| FRIENDS PEACE TEAMS
AFRICAN GREAT LAKES INITIATIVE 1001 Park Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63104, phone/fax: (314) 645-0336 e-mail: dave@aglionline.org Healing from Slavery, War, and Genocide: Lessons from John Woolman and Friends in Rwanda and Burundi By David Zarembka Presented at the 59th John Woolman Memorial Lecture October 22, 2006 John Woolman is my favorite Friend. My second favorite Friend is Levi Coffin. My worse favorite Friend is my daughter, Joy. Let me explain. When Joy was about 12 years old, she would come home with her “First best friend, her second best friend, etc.” and each day the “First Best Friend” would change. This constant rotation of friends annoyed and intrigued me so one day I asked her where I fit in this hierarchy of best friends. She replied, “You are my worst best friend.” Although as the parent of a 12 year old I was at the bottom I was pleased to have made the list. These three favorite Friends have something in common. They all opposed slavery. Joy is director of the Break the Chains Campaign of the Institute for Policy Studies which rescues people from conditions of servitude and slavery—in Washington, DC no less. In his book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Quaker Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves reports that there are twenty-seven million people in slave-like conditions in the world today—more than ever before in recorded history! Hence John Woolman’s and Levi Coffin’s work to end enslavement is still with us. Another trait they share is that they have written books. Levi Coffin’s Reminiscences of Levi Coffin: The Reputed President of the Underground Railroad does not have the literary qualify of John Woolman’s Journal, but he surely lived an action packed life as he and his wife, Catherine, helped 3300 slaves on their way to freedom. Joy’s book about Black/White families in England, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Jamaica is called The Pigment of Your Imagination: “Mixed Race” in a Global Society. As a biased reader, I will not comment on its literary merit, but I will say that I have read it about ten times. At this point I can probably quote large passages of her book, but that is another lecture. Instead I want to start out with one of my favorite quotes from John Woolman: [Pause] “It‘s good for thee to dwell deep, that thou mayest feel and understand the spirits of people.” I like the “dwell deep.” This is why the African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams--AGLI as we call it--sends people to Africa for five week workcamps. The purpose is to get to know people and their condition. Note that Woolman does not talk about language, exotic customs, and other external characteristics, but rather “feel and understand the spirits of people.” In that vein, Joy has a nice passage on this issue in her book. She was visiting Kenya, where her mother is from: |