American Friends Service Committee

Essay

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and coiner of the phrase “speak truth to power,” was founded in Philadelphia by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Spring 1917, shortly after the United States declared war on Germany on April 6. Over the following century, AFSC embodied the pacifist convictions and social-reform impulses of Philadelphia’s Quaker elite.

At the outset of U.S. involvement in the First World War, the major branches of U.S. Quakerism created AFSC to coordinate alternative service for young Quaker men who conscientiously refused to serve in the military after being drafted under the Selective Service Act. The alternative consisted mostly of over six hundred Quaker and other pacifist volunteers reconstructing modular housing for displaced persons along the Western Front in France under the auspices of the American Red Cross. It was a version of what William James (1842-1910) had called the “moral equivalent of war,” and AFSC saw it as a chance for Quakers and other pacifists to make a positive contribution to peace instead of taking a merely negative stance against war. After the war, between 1920 and 1924, AFSC organized and directed the feeding of over five million children in Germany.

This color photograph depicts the Germantown Friends Meeting House. The building has a tan-yellow paint color, a long secondary roof that runs above the first floor, and a few windows at symmetrical points on all three floors.
This c. 1999 photograph depicts the Germantown Friends Meeting House, attended by many AFSC workers in the organization’s early years. Built on West Coulter Street between 1868 and 1869, Germantown Friends continues to host weekly Meetings for Worship. (Library of Congress)

During the organization’s early years, the Philadelphia Quaker elite (professionals, educators, and business executives), with the occasional midwestern Friend, largely constituted the executive board and administrative leadership and so largely determined its mission and programs. A large contingent of early AFSC workers attended Germantown Friends Meeting. This concentration positioned AFSC on one side of theological differences between the more liberal Quakers of Philadelphia, New England, and the Mid-Atlantic and the more conservative Friends of the South, Midwest, and West. Differences rapidly grew into division, especially over AFSC’s abjuration of evangelism as an obstacle to delivering material aid and social services. As early as the mid-1920s more conservative Friends were disowning AFSC as in any way representative of American Quakerism as a whole.

Philadelphia Quaker Elite

The Philadelphia Quaker elite between the world wars was solidly middle and upper-middle-class and counted many industrial and financial executives among its ranks. These well-off Quakers generally subscribed to the middle-class Social Gospel, a liberal movement for political and economic reform whose influence on Protestantism at large had just passed its peak. Yet Philadelphia Quakers, unlike most other Friends in the country, never officially joined the major institutional expression of the Social Gospel in the United States, the Federal Council of Churches (FCC, founded in 1908). AFSC effectively fulfilled the role of the FCC for Philadelphia Quakerism; indeed, in the 1920s and 1930s AFSC often worked with the FCC on domestic projects, most notably among coal-mining families in southern Appalachia.

This black and white photograph shows a man and woman in American Friends Service Committee uniforms talking to a woman seated at a table. The uniformed woman writes notes while the uniformed man looks at the camera.
AFSC conducted service projects during and after World War II. One such project involved forwarding messages to the families of POWs; in this 1945 photograph, two Quakers interview a French woman whose husband is in prison. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

During World War II, AFSC (somewhat controversially) worked with representatives of the other “historic peace churches,” the Mennonites and Brethren, to administer the federally established Civilian Public Service (CPS) system of work camps for conscientious objectors. AFSC helped resettle European refugees in the United States, and by establishing a regional office (one of the first of several) in San Francisco, also protested Japanese-American internment and helped relocate over four thousand Japanese-American college students from the internment camps. In 1947, after another round of postwar feeding and service in Germany and on the strength also of its administration of prewar relief programs in Russia and Spain during those countries’ respective civil wars, AFSC (together with its British counterpart, the Friends Service Council) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Quakers worldwide.

