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This Quaker milk station in Barcelona was one of 16 set up to serve refugees and provide for children’s health during the Spanish Civil War.

Manuel Izquierdo fled Spain at age 14 and ended up at La Rouviere Quaker children’s colony, where he drew his diary. He lived to become a prominent artist in Portland, Oregon.

Sewing classes gave refugee women a way to support themselves and their families in a new life.

In 1938, a team from AFSC traveled to Germany to negotiate the delivery of urgent relief to the Jewish population and the release of as many Jews as possible. Once war broke out, the Nazi authorities ignored their promises.

As war overtook Europe, AFSC continued to manage the children’s colonies in southern France, taking in Jews and others fleeing the Nazis.

The colonies became havens for the most vulnerable children from the refugee camps—those who were alone or especially sick or frail.

A 1941 report stated that “Les Quakres Americains” were feeding 7,200 adult refugees and 800 children daily in camps and hospitals.

While providing medical support to prisoners at Gurs internment camp, Norwegian nurse Alice Resch Synnestvedt managed to smuggle buses filled with Jewish children to her Quaker colleague Mary Elmes in a nearby town.

Mary Elmes (right) would gather or create papers needed for the children’s evacuation to safety in the United States.

AFSC established several hostels for displaced Europeans in the U.S. and Latin America, including the Finca Paso Seco Hostel in Cuba.

The Friends Ambulance Unit, staffed chiefly by conscientious objectors, served throughout Europe, as well as China, India, and Greece. This mobile surgery operated in Pao-shan Yunnan, China in 1946.

AFSC continued our commitment to victims of war even after hostilities ended. These German children welcomed the Quaker truck that brought them milk.

AFSC staffer Esther Rhoads distributes milk to children in post-war Japan.

In 1947, AFSC and British Friends Service Council accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Quakers worldwide for efforts to heal rifts and oppose war. The prize emphasized work during and after both world wars to feed starving children and help Europe rebuild itself.

When the British Mandate over Palestine ended in 1948, the ensuing war left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as refugees in Gaza. AFSC took an active role in their well-being.

Despite intense Cold War politics, AFSC promoted broad antiwar coalitions that included mainline churches, student groups, labor unions, and more radical organizations.

At the end of 1965, AFSC released this devastating report on the situation in Southeast Asia. It intensified opposition to the war and inspired us to focus even more on peace education.

The researchers of NARMIC drew on many sources to expose the military industrial complex. Their slide shows and reports were widely used by churches and peace groups.

NARMIC’s slide show on the automated air war revealed the military’s strategy to “give wherever possible the appearance of peace while executing war; replace the man with the machine.”

The draft brought many young men who opposed the war to AFSC for military counseling.

Defying a U.S. embargo, AFSC sent medical supplies to North Vietnam. Here, a staffer delivers cardiac surgery equipment to the Viet-German Friendship Hospital in Hanoi in 1969.

At AFSC’s Quang Ngai rehabilitation hospital in South Vietnam, patients from both sides of the conflict received treatment side-by-side.

Ingeniously designed U.S. sensors and explosives uncovered by NARMIC harmed only people, not buildings or military equipment.

This sensor, designed by Honeywell Corporation to look like animal dung, sends a signal when stepped on that allows a computer to trigger a bomb.

After the war, unexploded ordnance continued to injure and kill. A flat shovel was safer than a traditional hoe for turning the earth. The Shovels for Laos project sent over 500,000 shovels to mine-laden areas.

By 1978, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were all closed to Americans. But Laotians trusted AFSC enough to let our staff remain and work in the most remote, impoverished areas.

In 1987, Maria Jimenez founded ILEMP, AFSC’s counter-surveillance program for border patrol activity along the U.S.-Mexico border. Based in Houston, Texas, Jimenez solicited and investigated reports of violence and racial profiling.

Roberto Martinez (with microphone) coordinated ILEMP activities in San Diego, California. From 1987-90, ILEMP documented 380 cases of excessive force, racial harassment, and sexual assault.

Our “Project Voice” brought immigrants and allies together to push for comprehensive immigration reform and a clear path to citizenship.

The principles that guide our work with immigrant communities come from nine decades of experience. Published originally as “A New Path,” these principles have influenced other immigrant rights groups, as well.

In 2002, our Denver office helped immigrant workers start “El Centro,” the first immigrant- run day laborers’ organization in Colorado.

AFSC staff and partners around the country joined the millions of people rallying for immigration reform in 2006.

AFSC piloted our Citizenship Training Institute in Florida in 2008, reaching out to the region’s immigrant communities with leadership development courses.

At AFSC’s Pan Valley Institute (PVI) in California, immigrants can learn, organize, and develop leadership skills. Each year PVI’s Tamejavi Festival brings the diverse communities of the Central Valley together to celebrate their cultures.

Preventing family separation has been a major theme of our work. Here, an immigrant family from New Jersey participates in a 2014 Capitol Hill lobbying day coordinated by our Newark office.

In May 2015, AFSC co-sponsored a rally in San Diego protesting killings by the Border Patrol.

At this 2015 demonstration, we joined partners to demand an end to the Congressional mandate that requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain 34,000 beds for immigrant detention at all times.