In November of 2017 Tom Macaluso handed me a medium sized 3-ring black binder that had been found in the London Grove Friends Monthly Meetinghouse. It contains minutes of meetings and a variety of other papers. The first minute was June 2, 1956 the last on March 3, 1968.
“On Sat. June 2 the following persons met to discuss what the Monthly Meetings in Western Quarter were doing and what they might do in the field of race relations.”
Nine people are listed in attendance at the first meeting. Four are from London Grove: Dorothy Paschall, Sherwood Holt, Helen Walton and Helen Corson. There are two attendees from Hockessin, one from Kennett, one from Mill Creek, and one listed as an ex-Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Committee on Race Relations. The minutes recorded an assessment of the relationships that those in attendance had with Negroes. It was concluded that they had few personal Negro friends and that there weren’t many natural avenues for developing such relationships. Housing was identified as the most pressing problem for Negroes.
“It was generally agreed that the immediate problem in our meetings was to change the attitudes of many of our members and that to do this we need to know Negroes personally. How can we supply opportunities for doing this? The Family Work Camp under the Social Order Course, to be held this year at Lincoln Univ, was suggested as was the Fellowship Weekend project, described by Florence Kyte.”
Two weeks later, at their second meeting, there were three people from Lincoln University in attendance, one had previously attended Wilmington Friends School. Over the nearly 12 years of minutes there is increasing contact with the Negro community. Members attended race relations conferences, NAACP meetings in Avondale, they were involved in antidiscrimination efforts regarding local businesses, and Green Circle Programs (an empathy building process conceived by Gladys Rawlings, an African-American social worker and teacher in Philadelphia) were proposed for primary students.
The last minute was recorded fifty years ago, in 1968. The dozen years that this binder encompasses represents one of the most critical periods in the history of race relations in the United States. Two years before the first entry in our minutes, on May 17, 1954, Brown v Board of Education Topeka changed the trajectory of school integration in America and as that played out over the decades the degree of interaction between the races increased.
The first entry in the binder records, “The Montgomery bus boycott was briefly described, emphasizing its importance as a non-violent movement.” In December of 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders called a bus boycott which became national news and earned, the then twenty-seven-year-old, King his first mention in the New York Times on Feb. 27, 1956. The Committee promoted and distributed Dr. King’s book about the Montgomery Boycott, “Stride Toward Freedom.” (1958) and they purchased booklets containing King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” (1963)
In June of 1963 President Kennedy’s proposed civil rights legislation was blocked by filibuster. After his assassination in November of 1963 President Johnson pushed the legislation through Congress by a wide margin. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted on July 2, 1964.
The last minute, for March 10, 1968, records Helen Corson’s report of the planning for a forum presented by Lincoln University and The Kennett Area Community Forum, to be held at Unionville High School on April 4, 1968 at 8:00 p.m. A program for that event was inside the binder. It lists James Farmer as one of the three speakers. Farmer was the founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and in 1968 he was Professor of Social Welfare at Lincoln University and a candidate for the U.S. Congress.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was declared dead at 7:05 p.m. CST, five minutes after the scheduled start of the program in Unionville.
We do not know what happened at the Forum or why the minutes end at this point in time or of what happened next with the committee. A visit to the Friends Historical library at Swarthmore to access London Grove Meeting Minutes archived there is needed.
Race Relations Time Capsule
As I began to read through these documents and to scan them into PDF files for this distribution, I quickly began to see them as a time capsule. A race relations time capsule that captures a particular phase in the evolution of race relations in America, at a particular place. This time capsule was closed in 1968, 50 years before I began digging through it. It is a snapshot (time exposure I suppose) of a serious, creative, and exploratory effort to improve relations between the races.
I turned 27 in 1968, I was in college and engaged with the political issues of the day; the war in Vietnam, human rights, civil rights, poverty and more. These documents take me back in memory to that period of our history. Looking back over 50 years there is a lot that has changed, there has been more progress made than many realize. It is surprising how far we have come in 50 years, how much has been attained, and yet to be so disappointed with how far we have yet to go.
Below are links to the minutes and the other materials in the time capsule.
Race Relations Committee Meeting Minutes
This is a copy of the Western Quarter Race Relations Committee minutes from June 2, 1956 through March 3, 1968.
Current Issues 1967
This is a copy of the October 1967 Current Issues, a publication of the United States Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA). FOR USA “was founded in 1915 by sixty-eight pacifists … and claims to be the "largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the United States.” “FOR in the USA was formed initially in opposition to the entry of the United States into World War I. The American Civil Liberties Union developed out of FOR's conscientious objectors program and the Emergency Committee for Civil Liberties.” Wikipedia
“In 1947, FOR and the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, which had been founded by FOR staffers James Farmer and George Houser along with Bernice Fisher, sponsored the Journey of Reconciliation, the first Freedom Ride against southern segregation …” Wikipedia
This edition is about Black Power and was edited by Dr John M. Swomley Jr., a white Methodist theologian and activist. “Swomley served as FOR’s executive secretary from 1953 to 1960, and was a passionate advocate for pacifism and civil rights through religiously-based principles. He was among the community of FOR leaders and colleagues who helped shape the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s understandings of active nonviolence. In an October 2008 interview, Swomley said, ‘I sat outside the door of Martin’s office and when someone came to talk to him, I talked to that person about nonviolence.’”
Forum at Unionville High School 1968
This is the program for a forum, “In Race Relations, Are We a Community," presented by Lincoln University and the Kennett Area Community Forum at Unionville High School on April 4,1968 at 8;00 p.m. One of the three speakers was James Farmer who was then Professor of Social Welfare at Lincoln University. Farmer had previously founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was at the time a candidate for the United States Congress. A follow-up meeting was scheduled for April 16, 1968 at the A.M.E. Church in Kennett Square.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was declared dead at 7:05 p.m. CST, five minutes after the scheduled start of the program in Unionville.
It was published sometime after 1975. This a directory of the Western Quarterly Meetings with drawings and brief histories of the meetinghouses.
Miscellaneous Papers
These are the miscellaneous papers that were found inside the minutes binder.