Four: Coming of Age—1960s

The 1960s were a turbulent and intense time for Independent Western Friends as well as for the rest of the nation. As PACIFIC YM historian Walter Raitt notes,

Concerns with new intensity during these recent years have included race relations.African affairs were highlighted by returning delegates reports from the Friends World Committee meetings held in Kenya, 1961. “We Shall Overcome” became an informal theme at McMinnville [Yearly Meeting] in 1963—with support for the Mississippi burned churches rebuilding projects and special concern with the riots in Watts.

During this period, unprogrammed Western Friends were deeply involved in anti-war as well as Civil Rights work, as Friends Bulletin makes clear. One of its editors was Alice Dart, a member of CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) who worked to establish fair housing practices in Eugene, Oregon. Her whole family was involved in social change and anti-work work.

A graduate of Oberlin College in 1939, Alice Adams Dart introduced her husband Francis, whom she married in 1942, to the Religious Society of Friends. In 1949 the couple moved to Eugene, Oregon and joined the Quaker worship group which eventually became Eugene Monthly Meeting. Alice served as steering committee clerk of North Pacific YM.

“Friends, Nuclear Protest, and The Phoenix” by Rose Lewis

eginning in the mid-1950s, US Quakers were active in protesting nuclear testing in the south Pacific. In 1958 the Committee on Nonviolent Action (CNVA) sponsored the sailing of the Golden Rule, with Albert Bigelow as skipper, into the H-bomb testing area. After they left California, the Atomic Energy Commission announced that that whole North Pacific area of international waters was closed to all ships. When they tried to sail from Honolulu, they were arrested by the Coast Guard and charged with criminal contempt. During the trial the crew of three Quakers and one Methodist explained their actions:

  Nuclear explosions, by any nation, are inhuman, immoral, contemptuous crimes against all mankind.…When we sailed from California…there was no law preventing our sailing there (the test zone)…. Our government  has since brought forth laws to stop and silence us.…What my government is doing violates God’s law of love and nonviolence. I have no choice but to obey God….My legal counsel seriously questions the legality of the injunction served upon me.[5] 

It was during this trial that the Reynolds family, bound for Hiroshima, arrived in the port of Honolulu on the last segment of a four-year around the world trip on their yacht, the Phoenix.  The story of the trial was in all the papers and caught their interest for two reasons:  as serious sailors, they were concerned about the arbitrary US declaration of nearly 400,000 square miles of open ocean as off-limits; they also had concerns about the dangers of nuclear testing. Prior to their trip around the world, the family had spent three years in Hiroshima where Earle had worked for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, studying the effects of radiation on the growth and development of children.

   While they were living in Hiroshima, Earle designed and had the Phoenix built to carry out a personal dream of sailing around the world.  He and Barbara had embarked from Hiroshima in 1954 with one of their sons,  their daughter,  and a crew of three Japanese crewmen. That story was later told in a book which Earle and Barbara wrote called All in the Same Boat (1962). It was while they were spending several weeks in Honolulu before continuing back to Hiroshima that they attended the trial of the Golden Rule crew, whose quiet witness to their beliefs impressed them greatly. Earle also spent time in the library catching up on the latest literature about ionizing radiation and human biology. When it came time to sail on they faced a dilemma: the most direct course, which they had planned to follow, would take them through the prohibited area.  Earle and Barbara discussed this with their children and crew, and all agreed to wait until they got nearer the area before deciding what course to take. In the end they did enter the prohibited zone, and were immediately arrested.  A documentary by the Canadian Film Board tells this story in The Voyage of the Phoenix.

    The Phoenix was used in another protest in 1961. When the USSR began similar tests, the family sailed the Phoenix in protest to Vladivostok, carrying with them hundreds of letters appealing for peace from friends in the US and Japan.  However they were turned away by the Coast Guard and never allowed to land.  The authorities refused to accept the letters and messages they wanted to give to the Russian government.

Yet again, in 1967 the Phoenix came into service to perform protest duty by sailing to North Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam war. A Quaker Action Group (AQAG) sought out the ship’s skipper for assistance in sending medical supplies to Haiphong, and this was accomplished with a crew of US Quakers, including Betty Boardman, Horace Champney, Phil Drath, and Bob Eaton.  There were many problems and dangers, including severe storms and close US navy surveillance, but this symbolic act of solidarity with the people was well received by the north Vietnamese, though criticized by many at home.  The American Friends Service Committee later took up this effort of sending medical supplies to North Vietnam. This voyage is described in The Phoenix Trip: Notes on a Quaker Mission to Haiphong (1985) by Elizabeth Jelinek Boardman.

 Barbara Reynolds continued her work for peace, organizing a Peace Mission with two hibakusha (‘fire-bombed people’) to take appeals to leaders in the US and Russia, and later a peace study mission around the world with Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.  She founded the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima in 1965, which continues as a hospitality center for peace and understanding.  She set up the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College in Ohio, which houses the most complete collection of Hiroshima-Nagasaki materials in the world. She eventually settled in Long Beach, California where she worked tirelessly to assist Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees.

Earle, with his second wife Akie, also continued the work for peace.  He taught peace studies at University of California at Santa Cruz, and they became the first resident hosts at Ben Lomond Quaker Center. They were both active in Pacific YM, serving for many years on the Friend in the Orient Committee, and made many visits to Japan and also to Korea.

The following is taken from Earle’s notes during his trial in Honolulu and appeared in his book, Forbidden Voyage.

“Forbidden Voyage” by Earle Reynolds

September 26, 1958: Another day in court[6]

n court this morning, the first order of business was my own statement. I spent a lot of time last night thinking about what I would say, and made up a sketchy outline, but wrote nothing out. I decided to give briefly the background of the case, which had not been brought out in court. Above all, I determined I would be accurate, calm, and dignified, and under no circumstances get on the “soapbox” McLaughlin seemed so deathly afraid of.

I had only a momentary sense of nervousness as I stood before the Judge and glanced at my meager notes. As soon as I started talking, I felt quite calm, and the words came easily.

Your Honor, it so happens that this is the first jury trial I have ever witnessed, let alone participated in. The first time I was ever in a courtroom, as a matter of fact, was in the trial of the Golden Rule case on criminal contempt charges.

