United States Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA) was founded in 1915 by sixty-eight
pacifists, including
A. J. Muste
Abraham Johannes Muste ( ; January 8, 1885 – February 11, 1967) was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movemen ...
,
Jane Addams
Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage ...
and
Bishop Paul Jones, and claims to be the "largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the United States."
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Early years
Thomas was the ...
, at first skeptical of its program, joined in 1916 and would become the group's president. Its programs and projects involve domestic as well as international issues, and generally emphasize
nonviolent
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
alternatives to conflict and the rights of
conscience. Unlike the U.K. movements, it is an interfaith body, though its historic roots are in Christianity.
History
Origins in World War I and activities through the 1940s
FOR in the USA was formed initially in opposition to the entry of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
into
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
developed out of FOR's
conscientious objectors program and the Emergency Committee for
Civil Liberties.
In 1918, FOR and the
American Federation of Labor formed
Brookwood Labor College, which lasted until 1937. Also in January 1918, FOR began publication of
''The World Tomorrow'', with Norman Thomas as its first editor.
National Secretary Paul Jones wrote in 1921 that the Fellowship of Reconciliation was established as one vehicle to aid in the application of Christian principles to "every problem of life."
[Paul Jones, "The Fellowship of Reconciliation," ''The World Tomorrow'' ew York vol. 4, no. 10 (Oct. 1921), p. 317.] In addition to the impossibility of harmonizing war with "the way of Christ," Jones stated that members of the organization had come to believe in the parallel necessity of a "reorganization of Society as will establish it on a Christian basis, so that no individual may be exploited for the profit or pleasure of another."
Rather than the FOR itself serving as the primary fulcrum for this activity, "in general the members of the Fellowship endeavor to work out their aims through existing organizations and discussion," Jones noted.
John Nevin Sayre was active in FOR between 1924 and 1967, and was its chairman from 1935 to 1940.
From 1935 onwards, the US branch of FOR published a magazine, ''Fellowship''. ''Fellowship's'' contributors included
Mohandas Gandhi,
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...
,
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Early years
Thomas was the ...
,
Oswald Garrison Villard
Oswald Garrison Villard (March 13, 1872 – October 1, 1949) was an American journalist and editor of the ''New York Evening Post.'' He was a civil rights activist, and along with his mother, Fanny Villard, a founding member of the NAACP. I ...
,
E. Stanley Jones,
Walter P. Reuther and
Muriel Lester.
In 1947, FOR and the
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about ...
, or CORE, which had been founded by FOR staffers
James Farmer
James Leonard Farmer Jr. (January 12, 1920 – July 9, 1999) was an American civil rights activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement "who pushed for nonviolent protest to dismantle segregation, and served alongside Martin Luther King Jr." ...
and
George Houser along with
Bernice Fisher
Elsie Bernice Fisher (December 8, 1916 – May 2, 1966) was a civil rights activist and union organizer. She was among the co-founders of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942 in Chicago, Illinois.
Civil rights leader and union organiz ...
, sponsored the
Journey of Reconciliation
The Journey of Reconciliation, also called "First Freedom Ride", was a form of nonviolent direct action to challenge state segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States.
Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women were the ea ...
, the first
Freedom Ride against southern
segregation Segregation may refer to:
Separation of people
* Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space
* School segregation
* Housing segregation
* Racial segregation, separation of humans ...
in the wake of the
Supreme Court's 1946
Irene Morgan
Irene Amos Morgan (April 9, 1917 – August 10, 2007), later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 under a state law imposing racial segreg ...
decision.
Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and fighting poverty in the 1960s
In 1954,
China was facing famine and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
was enjoying surplus harvests, so the FOR organized the Surplus Food for China campaign to convince the government to send food to the Chinese.
In 1955 and 1956,
Glenn E. Smiley, a white Methodist minister, was assigned by the FOR to assist the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
in the
Montgomery bus boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States ...
. The two, sitting behind the Rev.
Ralph Abernathy
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. As a leader of the civil rights movement, he was a close friend and ...
, were seatmates on the first interracial bus ride in
Montgomery. Smiley and FOR executive secretary and director of publications
Alfred Hassler[Forest, Jim (former FoR Publication Director). Comment on Ethan Persoff's blog (2011): "The author of the text and the man who had the idea for the comic was Al Hassler, executive secretary of the Fellowship on Reconciliation. He convinced comic artist Al Capp of the value of the project. Capp's studio did the drawings gratis."] later spearheaded FoR's production and distribution of the 1957 comic book ''
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story
''Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story'' is a 16-page comic book about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery bus boycott published in 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA). It advocates the principles of nonvio ...
''.
[Aydin, Andrew]
"The comic book that changed the world: Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story's vital role in the Civil Rights Movement,"
''Creative Loafing'' (Aug. 1, 2013).
In 1957, the organization's headquarters moved to
Shadowcliff in
Upper Nyack, New York
Upper Nyack is a village incorporated in 1872 in the town of Clarkstown, Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of the village of Nyack, east of Valley Cottage, south of Rockland Lake State Park, and west of the Hudson ...
.
[ ''Note:'' This includes ] Shadowcliff was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 2014.
