On Saturday Aug. 12, white nationalists—armed with Nazi and confederate flags, torches, shields, and weapons—converged in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a “Unite the Right” rally. They were met with hundreds of anti-racist and anti-fascist protestors. A white supremacist drove his car into the protests, killing one person and injuring dozens.
The Trump administration is considering ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—a move that would put nearly 800,000 young immigrants under immediate threat of deportation. Communities across the country are rallying to save the program. Here's what we're reading to learn more.
Kenya held an important election on Aug. 8, and the results are expected to be announced today.
More than a year ago, I was in Nairobi, a city teeming with industriousness and life, meeting with our regional team. They were strategizing then about how to support our network of youth and civil society leaders in mobilizing to prevent election violence.
Kenya has had a history of electoral and political violence, but the events that followed the 2007 election were especially horrific. More than 1,300 people were killed, and over 600,000 were displaced in the violence that followed the controversial election and ballot counting process. A country that was a strong and stable democracy in East Africa appeared to be on the precipice of a continued civil conflict.
In the early hours of the morning, the Senate narrowly defeated the Health Care Freedom Act, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and potentially stripped health insurance from 16 million people. The bill was defeated after months of courageous protests in Washington, DC and across the country. Here’s what we’re reading to learn more.
When I opened my mailbox last night, I found an envelope with a card in it from the Friends Meeting of Washington (FMW). It was a thank you card signed by several meeting members for my getting arrested on July 13 at an interfaith civil disobedience action with Reverend William Barber in defense of universal healthcare. As a new sojourner at FMW, I was deeply touched by the meeting’s support for this action.
Steve Chase is a member of Putney Friends Meeting in Vermont and the author of "Letters to a Fellow Seeker: A Short Introduction to the Quaker Way," as well as the Pendle Hill Pamphlets, "Revelation and Revolution: Answering the Call to Radical Faithfulness" and "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions? A Quaker Zionist Rethinks Palestinian Rights." Steve is currently the Manager of Academic Initiatives for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, DC.
Linda was only a high school senior when the Providence City Council appointed her to a working group charged with finalizing language for the proposed “Community Safety Act”—an ordinance to hold police accountable and reduce racial profiling in Providence.