Then I said I would leave questions of law to my attorney, Mr. Rauh, and discuss briefly the knowledge and opinions that motivated the sailing of the Phoenix into the nuclear test zone. I outlined my position and situation in 1951, when I was asked by the National Academy of Sciences to go to Hiroshima. I spoke briefly of my research and conclusions from my study of the children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had been exposed to radiation.

Then I told of building the Phoenix, of our trip around the world, and my growing awareness “of the problems of the world scientist’s laboratory.” I told of our return to Honolulu, of our interest in the Golden Rule case, and my research into the background of the Atomic Energy Commission.

I was appalled and ashamed to find out that the reports which members affiliated with the Atomic Energy Commission gave to the public were, to say the least, badly slanted; and to say the worst, in many cases which could be clearly documented, they were erroneous and untrue.

I say this came as a shock to me....There was no doubt in my mind that the Atomic Energy Commission is playing false with the American public. For the first time in the history of American science, a scientist had to read the title of a report, then read who wrote it, and then try to determine where it came from, before he could properly evaluate the content of a so-called scientific paper. This is a terrible indictment of American scientists, and as a scientist I am ashamed that such a thing has crept into the scientific literature.

It seemed apparent to me that scientists who were associated with or employed by the Atomic Energy Commission were employed not for the purpose of giving scientific information to the public, but for the purpose of following the party line of the Atomic Energy Commission, which is to hold down and to attempt to minimize in so far as possible any idea that there might be some danger from atomic radiation.

 I documented this statement very briefly by comparing an article in  Reader’s Digest, written on behalf of the Atomic Energy Commission and presuming to give “basic facts on ‘fallout’”—which the writer put in quotes, as if such a thing didn’t even exist—with the official report of the United Nations Committee on Radiation, just published.

At the same time, although I obviously am a layman in the area, I read all I could on the legal background of the Atomic Energy Commission’s ruling which prohibited entry into the so-called danger zone near Eniwetok. As I say, I am not concerned with the legal aspects now. I will only say that on the basis of my reading and studying, admitting that I am a layman, I came to the conclusion that the ruling was illegal and unconstitutional.

Then I described our attempts to bring our concern to the attention of our fellow citizens, in our talks, letters, cables to Strauss and the President—and of our decision to sail on to Hiroshima.

We did not know at that time whether we would enter the prohibited zone or not. We knew that we had three weeks of sailing before we reached the zone....

When we left here, we represented no society or organization, and we were backed by no group. We were just four American citizens, an American family, and a Japanese yachtsman who had been with us for four years, and who was returning with us to his home, Hiroshima.

Now I turned to our final decision, just outside the zone, to enter, and our motives.

Our motives for going into the zone were, of course, varied. I can only speak with certainty for myself. I think I know why Mr. Mikami, the Japanese citizen, went into the zone, because he said, “I’m a Japanese and I’m a native of Hiroshima.”

I think my wife’s motives were probably mainly religious and ethical, as were the motives of the Golden Rule men.

Well, I am not as brave as my wife or the men of the Golden Rule. I preferred to base my motives on scientific knowledge that anything that would stop nuclear testing is bound ultimately to be of benefit to mankind, to my belief that the freedom of the seas and freedom of navigation were being threatened, and to my knowledge, as I understood it, that the law which prohibited me from entering that zone was unconstitutional.

In fact, I felt I was breaking no law when I went into that zone, but instead I was exposing another of the illegal acts which the Atomic Energy Commission has consistently been doing all along the line.

Finally, I quoted briefly from Justice Douglas’ book, The Right of the People, Chapter 8, “The Right to Defy an Unconstitutional Statute”:

“The humblest citizen, confronted by all the forces of the state which insists he must obey the law, may take matters into his own hands, defy an unconstitutional statute and risk the outcome on the ultimate decision of the courts. He may forsake the orderly processes of society and proceed as if the statute does not exist.”

Then I noted that Justice Douglas had added, “Obviously, if he is right, he has successfully defied the statute, it [the statute] will be removed; and if he is wrong he must be punished for it.”

It is my understanding that in so far as my present status is concerned I am wrong, and of course I am ready to take whatever punishment is in store for me.

This was the end of my talk. As I put my notes together, however, I noticed that I had with me Barbara’s earlier letter, which I had been re-reading just before the court opened. On an impulse, in a desire to reach the Judge, to communicate, to try to make him understand, I spoke again.

I wish to make only one further comment, very briefly. I have a communication from my wife aboard the Phoenix. This communication is a little dated now, in point of time, though not in substance, because the Phoenix left Kwajalein forty-two days ago and has not since been heard from.

“My thoughts will be back in Honolulu fighting by your side. Don’t let anything make you doubt the worth of what we have undertaken, no matter how futile it may seem at times. To fight for something we know is right is so infinitely better than to evade or ignore or compromise with it. And I know that whatever the outcome, we will always be proud that we have done the best we could.”

April 3, 1960: Conversion to Quakerism[7]

  Barbara and I have taken one of the most important steps of our lives. We have applied for membership, and have been accepted into, the Society of Friends.

  There never was any doubt about Barbara’s being accepted; her life, beliefs, and personality are in complete harmony with the Quaker ideal. For me, it was an entirely different story; not only did I have very real doubts as to whether I should apply, but I also had grave concern over whether I would be acceptable as a member of the Society.

True, they have been surpassingly kind to me during the past year or so that I have attended the meetings, but this is not the same thing as considering me as a permanent Friend. I need not say that such hesitation on their part would not stem from our actions on board the Phoenix or from the possibility that I might go to prison. In another church this might have weighed heavily against me, but not among the Quakers. It was my personal character that made me fear they might hesitate to accept me. I read the Quaker literature and found nothing in it to which I could not completely subscribe. I thought—and I suffered. I had a frank discussion with a committee appointed by the group, and I told them my fears. They were understanding, warm, and friendly, and pointed out that my problems were not unique. I applied and was accepted. So once again, after thirty years, I have a faith.

 After the first service as a member of the Society, Gilbert Bowles came over and shook hands with me.

 “We’re glad to have you with us,” he said.

 “I’ll probably make the world’s worst Quaker,” I said.

 “Now that remark,” he smiled, “is the clue to your personality. You have to excel in everything you do.”

