Quakers, Slavery and Climate Change
February 11, 2014 § Leave a comment
I’ve been looking at how American Quakers changed from condoning slavery, and some Quakers being slave-owners or slave-traders, to in 1758 making slave trading an enforceable breach of Quaker discipline. I was inspired by a quote from Bill McKibben: “Since all of us are beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself – it’s as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders.” [1] (my emphasis)
Given how endemic slavery was to the economy and society at the time, few people could have imagined the situation ever changing. If we knew how Quakers internally made that shift, might there be valuable lessons for those working to inspire change today in response to climate change?
Here is the article I’ve now written: Quakers, Slavery and Climate Change; I would be very interested in your responses or comments.
[1] Quoted in the Guardian on 30 November 2012 by Anne Karpf, Climate Change: You Can’t Ignore It http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/30/climate-change-you-cant-ignore-it
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