North Carolina Fellowship of Friends
Minute on Antiracism: Approved on 11/16/23
Members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) have a long history of working for
equal rights, including as part of the abolition movement, the Underground Railroad, and the
Civil Right Movements. Yet at the same time, as a religious community, we have fallen short
in many ways in this work. For example, some Quakers enslaved people and rejected
integrating our Meetings and our Quaker schools. Our reputation for advocating for equal
rights for all has been marred by the reality that racism continues to exist among Quakers.
As we, the North Carolina Fellowship of Friends (NCFF), seek a world of peace, justice, and
equity we must recognize and respond to the irrefutable evidence of racism in ourselves, our
communities, our country, and even in our faith practices. Therefore, we commit to
understanding our individual and corporate complicity in racism and to working vigorously to
remove it from our policies and practices and those of our communities and institutions.
We embrace the insight and assistance from those affected by racism when it is offered, as
well as from those who have demonstrated a commitment to the same changes we desire.
We invite this wisdom and lived experience to be with us in to our Quaker process of prayerful
discernment of God’s will for our work.
Since we are of predominantly white identity, many Quakers have been conditioned not to
notice our advantage in the systems of racism and how we participate in perpetuating those
systems. To become aware and avoid this participation, NCFF encourages the use of the
following queries to aid in all committees and working groups of our organization when
discerning decisions and actions to be made. We encourage others to use them in their
personal lives and with other groups.

“How could the choices we are contemplating affect those who have been harmed by
systemic, institutional, interpersonal and/or internal racism?”

“How will the choices we are contemplating promote equity, diversity, and inclusiveness? Will
they enable us to be more friendly and whole, engaging across racial divisions?”

“How do the choices we are contemplating support the declaration of our Yearly Meeting that
we aspire to be an anti-racist faith community?”

The North Carolina Fellowship of Friends affirms our commitment to becoming antiracist as
individuals, as a community, and a Religious Society. In the words of George Fox, may we
“be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that
your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come
to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone; whereby in them you
may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them bless you.”