“To A Young Friend Exploring The Quiet Meeting for Worship” by Ed Sanders

Friends Bulletin, April-May 1966

[As Howard Brinton often pointed out, the basis for Friends’ social and political activism is “group mysticism,” the experience of Meeting for Worship. No one was more of an activist, or wrote with more joy and enthusiasm about worship, than Ed Sanders (who was  editor of Friends Bulletin in the late 1940s). His eagerness to explain Meeting for Worship to young Friends may be owing to the fact that almost half the attenders at Yearly Meeting at this time were under twenty.]

hat to do in a quiet Meeting for Worship?  Some people of all ages when with other people seem to become uneasy and almost panicky when silence breaks out.

“Man, you could hear the silence drop into that room!” related the boy whose class at school had been stunned into silence by a student’s rudeness to the teacher.  “No one said a word, and we just looked at each other. I could have died!” a girl was telling of an embarrassment, intensified through silent, wordless moments that stretched into endless minutes.

Yet Quakers plan for times of quiet, look forward to them, and use them as the basis for worship. Does the expectation and planning for these periods of quiet remove the confusion, the embarrassment, and the apprehension? Yes, and it is the expectation which is most important. I find that during a day I will yearn for some place or bit of time for uninterrupted, private worship and quiet meditation, as at other times I want a refreshing drink of water, a shady place from the sun, good food to satisfy my hunger, or music, a poem, a picture of Van Gogh’s to free my dragging spirits.  But these feelings are not equal to or just the same as the need for times of silence.

What do you do in a Meeting for Worship?  What do you think about?  How do you know you are doing the right thing or filling the silence with the right thoughts?  These are the right questions and the most common questions to ask about Meeting for Worship.  Let’s think about them and I will think about my answers.

What do I do in a Meeting for Worship?  Well, first of all I want to be there—and that means to be there on time or a little early.  I always feel I have cheated myself in some way if I have to rush myself into a breathless anxiety to get there or if I interrupt the Meeting for others by arriving after it has begun.

After arriving I try to get settled in a comfortable, relad position, for I want my whole body to enjoy this experience.  Sometimes I have been more bothered by my foot going to sleep than by my neighbor’s going to sleep.

It is quiet.  I have settled down, and it seems to be that everyone else has settled.  Now what do you do?  You can’t just begin to worship.  What’s that—worship?

Remember what Friends, who find this form of silent worship helpful, believe about God.  We believe that what we know about God, what we have experienced, we have known and experienced within ourselves.  God, Truth, the Inward Light, the Spark, the Seed (that sprouts and grows into a wonderful plant), the Pure Principle, the Spirit that delights to do no evil—all these wonderful time-worn words for wonderful time-worn experiences describe something within each of us which we have taken time to think about, to worship, and to experience in this Meeting.

What do you think about in Meeting?  When Rufus Jones made his first trip to England at the age of 23, he went to Birmingham Meeting where he was moved to speak, and began with a phrase he had often used at home in New England: “Since sitting in this meeting I have been thinking . . .” Afterwards, William Graham, an older Friend, took him aside and said, “I was grieved at what thou said in meeting ....Thou shouldst not have been thinking.” Thinking does sometimes stand in the way of this inner working of the Spirit—your Spirit.

A noble thought is not at all necessary for your worship, and you should not worry or be uneasy if you find your mind cluttered with all kinds of funny, absurd, painful things—as well as “important” matters.  “Did I have to sit next to this character?.…I wonder whether the oven is turned off .…I’m glad I didn’t wear that sweater now ... Who is that sitting by the window?.…The cars that go up and down this street!... How can anyone tell the truth all the time?.…I wish I could either get that tune out of my head or remember the words to it….Now what did Mom mean, ‘You’re almost a man now’?”

I would say that the above collection of random thoughts is fairly typical and that such thoughts are translated time and again by persons of every age.  Note, however, that some of these items indicate that you are noticing people as they affect you or as they are affected by you, and at other times the thoughts are an odd assortment unrelated to the people present.  You are feeling, hearing things, inside and out.  Something important has begun to percolate in you.

The wonderful experience of giving yourself to the quiet and your own potential in it has begun. Remember those paper weights that have a winter scene inside?  Turned over or shaken the ball will cloud with “snow” which takes time to settle until you can see again the figures in the familiar scene.  Meeting is a little like that.

Marian, the mother of our family, used to say to the children that Meeting was a time to listen.  “Listen to what?” Why, listen to whatever you can hear! Bird songs, breathing of people, words inside you or coming from others. It is not so much a time for thinking as for listening. And I would add: Meeting is a time for seeing—seeing memories, seeing people, seeing the invisibles we do not normally use our eyes for!

How do you know you are doing the right thing or that it leads us to the importance of people meeting together to worship in quiet?  Most of the things I’ve written about so far could go on when one is alone.

We discover a great thing through meeting with others for whom worship is a vigorous, vital, active part of their lives. Something happens!  You find you have words pushing you up on to your feet to say, you have something to tell, something you must share.  And in turn someone else will be moved to share the inner workings of the Seed.  And you—you will discover that those thoughts or words or experiences are happening, or have happened, to you. What excitement!  What is going on here?  The whole Meeting may throb with a common pulse for a while, aware that what they have all been seeking is present among them and whatever has been done in faithful preparation and anticipation was all right. Your experience, your insight, have been strengthened and confirmed by the Meeting being united with you.

One is not to be disappointed when a whole Meeting is not illuminated by this Light. Or when you feel that something is happening to everyone else but you. Sometimes it seems to happen to no one but you.  That is hard. But for those who look for support and for the sharing of religious reassurance that they are on the Way, meeting together for worship is helpful and many times essential.

Now, one more word for you who may be on the threshold of seeking worship in this way. I believe that the insight Friends have had in seeking in silent worship is greater than all their other faiths and practices. It is more universal than the Religious Society of Friends.  Its discovery and use produce a dynamic for the individual and for the group.  In this day of tapping new sources of power that will change our material world, this power of silent worship may prove to be an essential new element to our spiritual life.

Those who are experienced in what I have been describing may say, “Oh, no, it isn’t that way.  It isn’t like that for me!” And next year I may say it differently, for worship brings with each experience a new freshness.

But I hope I have encouraged you to try it, this quiet seeking! There’s the fun! There’s the joy  of discovery!  There’s the exploration of your own infinite worthiness.

