How do we give a name to this moment that grips our awareness, causes deep pain and stifles our breath?

Recent appalling, grievous deaths of black and brown countrymen and women follow 400 years of innumerable systematic racial injustices, as well as religious and gender identity persecutions.

To face COVID-19, we’ve muffled our voices with masks. At the same moment in time, ongoing protests, lit up by immediate video documentation of the suffocation of George Floyd, has un-muffled the voices crying out for justice. The volume is so high, the streets are vibrating. And burning.

What shall we say; to whom shall we say it; and, what actions will speak louder than words? How do we choose words, tone, volume and actions that can awaken hardened hearts?

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” These words from 1881, spoken by Jane Addams (raised a Quaker, first woman recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace), touch the heart.

May we lean into each other, virtually, to muster the energy and courage to let our one precious life speak our values.

With love, empathy and righteous anger,

Friends Center for Children

Read more about Friends Center’s commitment to racial equality, and related resources, in our recent community letter.