Ad Hoc Committee on Race & Racism Final Report

by WebPost | Feb 11, 2025 | History - RFM, Minuted Decisions, Race & Racism ad hoc

Summary of Recommended Actions for Richmond Friends Meeting 2025 and 2026

1. Form a three-person Race and Racial Justice Team, whose members will serve two-year terms, under the care of the Clerk of Meeting.
2. Reparations to Indigenous peoples – Form a short-term ad hoc committee to develop a specific recommendation in 2025.
3. Reparations to African Americans – make an annual donation (2025 and 2026) of no less than $5,000 in each year to the Friends Association for Children.
4. Involvement with three priority organizations (2025 and 2026)
   • The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (structural change)
   • Coming Together Virginia (deeper connections and personal change)
   • The Micah Initiative (group service)
5. Education/Transformation
   • This transformational personal learning and informational programming is important to our spirituality and should always explore related Quaker history, testimonies, and values.
     • Race and Racial Justice Learning – developed by committees and position holders
     • Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders – an education program that examines the experience of Quakers with the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
     • Hispanic/Latino Americans - an education program that examines the current work of the American Friends Service Committee with Hispanic/Latino American communities.
     • Spiritual Support – Use Quaker practices, such as clearness committees, support committees, embraced ministry, and Faithfulness Groups to support discernment and engagement.
6. This transformational personal learning and informational programming is important to our spirituality and should always explore related Quaker history, testimonies, and values.

Ad Hoc Committee on Race & Racism Recommendations for Action/Implementation 2025-26

Richmond Friends Meeting approved the formation of the Ad Hoc Committee on Race and Racism during our twelfth month 2022 Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business. The committee’s charge called for engaging the Meeting in an inclusive and open discernment process to learn what our Meeting is led to do around race and racism—as individuals, within the Meeting community, and within the larger community. The committee was further tasked with developing an action/implementation plan reflecting the learning gained from the discernment process.

To guide our way forward, Richmond Friends Meeting adopted a Minute on Race and Racism early this year. Drawn from query responses received and listening circles held in 2023, the Minute acknowledges that “inequality and injustice based on race are deeply rooted in our society” and commits to “challenging and repairing racism and racial bias in ourselves as individuals, within our Meeting, and in our Meeting’s relationship with the wider world.”

Today, the ad hoc committee presents recommendations for action/implementation that aim to marry the goals of our Minute to concrete actions. We recognize that time, energy, and specific interests of individuals in our Meeting will vary greatly, and therefore the recommendations offer a range of opportunities for personal and collective action and growth. They are grounded in the belief that Meeting’s commitment is not the work of any individual, committee, or group – but of us all. Just as every suggestion received in the discernment process could not be included, the actions of Richmond Friends Meeting should not be limited to those suggested here.

Nor should it be understood that all must happen immediately. Meeting can move forward as way opens. Already, committees and position holders have begun to consider how they might be mindful of race and racial justice in conducting their business and serving both Richmond Friends Meeting and the wider community— they are changing how we choose new books for the library or identify potential contractors, for instance. This mindfulness and care will remain vital to our Meeting’s work concerning race and racial justice.

Central to the development of these recommendations for action/implementation have been the following:

An extensive effort to solicit the views of Richmond Friends Meeting members and attenders during summer and fall 2023—

• We received 54 digital or handwritten messages responding to: Please think about your own experiences and actions regarding race and racism and those of RFM and the wider society. Then please answer this query, “What should RFM do regarding race and racism?

Adoption of the Richmond Friends Meeting Minute on Race and Racism during our first month 2024 Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business (See Appendix E, below)

Three Meeting-wide programs designed to lay the groundwork for developing our action/implementation plan:

• Public historian Ana Edwards delivered a lecture on the foundation of systemic racism in Richmond (May 2024).
• The ad hoc committee offered a deep dive into Quaker and Richmond Friends Meeting history as it relates to race and racism (August 2024).
• The Meeting’s fall retreat included a program aimed at strengthening our spiritual grounding for the work ahead, led by the dismantling racism trainer and yoga teacher Michelle Cassandra Johnson (October 2024).

The recommendations we offer for Meeting’s consideration today have materialized across months of deep listening, study, and prayerful reflection. They are inspired by the boldness of our Quaker ancestors, nationally and locally — and chastened by our awareness of past shortcomings and injustices. They reflect the historic commitment of Richmond Friends and the larger Quaker world to prison reform and education as means of bridging racial and economic divides. As Meeting charts our path forward, may we be reminded of our Minute’s conclusion: “we will hold each other in the Light and accompany one another as we seek to learn, to understand, and to be of service.”

Ad Hoc Committee on Race and Racism, November 17, 2024

Allen Lee, co-clerk

Kathleen Morgan, co-clerk

Margaret Edds

recorder Lynda Perry

Michael Pierce

Monica Shaw

Rita Willett

Please click here to read the full recommendations and appendices.