 “Rebuilding Burned Black Churches in  Mississippi” by John Levy

Friends Bulletin, November-December 1964

[When the burning of black churches in the early 1960’s shocked the conscience of the nation, Philadelphia and New York Yearly Meeting were led to help  in rebuilding 33 of the 44 destroyed churches in the summer of 1964.  Friends from around the nation, including Western Friends, became involved in this work and did what they could to re-build trust.

  Sadly, a new wave of church burnings occurred in the 1990’s—only this time, over 350 black churches have been torched!  Harold Confer, the director of Quaker Workcamps International, spoke to Boulder Meeting in 1998 about Quaker efforts in re-building 146 of these churches in the past two years. Confer notes that when he sent out an appeal to every Friends Meeting and Church in North America, only ten per cent responded Among those responding was North Pacific Yearly Meeting.

 “One of them was Berkeley Meeting,” Confer recalls.  “The Clerk wrote that Friends could not find a convenient place in their budget and were ready to lay my appeal aside when an elderly Friend raised the query that since they had a large building fund in their budget, could they not spare $500 as this was certainly ‘building.’”[8]]

uring the month of October a group of four men from the San Francisco Bay Area, under the sponsorship of the Social Order Committee of Pacific YM, visited Mississippi to help in the rebuilding of Negro churches. Some 35 churches were burned last summer in a reaction to the civil rights activities in that state, and the violence and destruction are still going on. John Levy (San Francisco Meeting) arrived in Jackson on October 9 to investigate the situation and determine whether concerned people should make a brief visit for this purpose. Since it did seem worthwhile, he was joined a week later by Trevor Thomas of Berkeley, Louis Sloss of Menlo Park, and Francis Geddes of San Francisco. The four remained in Mississippi until October 26.

Their work was directed by Lawrence Scott, who has been sent to the state for six months by New York and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings, to coordinate Friends’ activities there. Larry Scott is working closely with the Committee of Concern, an inter-denominational, inter-racial group of Mississippi religious leaders, formed to deal with the problem of church rebuilding. The Committee is raising money and cooperating in the work to be done, in such a way as to enhance relationships between the races and to help break the patterns of segregation and paternalism which infect the South.

The California group visited the sites of burned churches, talking with the deacons and ministers involved and gathering data to help the Committee of Concern to make decisions and go ahead with the work. In addition, some worthwhile efforts were made in interpreting to both white and Negro people the purposes of the Committee of Concern, and in helping to facilitate communication between races. We also tried to explain what there is in the Quaker faith that brings Friends to be involved in such activities.

An example of the reconciling opportunities that are uniquely open to “outsiders” occurred in a rural area near Jackson. Larry Scott and one of the California volunteers discovered a climate of hostility and suspicion toward the Committee of Concern in this area, which was so intense that it appeared no work could be done on the churches which had been burned locally.  In talking with the Negro minister who was chairman of the civil rights movement in the county, they discovered that he had never been able to talk face to face with white religious leaders, and on the basis of his experience distrusted the whole endeavor. A meeting was arranged between this man and some of the church leaders on the Committee, and after an hour or so of very frank exchanges, the mood of suspicion was largely allayed, and cooperative work could go forward in good spirit. The barriers to communication in Mississippi at this time are such that a meeting like this probably could not have taken place without the intervention of “outsiders.”

Working under the supervision of Bob Swann, a former builder from Connecticut, the group helped church members to build facilities at two burned church sites. At the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church (about 20 families), near Brandon, a 16’x32’ tent was purchased and erected on a wooden platform, to serve as a temporary place for worship until the congregation, with Committee assistance, is able to build a permanent church.  The platform, built in sections, can be moved to another location when it is no longer needed there.  At the Cedar Grove Baptist Church, near Canton, a 16’x32’ wooden building was erected, with composition siding.  It will be used as a church for the time being, and later as an auxiliary building for meetings and social activities.

In both cases, working with the church members seemed as important as the results. The California visitors were aware of the coming of a new era to the South, as Negroes and whites begin to work alongside one another and to face each other as equals. The courage and dignity evidenced by some of the Negroes as they struggle toward freedom provided an inspiration which will not be forgotten.

AFSC-sponsored demonstration in Seattle, ca. 1960—AFSC archives

“The AFSC in the 1960s” by Susan Auerbach

[“The ’60s were peak years for the AFSC in terms of numbers of programs, staff and volunteers,” observed Bob Gray, who was Ecutive Secretary of the Southwest Regional Office of the AFSC from 1965-1974. The same could be said for the AFSC regional offices in Seattle and San Francisco.

The Seattle and Portland offices merged in the early ’60s to become the Pacific Northwest Region. This Region’s Native American program began in 1957, though Native American work had been done in the late 1940s. In the ’60s the Indian Committee focused on fishing rights for Indians. This led to the research and  publication of Uncommon Controversy, which was written by the Indian Committee and published by the University of Washington Press in 1970. “This book helped to informed Judge Boldt’s ruling in federal court in 1974 that the tribes were entitled under their treaties to 50% of the fish caught in ‘their usual and accustomed places’—i.e. local waters.” [9] That decision unleased a storm of controversy. In that atmosphere, the AFSC Committee continued its work educating non-Indians and advocating for treaty rights.

During the 1950s the AFSC office in Seattle ran workcamps in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Montana. In the ’50s it also organized international affairs conferences as well as the Friends Interracial Camp on Orcas Island (1946-1952).

 The AFSC in the Western states has covered a wide variety of concerns—peace and international affairs, Pacific Rim issues (from Hawaii to the Belauans), Vietnam, labor rights, employment discrimination, criminal justice, South Africa (see p.245), Japanese redress (see p. 58), Central America, gay/lesbian rights, and Indian work. There was much work with young people and work camps through the late ’60’s; much current work (late ’90’s) again focuses primarily on young people, particularly gay-lesbian-bisexual-transexual youth and youth of color.

While Susan Auerbach focuses on AFSC activities in the Southwest in the ’60s, it should be kept in mind that similar activities were being undertaken by the AFSC throughout the West.]

he chief concerns during these turbulent times were civil rights and the Vietnam War. The AFSC seemed to capture the spirit of an unusually activist decade, attracting the attention of political leaders, celebrities and a broader public.

