Each year as we approach the annual meeting of the AFSC Corporation, I hear people wondering whether the Corporation has outlived its usefulness – or indeed whether it ever had one. 

Newcomers wonder what the Corporation is for, whether it matters that they attend, and whether, if they do, they will really understand the issues in play. Those with experience of past Corporation meetings have many of the same questions.

I am one who believes the Corporation has immense potential value to AFSC – and also that AFSC has immense value to Quakers in the U.S. 

Learn more about AFSC's growing involvement in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Hear the voices of activists, students, and Quakers as they work together to hold large corporations accountable for the violation of human rights and listen to the power of nonviolence to bring change to both hearts and minds.  

In 1968, I was a high school student in Evanston, Ill., firm in my loyalty to the Chicago White Sox and firm in my belief that my country was on the right side in Viet Nam.

One day I walked into the public library. In the new books display I found a book with a dramatically designed cover dominated by one jagged word: "WAR." The subtitle also grabbed my attention: "The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression."