the same relation to him.’
Equally moving is the life of William Boen (1735-1824), who had to wait forty years to be accepted into membership. There is the wit of Sojourner Truth (1799-1883) who, at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, declared in opposition to the lowly status of women in civic and religious life: ‘Whar (sic) did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.’ For her, women’s rights were linked to black rights and to the whole idea of Truth itself. Robert Purvis (1810-1898) was one of the signatories to a document in 1853, which made connections between religious and political liberty even among Friends declaiming against slavish conformity in matters of abstract faith and sectarian discipline.
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The order of the book is chronological, not thematic, and sometimes the subject matter, especially in the part dealing with the twentieth century, seems to wander away slightly from the stated theme. However, one of the values of the book is to introduce voices that are not so well-known both in North America and in this country. Some of these voices spoke to me more than others and I know that I now wish to engage with some of them in much greater depth. Jean Toomer (1894-1967), for example, quite overwhelmed me by his writings on Quaker spirituality, but I have never seen him quoted in any Quaker book I have read over the last almost forty years. Howard Thurman (1899-1981), on the other hand, is known among liberal followers of religion in this country and over the Atlantic. His meditations would make wonderful readings for Quaker gatherings.
Barrington Dunbar (1901-1978) should be read by every outreach committee. He talks of Quakers creating ‘beautiful islands which help individuals to develop but often aren’t enough concerned with the ugly world outside’. How would we answer his: ‘To dispossessed and disadvantaged nonwhites, the nonviolence that Friends profess sounds trite and hollow; it complicated our efforts to communicate with them’?
Frustrations and challenges
There is a real desire to share experience and an admiration for Friends, but also an exasperation with our Quakerliness – as opposed to our Quakerism. There is a desire to go beyond racial difference to point to a whole transformation of society. Several of those mentioned became lawyers to change society; others worked with political leaders to organise for change. I regret not having the space to name and to honour them all.
The last chapter is about Vera Green (1928-1982) who, in her Blacks and Quakerism, A Preliminary Report (1973), questions the whole concept of Friends as constituting a white church in the United States (remembering that over half the world’s Friends actually live in Africa!). She is sympathetic to Friends but asks us to look at ourselves and our assumptions. Vera Green writes as an anthropologist, but was a member of a Quaker Meeting. She is writing about something she knows and cares about.
I did consider whether I was the right person to review this book. I wonder how black British Friends and attenders would react to what was presented here. As a gay man, I can see how transformation can happen among Friends and in parts of society at large. Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), a gay black Friend, suffered perhaps more in his day among Friends because of his being gay than being black. But nothing can be taken for granted. Charles H Nichols (1919-2007) wrote up a series of ‘slave narratives’. The emphasis was on experience; how the Spirit speaks through our lives and what we learn from the sufferings of others. Benjamin Banneker quoted Job: ‘put your souls in their souls’ stead’. We are challenged to empathy, to a re-examination of our own history and of the power structures of the society in which we live. Quite a challenge!
Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights, edited by Harold D Weaver Jr, Paul Kriese and Stephen W Angell. Published by Quaker Press of Friends General Conference. ISBN: 9781888305883. Available from the Quaker Bookshop, Friends House, London. £15
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