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in Pasadena under AFSC sponsorship in 1962.  “Don’t sleep through the social revolution,” he warned.  Other notable speakers of the day at AFSC events were James Baldwin, Ralph Abernathy, James Farmer, Cesar Chavez, and Chief Justice William O. Douglas. Artists who gave benefit concerts for the AFSC at this time spanned the musical spectrum from Joan Baez, Odetta, and the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest, to Marilyn Horne and the Vienna Boys Choir.

Civil Rights

Civil rights activism in the South prompted local work in the Pacific Southwest.  The AFSC‘s Community Relations Committee, formed in 1962, worked with other Southern California groups to combat housing discrimination and school segregation.  “People were either highly sympathetic or violently opposed” to the cause, says staff member Isabelle Gehr. The AFSC had its own open housing listing service and held block meetings to discourage white flight.  The Committee helped organize more than 20 fair housing groups in Southern California with its informational handbook, newsletter and public speaking efforts.  These groups were set up to welcome black families into previously all-white areas and to oppose legislation like California’s Proposition 14.

Civil rights concerns also preoccupied the AFSC College and High School Programs.  At a human rights conference for 161 high school students in 1964, speeches by author John Howard Griffin and NAACP attorney Loren Miller made a profound impression; “the feeling was so strong you could almost see it,” according to the Reporter.  Volunteer tutoring at a day camp in Watts was followed in 1965 by a workshop on “The Anatomy of a Riot.” In the summers of 1966 and 1967, young Human Relations Interns walked the streets of Glendale, Arcadia and South Pasadena talking to local leaders about improving race relations.

The ‘60s also marked the start of a more visible presence for the AFSC in predominantly black Northwest Pasadena, where the office was located. Efforts included a community development program, weekly children’s craft activities and the annual Art Show at Friends House.  This featured national artists of diverse heritage on themes such as “Door of Opportunity”—for “the arts allow no racial distinctions and they provide an important meeting ground,” according to the AFSC Reporter.

The Vietnam War

The AFSC national office went on record opposing American military involvement in Vietnam as early as 1954. When the war intensified in the mid 1960s, so did the regional response.  Staff and volunteers challenged the Vietnam War on several fronts ranging from draft counseling and education programs to vigils and protests.

AFSC experience in dealing with the intricasies of draft law and alternative service dated back to the two world wars. During the highly unpopular Vietnam War, one out of every 300 draftees filed as a Conscientious Objector (CO).  The AFSC became the largest organization in the country to offer draft counseling.  “Here a man confronts his own Vietnam,” wrote Ed Sanders in 1968.  “He is facing the system, ‘the Man,’ the moment of Truth. [AFSC offers information] to find in this labyrinth the right way for this particular person, then to indicate the community of interest and support which exists for this conscientious person.”

In 1967, the regional office interviewed or referred over 1400 young men for draft counseling.  Thousands more benefitted from the AFSC‘s training of other draft counselors in the area. The AFSC Reporter offered succinct advice for would-be COs: “File early.  Be persistent.  Be alert.  Be honest.” Staff members like Jamie Newton took the AFSC perspective on the draft to unlikely quarters like Lions and Rotary Club meetings; “response ranged from animosity to furtively agreeing with me and thanking me for coming,” he recalls.

Meanwhile, the AFSC was also sponsoring conferences, open houses and youth activities to educate the public and prompt them to examine their feelings about the war.  It co-sponsored the first major public discussion on the topic in Los Angeles in 1967 at the Vietnam Institute at Caltech, attended by 500 people.  Two years later more than twice as many people came to an interreligious debate on “The US and Southeast Asia” at Ambassador Auditorium. Another event called “Alternatives to Frustration” stressed action that government, groups and individuals could take.

“People concerned about the war would ask, ‘How can I expect to influence President Johnson when I can’t even get through to members of my own bridge club?’” remembers Bob Vogel.  He saw the solution in Vietnam Volunteers who would bring resources to people in a friendly, informal atmosphere conducive to discussion. The AFSC sponsored Vietnam Volunteers armed with films and literature in San Diego, Tucson and Honolulu as well as Los Angeles in one of its first region-wide outreach efforts.

Elaine (Woody) Schwartz, the Vietnam Volunteer in Hawai’i, started weekly silent vigils protesting the war at the University.  “There’s a long list of people who first came in contact with the AFSC through that,” according to Ian Lind, former staff of the AFSC Hawai’i office.  ‘They were so impressed that even when it was pouring rain, this group of people was out there.” Vigils were also held in front of the Pasadena post office. “We stood there silently from noon to one every Wednesday for eight long years,” recalls Vogel.  “We were against Americans killing and being killed.”

Though the AFSC often refrained from sponsoring large demonstrations, the monitors it trained helped guarantee that such demonstrations would be peaceful. The Committee also held workshops in nonviolence and community organizing, such as a six-week project for peace organization leaders in Long Beach in 1970.

Long Beach was chosen because it was the site of a napalm factory where the AFSC had set up an informational picket line.  Southern California Friends had long drawn attention to the activities of the local military-industrial complex; now their protests became more frequent.  A 1972 demonstration at Seal Beach to prevent naval weapons from being shipped to Vietnam was one of many such events. Because the AFSC had been involved in anti-war work for so many years before Vietnam, staff and volunteers gave a sense of direction to the burgeoning peace movement. “The AFSC is grounded in spiritual values which provide a base of clarity and consistency for pacifism,” says Jamie Newton. AFSC people involved in peace coalitions could help steer organizations away from factionalism and temporary ad-hoc concerns.  “We were often a stabilizing, centering force,” Newton and others believe.

[The “silent vigils” mentioned in this article may have been influenced by Charles Hubbell, a Santa Barbara Friend who wrote a pamphlet and newsletter about the silent vigil “movement.”

Hubbell led a silent vigil on February 16, 1966, at the Santa Barbara Campus. Silent vigils eventually appeared in hundreds of locations around the United States, many of which were described in his newsletter. Hubbell explained:

The Weekly Vigil for Peace is a recurrent, visible witness, silently asking the American leaders and others: Are you willing to stop this week? And asking the question week after week, until we get an honest and loving answer…

The vigil, being silent, criticizes actions rather than men. It leaves the way open for supporters of unfortunate policies to change their stand, without overt and hostile criticism which they might feel impelled to rebut….

