http://www.betsycazden.com/blog/ Quaker historian, writer, speaker, and workshop leader en Copyright 2007 Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:50:56 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss BetsyCazdenhttp://feedburner.google.com I've already received two e-mail responses to my glossary entry on "speak truth to power" as a Quaker mantra. So let's make it a conversation thread. I'm particularly interested specific (documented) examples of this phrase, or similar, in Quaker sources before 1955; or, alternately, references to its usage outside of Friends. A number of people have told me they're sure it goes back into the 17th century. The Sidwell Friends School "Testimonies" pamphlet on the Friends Council for Education website claims 18th century. The purpose of all this is not to brand something as "Quaker" or "non-Quaker" but to explore how ideas move among us, and to claim pre-1800 Quaker provenance only for things we can document, not for what we're sure they must have said and done because it matches what we would have done or want to do now. "New" doesn't mean "better" or "worse," but it shouldn't masquerade as "old." http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetsyCazden/~3/EM2YXCTdOJg/speak_truth_to_power.php http://www.betsycazden.com/blog/2007/01/speak_truth_to_power.php Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:50:56 -0500 http://www.betsycazden.com/blog/2007/01/speak_truth_to_power.php dailykos entry described the impact of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s support for the popular movement in what became Bangladesh. (Who knew?) It included a link to Robert F. Kennedy’s powerful 1966 speech in Cape Town, South Africa, encouraging student activists to take any step, however small, that might produce “ripples of hope” in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. I first heard about that speech at my son’s 2004 Oberlin graduation. The speaker had been one of the white student leaders in the audience. Some time later, recalling the speech, she and another student attended the funeral of an ANC leader, one of the first overt links between white students and the black protest movement. It turned out to be a key moment in creating a multiracial movement that eventually turned the tide against apartheid. The two white leaders eventually had to leave the country for their own safety. She urged the assembled Obies to look for those opportunities, the best commencement-speech advice I’ve heard. That speaker was Margaret Marshall, now Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and the author of the SJC opinion legalizing gay and lesbian marriage in Massachusetts. Ripples of hope, indeed. ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetsyCazden/~3/iT3O0SBDIzw/ripples_of_hope.php http://www.betsycazden.com/blog/2007/01/ripples_of_hope.php Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:24:06 -0500 http://www.betsycazden.com/blog/2007/01/ripples_of_hope.php