After World War II, AFSC resolved a long-standing internal debate over what it should prioritize in its hiring: Quakerism or practical expertise. It became increasingly professionalized and soon employed a majority non-Quaker staff, moving the debate over AFSC’s Quaker identity outside the organization to liberal Quaker circles, where it raged into the twenty-first century. Also, AFSC began to focus less and less on material aid and more and more on ending military conflict and poverty in the Global South and on improving race relations and civil rights at home. AFSC started delivering aid to refugees in Gaza in 1948 at the request of the United Nations and during its ensuing decades-long presence in the Middle East distinguished itself as one of the first organizations in the United States to call for Palestinian rights. In 1958, AFSC started working in Africa as well, aiding refugees from the Algerian War. After also administering medical aid in China and food aid in India and Bengal, AFSC entered Vietnam in 1965 and (again, somewhat controversially) aided civilians on both sides of the Vietnam War. It also provided draft counseling for thousands of young men in the United States.

“Speak Truth to Power”

This black and white photograph shows Bayard Rustin, a civil rights activist, as he addresses as crowd in New York City. Rustin's arms are raised and there are several microphones for TV and radio stations on the podium in front of him.
In this 1965 photograph, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (1912–87) addresses a crowd in New York City. Rustin was raised a Quaker in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and later co-authored a pamphlet with AFSC titled “Speak Truth to Power.” (Library of Congress)

AFSC became perhaps most famous for coining the phrase “speak truth to power,” the title of a pamphlet it issued in 1955 advocating nonviolent resolution of international conflicts. Although the lead authors of Speak Truth to Power attributed the phrase to an eighteenth-century Friend, it originated with Bayard Rustin (1912-87), one of the pamphlet’s co-authors. Rustin was an African American Quaker civil rights leader from West Chester, Pennsylvania, and the chief organizer of the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. AFSC itself sponsored Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68) and Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) on a visit to India in 1959 to help strengthen the nonviolent African American civil rights movement’s ties to its Gandhian roots. AFSC also first published Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a stand-alone pamphlet.

This color photograph shows a large brick building in Center City, Philadelphia. The structure on the left has an older architectural style with two stories and several glass windows, while the structure on the right looks more modern and has a large glass surface facing inward.
The Friends Center at 1501 Cherry Street hosts nearly forty tenant organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee. (Wikimedia Commons)

In the 1970s and 1980s, AFSC protested apartheid in South Africa as well as the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the United States and around the world. In the 1990s, AFSC established a major health clinic in Haiti and, in the midst of a famine in North Korea, advised farmers in that country on how to increase food production sustainably. In 2004, AFSC continued its practice of protesting U.S. wars by curating a travelling exhibit, “Eyes Wide Open,” which displayed a pair of boots for every American soldier killed in Iraq along with shoes representing the hundreds of thousands of civilians who also died in the most recent war. In the 2010s, AFSC focused on criminal-justice and immigration reform, opposing solitary confinement (in particular) and providing legal services for immigrants.

While AFSC became a majority non-Quaker organization with offices around the United States and on four continents, Philadelphia remained the organization’s headquarters. In the twenty-first century, the Quaker values of peace, integrity, and equality continued to animate AFSC programs.

Guy Aiken holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies (American Religions) from the University of Virginia and is a postdoctoral fellow at Villanova University. He has published several articles, including “The American Friends Service Committee’s Mission to the Gestapo” in Peace & Change, and “Educating Tocqueville: Jared Sparks, the Boston Whigs, and Democracy in America” in the Tocqueville Review(Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2018, Rutgers University

Gallery

Prison Letters in France

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

AFSC’s work during World War II focused on aiding refugees and the imprisoned. The Committee helped resettle European refugees in the United States and relocated over four thousand Japanese-American college students from internment camps.

AFSC carried out relief programs in Germany, Russia, Spain, and France, among others. A large part of this work involved forwarding messages to the families of POWs. In this 1945 photograph, representatives from the Quaker delegation in Paris—Philadelphia native Marriott C. Morris Jr. (1900–92) and Mary Elmendorf (1917–2017)—interview a woman whose husband is in prison.

AFSC Receives Award

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

The American Friends Service Committee shared the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize with the Friends Service Council, the national organization of Quakers in Britain. The Norwegian Nobel Institute praised AFSC’s aid projects following World Wars I and II, with particular mention of the Committee’s work in France, Germany, and the Soviet Union.