We shall overcome. And we shall overcome, not men, but unfortunate policies, for all men are good.[10]]

“The Resistance“ by Eleanor Dart

Friends Bulletin,  December 1968

[Not all Friends were silent protesters; some were passionately outspoken about peace. The Quaker passion for peace during the 1960s is nowhere better emplified than by Eleanor Dart (previously Eleanor Kellogg) who grew up a Quaker in Eugene Monthly Meeting, Oregon. She now lives in Tucson, Arizona, and is an active member of Pima Monthly Meeting. During the 1960s she was an active war resister who eventually moved to Canada with her husband Ogden to avoid the draft. The author a Coming Home to Devil Mountain, the account of close brush with death  in Baja in 1967,  she is currently married to Richard Egen, works as a Certified Professional Counselor in private practice, and continues to write.]

e live in a country which spends more on organized murder annually than it would take to feed every hungry person in the world, and we live in a world where two thirds of the people are hungry. The United States chooses to see those people as its enemies, their hopes for social revolution as dangerous to our economic interests, hence, as “communism.” We choose to drop their next meal on them in the form of a bomb.

Whence comes that decision?  Not from some far-away entity known as government, but from you and me. It is our steady silent consent, made manifest by the way we live our lives, that creates history.  Vietnam, Guatemala.…these are not accidents, these are all the natural fruition of American lives being lived.

This is the realization that we must make: it will do no good for us to speak with our words against militarism and economic exploitation if we are speaking with our lives for them. You and I must realize that the only tool we have in this world is our life. We must choose, whether to relinquish control of that life and by silent active consent allow it to be used as a tool of oppression, or whether to take control of that life and use it as a tool to build peace and world brotherhood….

My words may say peace, but if I carry a draft card, my body is saying war.  My words may say peace, but if I pay tas, my money is saying war.  My words may say brotherhood, but if I enjoy the high standard of living of most American Quakers, my life style is saying exploitation and starvation to peasants around the world.  It is a fact that our wealth is built upon their misery.

How can we use our lives as tools for peace and world brotherhood?  This is the question to which the Resistance is one response.  We believe that to change society we must live a new set of values and assumptions into the world.  We must live peace and brotherhood, with our hearts, our bodies, our time, our  money, our lives….

The Resistance is people—individuals who want to use their lives as tools to build a new world.  It is clear that any meaningful revolution in this world will mean a change from the values of violence, competition and oppression, to the values of non-violence, sharing and brotherhood. This revolution can never be brought about by violence. The Resistance is committed to non-violent revolution ... the only kind that really is revolutionary.

How can we live non-violent social revolution?  How can we learn to respond with love and understanding to all men? To see human beings in those we conflict with, and respond to the human beings rather than to the conflict? How can we learn to share?  It is clear that we must do these things with our lives. Many of us are involved in or planning to start communes, communities Job sharing, exchange of services, simplicity in life style, property held in common, people receiving according to need, rather than according to how much money they have, decisions according to consensus, honest expression of emotion, emphasis on people rather than things ... all these are involved.

In all of these things, in our resistance to the draft, in our refusal to relinquish the control of our lives to institutions which we know to be immoral in means and ends, in our struggles to bring into being in our own lives our commitment to humanity around the world ... in all of these things we wish to be vocal, to be visible, to try to communicate with everyone whose life touches ours.

The parents of a friend of Ogden’s were very upset when Og refused induction, told him over the phone that they hated our kind and didn’t want to see him again.  So we went to see them.  After a couple hours talk they were our friends and even could say, “We think you’re crazy, but we hope you succeed.” It is the same with policemen, the draft board members—anyone.  We confront people as people, recognizing our disagreements yet seeking to share our humanity our desires for a better world. From “We hope you succeed” it is just a step to “We will succeed together.”

Today my brother-in-law Tom is in jail and my husband will be soon, for refusing to cooperate with the selective service system.  Jail doesn’t frighten us although we don’t desire it ... it has become part of the continuum of our lives.  There are people in jail, work to be done there.  We are talking about our whole lives, and if time in jail is one price we must pay for taking control of our lives back from the government, then we will pay that price.  We are full of joy, knowing sorrow.

I know it isn’t as simple as it sounds…but it is. It is just that simple. Look at your life, brothers [and sisters]. What does it speak to the people whose lives touch yours? What does it speak to the hungry people around the world? What does it speak to the soldier in Vietnam? You and I can choose to live death and destruction around the world, or we can choose to live peace and brotherhood, and a whole life can be built on that choice.  Know that the choice is ours.

[Reflecting on this article written when she was a young radical “flaming with holy fire,” Eleanor writes:  “Now that I am fifty-three, instead of twenty-one, I’ve learned a lot. Ogden and I spent a year in Canada when it was clear he was about to be arrested. He never went to jail, and I’m glad he didn’t. It was very hard on his brother Tommy, who spent 18 months in Lompoc Federal prison, much of it in solitary confinement. Still, if fifty-three old women were drafted I would refuse to register, even now. I live simply in many ways. We garden and raise most of our own vegetables. My husband Richard faithfully recycles paper, bottles, cans, oil. I buy used clothes, used books, used cars, used furniture. And even so I know that it is practically impossible to live any kind of normal life in this country without consuming foods and products that are produced by exploited workers somewhere. I pay tas, knowing that the money I send goes for roads and Medicare and Social Security, as well as to the military. I have learned to compromise, and to live as conscientious a life as I am able with the Light that is given me. I work part time and choose to live on a limited income so that my life will not be too ‘cumbered’ by the demands of work, and I will have time for spiritual matters, to serve my meeting, to pray, to play….”]

“Welcome to the World”: AFSC Projects in the 1960’s  by Stephen H. Thiermann

[A graduate of Haverford College in 1939, and a CO during World War II, Steve Thiermann became ecutive secretary of AFSC’s northern regional office, where he guided programs for 21 years. His book, Welcome to the World (1968), paints a very human portrait of the various programs that the AFSC undertook in this region during the 1950’s and 1960’s. These included programs helping Indians, farm laborers, prison inmates, at-risk youth, and various minorities living in the inner city. The following excerpt describes the origin of Self-Help Enterprises, one of the AFSC’s most effective program with farm workers.