In the 1960s, FOR launched "Shelters for the Shelterless" and built real shelters for homeless people, in response to increasing public demand for fallout shelters. FOR members such as Hassler made contact with the Vietnamese Buddhist pacifist movement and sponsored a world tour by Buddhist monk Thich
Nhat Hanh.
From the arms race in the 1970s to gun control in the 1990s
In the 1970s, FOR founded Dai Dong, a transnational project linking war, environmental problems, poverty and other social issues, involving thousands of scientists around the world. They sought to reverse the Cold War and the arms race with campaigns, marches, educational projects and civil disobedience, and opposed the death penalty in a concerted campaign with ACLU.
Beginning in 1975, FOR supported
Lee Stern
Lee B. Stern (born December 27, 1926) is the longest tenured trader at the Chicago Board of Trade. He has been one of the most successful traders in the commodities market throughout his time there, and is well known for his involvement in the Ch ...
as he helped found Children's Creative Response to Violence (CCRV) and the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). CCRV has had serious impact on K-8 education in the United States including introduction of the Peer Mediation Program. AVP seeks to build beloved community in prisons. For more than forty years it has worked with prison inmates to build spread peaceful community life in prison. In recent years, AVP has been the basis for building beloved communities in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
In the 1980s, FOR took the lead in initiating the
Nuclear Freeze The Nuclear Freeze campaign was a mass movement in the United States during the 1980s to secure an agreement between the U.S. and Soviet governments to halt the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons.
Background
The idea of simply ...
Campaign in cooperation with other groups. They initiated a US-USSR reconciliation program, which included people-to-people exchanges, artistic and educational resources, teach-ins and conferences. They led nonviolence training seminars in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
prior to the nonviolent overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship.
In the 1990s, the organization sent delegations of religious leaders and peace activists to Iraq to try to prevent war and later, to see the massive devastation caused by the economic sanctions imposed upon Iraq. They initiated a "Start the Healing" campaign in response to escalating levels of gun violence in the United States, and FOR is an organizational and founding member of the
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV or Ed Fund), its sister organization, are two parts of a national, non-profit gun control advocacy organization that is opposed to gun violence. Since 1 ...
, which advocates
gun control. FOR initiated the "
Bosnian Student Project," which brought students from the former
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
out of war zones and into US homes and schools, and later started the International Reconciliation Work Camp Project. They also worked to get the US military to withdraw from Panama.
2000s: “I Will Not Kill” campaign and visiting Iran
FOR has most recently been active in advocating for the demilitarization of US foreign policy. It works to counter military recruitment of young people in the United Statesthrough FOR's "I Will Not Kill" campaign, and in partnership with the
Ruckus Society, the
War Resisters League
The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States.
History
Founded in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I, it is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International. It continues ...
, and others in the Not Your Soldier project. A July 2016 action in Minneapolis, in response to the death of
Philando Castile, included the statement "Among their demands are the dismantling of the police department... disarming, defunding, demilitarizing, and disbanding police."
Particular areas of geographic focus have been the Middle Eastespecially Israel–Palestine and Iranand Latin America and the Caribbeanespecially
Colombia and
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
. In the Middle East, FOR's Interfaith Peace-Builders program (now independent) builds relationships between Israeli, Palestinian, and North American peace activists. Founded in 2005, its Iran program has drawn on FOR's legacy of sending delegations to nations that are labeled as enemies by the US government, and is working to prevent war and create peace-centered connections between ordinary citizens of both countries. In the Americas, FOR has a permanent five-person Colombia peace team of volunteers who provide human rights accompaniment to endangered civilians and support locally organized peace initiatives. FOR was also instrumental in the movement to pressure the
US Navy to stop using Vieques as a bombing range.
2017: Anti-Israel workshop controversy
In 2017 the non-profit The Israel Group submitted complaints to the
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the
Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
Department of Education regarding a workshop, “Learning About Islam and the Arab World”, that the Greater L.A. chapter of the FORUSA presented in the school districts. FOR has also been an active promoter of the
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a perspective which informs its efforts to influence educators about the Middle East. One attendee of the workshop told the ''
Jewish Journal'', "We are being told that the Palestinians are the victims and the Jews are the oppressors, categorically and totally... And we are being told that
Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam ...
is not a terrorist group; Hamas is a noble entity defending the rights of Palestinians.” In a news release from the
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...
, the human rights organization further noted that "FORUS is closely aligned with
CAIR, a US-based organization that has been linked to Hamas terrorist group."
Greater public awareness followed the workshop, with groups such as the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) speaking out, saying the workshop materials featured "substantial misrepresentations and distortions of established historical facts, omissions of relevant facts, and inflammatory language".
Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman
Bradley James Sherman (born October 24, 1954) is an American accountant and politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 30th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he first entered Congress in ...
contacted LAUSD. After reviewing the workshop's handouts, Sherman wrote, “
he Workshop
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
material is not just false, but is
anti-Semitic and should have raised immediate red flags with LAUSD… I am concerned that LAUSD would promote an education program on the Middle East established by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FORUSA), an organization who openly supports Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a highly polarizing movement that singles out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and has led to anti-Semitic hostility. The BDS movement is adverse to the foreign policy of the United States.”
Footnotes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fellowship Of Reconciliation United States
Peace organizations based in the United States
Christian pacifism
Fellowship of Reconciliation