In this 1947 photograph, Committee members gather around Executive Secretary Clarence E. Pickett (1884–1965) as he learns the AFSC has won an award—most likely the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hungarian Refugee Relief Kits

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

After World War II, much of AFSC’s work centered around international refugee aid. AFSC started delivering supplies to refugees in Gaza in 1948 at the request of the United Nations; during its ensuing decades-long presence in the Middle East, the Committee distinguished itself as one of the first organizations in the United States to call for Palestinian rights.

AFSC later began a campaign to provide materials to Hungarian refugees. In this 1956 photograph, volunteers at the AFSC warehouse at Twenty-Third and Arch Streets fold and wrap clothing for shipment to refugee camps in Austria. Other projects included aid to Africa during the Algerian War (1954–62) and assistance for civilians on both sides of the Vietnam War beginning in 1965.

Bayard Rustin

Library of Congress

Bayard Rustin (1912–87), born to a Quaker family in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was a lifelong pacifist and strong supporter of peaceful protest. A gifted speaker and mentor, Rustin became a major figure in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Rustin co-authored a pamphlet with AFSC in 1955 titled Speak Truth to Power, which advocated nonviolent resolution of international conflicts. AFSC also published the first edition of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a stand-alone pamphlet in May 1963.

Rustin co-organized the “Journey of Reconciliation,” a precursor to the Freedom Rides, in 1947 and served as the chief planner of the August 1963 March on Washington. In this 1965 photograph, he addresses a crowd in New York City. Rustin continued his advocacy work in the 1970s and 1980s through support of the human rights and gay rights movements.

Germantown Friends Meeting House

Library of Congress

Addison Hutton (1834–1916) designed the Germantown Friends Meeting House on West Coulter Street, which was built between 1868 and 1869 by Hibberd Yarnall (1830–82) and his architectural team. The construction plan deviated from traditional meeting house layouts: designers placed benches along the width of the building rather than the length and included a small “committee room” for business meetings in the back, separate from the worship area. This created a more spacious and open main meeting room.

After the founding of AFSC in 1917, several Committee workers began attending Germantown Friends on Sundays. Although many meeting houses declined in the late nineteenth century, Germantown Friends continued to thrive as urban residents moved away from the city center. The site continues to host weekly Meetings for Worship and other community events; this photograph shows the meeting house c. 1999.

Friends Center

Wikimedia Commons

The Friends Center, located at 1501 Cherry Street in Center City, is advertised as "the Quaker hub for peace and justice in Philadelphia." The 56,000-square-foot office building hosts nearly forty tenant organizations, including the national headquarters of the American Friends Service Committee. The property also includes the still-active Race Street Meetinghouse, designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1993. (Photo Credit: Beyond My Ken/Wikimedia Commons)

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Related Reading

Austin, Allan. Quaker Brotherhood: Interracial Activism and the American Friends Service Committee, 1917-1950. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2012.

Benjamin, Philip S. Philadelphia Quakers in the Industrial Age, 1865-1920. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976.

Borries, Achim von. Quiet Helpers: Quaker Service in Postwar Germany. Translated byJohn and Cathy Cary and Hildegard Wright. London and Philadelphia: Quaker Home Service and AFSC, 2000.

Cary, Stephen G., A. J. Muste, Clarence E. Pickett, Bayard Rustin, et al. Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence. A Study of International Conflict Prepared for the American Friends Service Committee, 1955.

Jones, Rufus M. A Service of Love in War Time: American Friends Relief Work in Europe, 1917-1919. Pennsbury Series, Vol. V. New York: Macmillan, 1920.

Lewy, Guenter. Peace and Revolution: The Moral Crisis of American Pacifism. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988.

McDaniel, Donna, and Vanessa Julye. Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice. Philadelphia: QuakerBooks of FGC, 2012.

Pickett, Clarence E. For More than Bread: An Autobiographical Account of Twenty-Two Years’ Work with the American Friends Service Committee. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1953.

Rzeznik, Thomas F. Church and Estate: Religion and Wealth in Industrial-Era Philadelphia. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013.

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