Bard McAllister, who helped to start this program, became involved with the Service Committee as a CO during World War II. After working as National Director for AFSC’s Volunteer Work Camps, he was hired in 1956 as Agricultural Labor Secretary for the Service Committee in Northern California. “Self-Help Housing  was an idea that was born in my livingroom,” Bard recalled recently. After this project was successfully launched in California, Bard and his wife Olga were assigned to an AFSC mission in Zambia in 1966. There he started a self-help housing program that still operates with great success today. Bard returned to the United States in 1972 and worked for Self-Help Enterprises (SHE)  until he retired in 1982. SHE currently builds over a hundred and fifty homes and involves hundreds of volunteers each year.]

HELP WANTED—Male and Female, 83 cents an hour to crawl, stoop, stretch, lift, ten hours a day, in temperatures to 110 degrees; minimum social security; no tenure, no unemployment compensation, no paid vacations, no grievance procedures. Total annual wages $879.  Strong back and field experience necessary.

This advertisement has never appeared in a United States newspaper, nor is it likely to appear.  But it reflects the employment conditions of farm labor in the nineteen-fifties when the Service Committee turned to work with migrants in the great San Joaquin Valley, a land of fabled plenty and exhausting poverty.  There are 1,700,000 Americans working on the nation’s farms, 325,000 of them in California at the peak of the harvest. Migrants have lagged far behind in the forward economic march of their fellows in industry and continue to be the lowest-paid workers in the American labor force. [11] The average worker is able to find farm employment for less than half the year.

What do low wages and underemployment mean? They mean a two-room tarpaper shack, doors swinging on ill-assorted hinges, a sagging bed jammed in a corner, with four children sleeping heel to heel. No miracle of running water. A few cherished children’s possessions on a ramshackle set of shelves—a picture book with yellowed pages, an old pair of blue slippers with the soles peeling, an amber bit of beer bottle. And on the wall, a showy calendar print of Jesus, blessing a flock of sheep….

In 1961, to widen his own perspective, Bard McAllister hired out for short periods as a farm worker. Everywhere he encountered longing for an adequate home with a garden, fruit trees, grass and flowers.  Workers made it plain that they were not dreaming about another shack. At first the Service Committee attempted to get housing assistance from public agencies. Government officials wanted to help but regulations stood in the way of doing anything practical. If housing was to be improved some one needed to take the initiative and point the way.

Farm labor has one definite asset in building a home during the slack seasons of “big winter” (January and February) and “little winter” (July and August). There is time to spend on construction, when many of the more resourceful workers can build or add to their homes. Often neighbors share the labor. Without building knowledge or skills, the results are usually far below minimum standards, Where the time and need for shelter have coincided, fishermen in Nova Scotia and miners in Pennsylvania have built standard homes by exchanging labor under skilled leadership, The labor exchange drastically reduced cost.  Men earning a dollar an hour or less, with an annual Income of $1,800 cannot afford to pay three dollars an hour to a carpenter, One summer, as a student volunteer in Penncraft, Pennsylvania, I had helped miners build new homes in the first self-help housing experiment of the Service Committee. The situation appeared ripe in Tulare County to build on the Penncraft precedent.

Three years were spent raising funds. The prospects were discouraging until Congress enacted the 1961 Housing Bill.  McAllister had worked with the Secretary of the Commission on Agricultural Life and Labor in Washington, D.C., to draft the legislation and to incorporate a section making agricultural workers eligible for housing loans. On the strength of this assistance in financing rural construction, we were able to raise the balance of the budget for a self-help housing project—$54,000.

Within a year the dream of farm workers banding together to build their own homes became a visible reality as three houses rose out of the alkali dust flat at Goshen. Each family pledged 1,500 hours of work as their investment. The various construction skills were learned as they went along, under the expert guidance of Howard Washburn, Self-Help Housing Secretary. On days when they were not employed on nearby farms, both the men and their wives worked on their homes, with the exception of Frank Jiminez who worked a night shift and gave his labors during the day. The sight of foundations being poured, frames going up, plumbing being installed spurred others to hope that for them, too, a home would be built some day by their own and their neighbors’ efforts and cooperation and the $5, 000 available to them in the form of a Farm Home Administration loan.

Prompted by this successful pilot project, the Service Committee later sponsored in Washington, D. C. the first National Conference on Self-Help Housing ever held in the United States.  It drew together a small band of men and women who had tried self-help housing on Indian reservations, in city slums and rural settlements. At the conference an Associated Press man was introduced to Mrs. Nosie, a remarkable Apache lady from the San Carlos reservation in Arizona.  She showed him a picture of the two-room shack which she and her husband had decided was no place to rear six children.  Utilizing self-help techniques, they had cooperated with others to build themselves a new house.  When the AP man asked her what difference the family felt as they moved into the new house, Mrs. Nosie took her time while she found the right words and then said, “Well, it was like being born again.”

In California the reborn interest in self-help housing grew at an astonishing pace.  Unable with our small staff and limited budget to meet the demand, we devolved our project onto a newly formed non-profit corporation, Self-Help Enterprises, Inc., under the leadership of Howard Washburn. Within the space of a year more than 170 houses were underway, with a budget of over half a million dollars. Meanwhile, International Self-Help Housing Associates was formed to provide an international clearing house for information, a training center, and liaison with governments and foundations

 “Friends in the Orient” by Rose Lewis and Martha Dart

[Rose Lewis has been involved in both Pacific and North PacificYearly Meetings. She has served as Clerk of the joint Friend in the Orient Committee, and of North Pacific Yearly Meeting Steering Committee. She edits the newsletter Windows East and West, which is entering its 20th year of publication.  She has also been involved with AFSC and FWCC, and is an active member of Salem Friends Meeting. In 1983 she and her husband adopted orphan Mayan sisters from Guatemala. The challenge of nurturing them in a mid race family has prompted her to devote major effort to raising up the issue of racism in our society. Martha Dart and her husband Leonard were Friends in the Orient in 1973. Martha is the author of several books about the Marjorie Sykes, a British Friend who spent much of her life involved in various project in India.]

