Empire, Race and the Politics of Anti-Caste

By Caroline Bressey

by Simon Webb 16th May 2025

Friends concerned about events in the United States may take comfort from the fact that they are following in the footsteps of Catherine Impey (1847-1923), one of the most remarkable Quakers of her time. Then, as now, the concern was that the US was wandering off the steep, narrow, rock-strewn path that leads to civilisation and enlightenment. After a disastrous civil war and the subsequent abolition of slavery in 1865, the chance was missed to reconstruct the southern states in particular on the basis of fairness and equality. ‘Jim Crow’ laws, leading to segregation and disadvantage for black people, were in some cases coupled with lynch law.