nterest in events occurring around the Pacific Rim countries has long been strong among unprogrammed Western Friends, especially when Pacific YM included a  Meeting in Shanghai. English Friends had first gone to Szechuan Province in 1886, and eventually joined with Methodists and Baptists to establish West China Union University in Chengdu in 1911. Margaret Simkin of Claremont Meeting was later a part of that work.  Her husband Robert had gone out in 1906, and she joined him after they were married. Her book Letters from Szechuan, 1923-1944, describes their experiences as teachers during those years. When she first arrived there were five Monthly Meetings in the province. Today there are several Quakers in China who are descendants of those early Friends. [12]

In the early 1960s Western Friends’ interest in China and the Pacific Rim led to setting up the Friend in the Orient Committee “to foster mutual love and understanding with Friends in the Orient through correspondence and visitation. It is alert for ways, and may be asked to help in coordinating the means, by which Friends under divine guidance may visit in either direction across the Pacific, looking toward fellowship and the betterment of international relations.”[13] 

David and Catherine Bruner were the first Friends asked to serve in this capacity for a year, starting in September 1962, with Hiroshima as their headquarters. They first visited Korea, taking books collected for libraries and groups there and materials for the Gandhian study group in Seoul. In Hiroshima they found an amazing spirit of forgiveness shown by the people. The love received from the people was the most moving aspect of their mission to the Orient, especially from young people. In face-to-face encounters they spoke freely and honestly, and through them, whether Buddhist or non-believer, one saw God.

A Canadian couple from Calgary, Russell and Ann McArthur, became the next Friends in the Orient. It was hoped that, as Canadians, they would be able to visit mainland China, which was strictly closed to U.S citizens.  Russell was able to travel among the Chinese people and meet with officials, and noted improving conditions of people’s livelihood in spite of difficulties, and a continuing traditional aversion to militarism in spite of propaganda and training.

The Committee had a deep concern about the situation in Korea, and in 1967 invited the revered Quaker teacher Sok Hon Ham, known as the Gandhi of Korea, to attend Pacific YM and visit Friends in California and Oregon. The following year Stephen Thomas was asked to serve as Friend in the Orient while on an alternative service project in Hong Kong and later Taiwan. He also visited Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore and Indonesia, and wrote of the value to Young Friends of coming face to face with “the misery and poverty of a great majority of the world.” He wrote the following article, “A Window Into Hell” about his experiences in Vietnam.

In 1970 Ben and Madge Seaver were sent to Hong Kong to serve for two years as our “eyes and ears in Asia” in that crossroads city. Numerous articles in Friends Bulletin describe their experiences as our “Friendly presence” there, increasing our understanding and effectiveness in dealing with our own government in the interest of peace. 

Marjorie Sykes was chosen as a Friend From the Orient to come and travel among West Coast Friends in 1973. This British Friend had lived and worked in India since 1928 and had become an Indian citizen. She taught in Tagore’s international university and Gandhi’s ashram at Sevagram, and conducted training camps for students, village leaders and peace workers in her home in south India. She was able to bring fresh insights into life in India, especially at the village level, during her visits to Meetings and individuals in California, Oregon, Washington and briefly in Canada. At the Committee’s request she visited areas of Quaker concern en route to the US including Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, and on the return trip Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia. In later years she conducted exhaustive research into the history of Quakers in India, which resulted in two books, Quakers in India, 1980, and An Indian Tapestry; Quaker Threads in the History of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, from the Seventeenth Century to Independence, published posthumously in 1997.

While on an academic assignment in India during 1977-78, Leonard and Martha Dart also served as Friends in the Orient.  They were part of a Quaker group concerned with designing and building houses which could withstand the severe cyclones of south India. 

In 1982 the long hoped-for Friends, Lloyd and Mary Margaret Bailey of New York Yearly Meeting, were found to go to Korea.  For many years Friends in Seoul Meeting had asked for experienced Friends to come and live among them as a resource to encourage that small group. Lloyd had recently retired as US Director of UNICEF, and both he and Mary Margaret had a long history of work with Friends schools, AFSC, FGC, FWCC, Quaker UN program, etc.  They taught classes about Friends beliefs and practices, and also English language classes.  Their continuing contact with Korean Friends since they returned has been greatly appreciated.

The early hope to sometime send Friends from the US to China was realized in 1987-88 when Lewis and Lois Hoskins were finally approved. The Chinese government could not accept “Friendly presence” as a suitable purpose, but they were able to get visas as English teachers for the Amity Foundation in Xian and had many good contacts with the people there. Their observations were especially valuable, since they had both worked in China in 1949 with the Friends Ambulance Unit project immediately after World War II (see Lewis’ article on p. 81).  They were also able to make contact with the remnant of Quakers in China, dating from the work of British Friends in the late 1800s when they set up a medical school in Chengdu.

Russell and Verna Curtis had worked for many years in Micronesia and were able to return there in 1989-90 as Friends in the Orient, with a particular concern about the build-up of a US naval base in Palau.  Their careful observations about the situation developing there were helpful to Friends back home and their presence was a comfort to their many friends there.

These various Friends projects involved considerable fund-raising efforts by the Committee. In addition, the Committee has made major contributions for travel expenses of Asian Friends to attend FWCC Triennials and other Quaker gatherings around the world.  Another contribution has been support of several publication efforts, including Margaret Simpkin’s Letters from Szechuan, translation and publication of Queen of Suffering, A Spiritual History of Korea by Sok Hon Ham,[14] and three books about Marjorie Sykes by Martha Dart: Marjorie Sykes–Quaker Gandhian, Transcending Tradition, and In Quaker Friendship, Letters from Marjorie Sykes.

Starting in 1980 one of the main concerns of the committee has been to support Windows East and West, an international newsletter of Friendly concerns around the world, edited by Rose Lewis. The Committee has felt a strong need for more information about what was happening in Asia.  It is sent to some 1000 Meetings and individuals in the US, and 100 overseas. Scores of Asian and other sources are combed for news and insights into events not covered by the US press.  Although the Friend in the Orient Committee was regretfully laid down in 1998, Windows continues to be published, relying on contributions from readers.

 “A Window Into Hell” by Stephen Thomas

Friends Bulletin, 1969

[Stephen Thomas went to Southeast Asia in 1968 on an alternative service project. He worked first in a refugee settlement near Hong Kong and then taught at the American Missionary College in Taiwan.[15]