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The 2024 Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival & Forum "The Bayard Rustin Legacy Forum"

Havana, Cuba | March 2017 Returning to Cuba for the first time since 1988, Hal was in Havana to discuss collaboration between his Quaker ministry, The BlackQuaker Project, and both the Cuban Quaker Peace Center and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center, both in Havana. The first: to draw upon Quaker testimonies of Truth, Equality, Peace, and Justice to offer workshops to Cubans on the lives of Afro-Cubans, including the impact of slavery in colonial Cuba and on contemporary Cuba and the second: to discuss translating and publishing in Spanish our collective anthology, BLACK FIRE: AFRICAN AMERICAN QUAKERS ON SPIRITUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS (edited with Paul Kriese, Steve Angell, and Anne Steere Nash.) We are still hoping to reach an agreement with both organizations. Hal did not know what to expect in a Havana he had not experienced in 28 years, previously there in roles as transnational actor using film and tourism to aid international understanding and peace. Fidel, who had hosted a reception that Hal attended with other guests at the 1985 New Latin American Cinema Festival, was no longer there. However, Hal was happy to find that several of the major ideals and accomplishments of the Revolution seemed to be still functioning: the most comprehensive, free universal health-care system--and purportedly the best-- in the Americas; the Cuban Film Institute, which pioneered, in the 1970’s, the international truth-telling movement in films about the nature of chattel slavery in the Americas, in contrast to Hollywood’s romanticizing this exploitative phenomenon; and a free education system that has produced the highest literacy rate in the Americas. Disappointing: witnessing in the tourism industry, in particular, the return of the color bias prominent before 1960. Reuniting with Afro-Cubans in film and scholarship was a highlight of this 10-day sojourn, complementing the meetings exploring collaboration, allowing a slightly better understanding of Cuba, domestically and internationally. A big surprise: encountering at the Quaker Meeting in Havana students and administrators visiting from Westtown School, our Alma Mater.

OUR CURRENT PROJECTS Education Collaboration and Advocacy SELECTED PAST PROJECTS Presentations celebrating the 100th anniversary of Bayard Rustin's birth and initiating action to restore Bayard's name -- removed in the McCarty era -- to the important ASFC publication on which he played an important role: Speak Truth to Power . Weed Lecture and publication: Facing Unbearable Truths (2009) Film-lecture programs and reports at Monthly and Yearly meeting sessions, and international gathering of Quakers and non-Quakers: the United Nations, Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Courses at Pendle Hill: "Lift Every Voice and Sing: Paul Robeson and Bayard Rustin" and "Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights"

Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia | New York University | November 2020 Dr. Harold Weaver presented on his forthcoming chapter, “Decolonization and the Cold War: African Student Elites in the USSR in the Early 1960s,” in The Red and the Black: the Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic. Forthcoming University of Manchester Press, UK, Early 2021 at the "Soviet and Post-Soviet Histories of Race" event sponsored by the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University.

Charts on Structural Violence Jean Zaru's Chart on Forms of Violence Against Palestinians Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks by Jean Zaru (2008) Possible Responses Forms of Violence Build multiple nonviolent strategies for resistance and confidence building (e.g., Witness for Peace, international solidarity movements, and international protection forces) Expose and delegitimize the violence of the powerful and the state Advocate ban on arms sales and production Advocate human rights and international law Economic boycott Arms embargo Direct Violence Killing (e.g. targeting civilians, political assassinations) Torture Domestic violence Closure, siege Use of civilians as human shields Imprisonment without charge or trial Expulsions House demolitions Advocate economic rights, water rights, land rights, and ecological sustainability Create jobs Advocate fair trade Advocate right sharing of resources Economic Structural Violence Restrictions by Israel (e.g., road blocks, closure, control of roads, house curfew) Unemployment and impoverishment Economic marginalization and exclusion Exploitation of water, land, people’s work Destruction of civil society and infrastructure No protection Advocate political rights according to international law and UN resolutions Advocate human, water, and land rights Advocate for self-determination Political Structural Violence Military occupation Settlements Denial of self-determination, sovereignty, right of return Closures Siege Encagement Fragmentation Media and education strategies building on authentic witness Dialogue Encounter Participation in decision making Learn about Palestinian history and heritage Cultural Structural Violence Stereotyping of Palestinians, Arabs, women in the media, education, language Anti-Arabism Discrimination of women Imposition of other cultures and their value systems (e.g., patriarchal culture, Western culture) Authoritarianism and glorification of militarism/the violence of the state and direct violence Destruction/shelling of cultural heritage sites, both archeological and architectural Expose the political chauvinism of fundamentalist movements and their stand against women, as well as their religious and political exclusivity Contextual and liberation theology based on nonviolence Work for ecumenism and unity Disassociate ourselves from fundamentalisms Education on Islam (e.g., among Christians) Alternative pilgrimages Religious Structural Violence Language (chosenness) Disunity among the churches Christian Zionism Fundamentalisms Demonization of Islam Negation of Arab and Middle Eastern Christians (e.g., pilgrimages without contact with local Christians, missionary movements) Adherence to international environmental conventions and protocols (e.g., Convention on Combating Desertification, Convention of Conservation of Biodiversity, Kyoto Protocol) Adherence to Geneva Conventions which call for protection of natural resources of Occupied Territories Observe international human rights standards which call for clean water and sanitation Support international environmental organizations working in the Occupied Territories Eco-friendly tourism Support greening campaigns in Occupied Territories Recycle, reuse, reduce Environmental Structural Violence Confiscation and destruction of agricultural land Uprooting of trees Pirating and diversion of water resources Restrictions on water well drilling and water capture Dumping of solid and toxic waste in Occupied Territories Settlement sewage onto village lands Restrictions on movement and settles violence prevent farmers access to their lands Damaged infrastructure leads to public health problems such as no clean water and no refrigeration for vaccines Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African-American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives (2020) by Harold d. weaver, jr. The BlackQuaker Project Chart on Selected Direct and Structural Violence against African Americans Direct Violence • Police brutality • Mass incarceration • Expulsion/eviction from homes • Gang violence • Burning of African American churches Economic Structural Violence • Poverty • Unemployment • Inadequate minimum wage • Urban renewal/razing Black neighborhoods • Lack of municipal resources in Black neighborhoods • Redlining residential areas/housing segregation Political Structural Violence • Voter ID Laws • Mandatory minimum sentencing and three-strike laws • Increased use of death penalty • Voter disenfranchisement for ex-felons • Election days on work days • Restricting vote by mail • Militarization of the police force Cultural Structural Violence Appropriation of African culture into mainstream, white culture Stereotyping of people of color in media Destruction of Afrocentric cultural landmarks Construction of Eurocentric, anti-Black monuments and landmarks Omission from and distortion of African American history in the larger US narrative Religious Structural Violence • Islamophobia Environmental Structural Violence • Lead poisoning in tap water (Flint, MI) • Cancer corridor stretch from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, LA • Dangerous chemicals in older homes (asbestos, lead paint, etc.) • Polluted air in urban areas • Food deserts (no availability of fresh food) Health Structural Violence • Racist medical assumptions and practices • Prescription overpricing • Opioid epidemic • Criminalization of drug use • Linkage of health insurance to employment • Increased maternal health risks Educational Structural Violence School-to-prison pipeline Demand that students behave “white” (school policies against Black natural hair) Over-punishment of Black students Omission of accurate African American history from textbooks Few teachers of color, a lack of role models Uneven funding between school districts Secondary-school counselors who demean students of color and their capabilities Lack of high expectations for students of color Racial isolation of school districts

Current Activities Retrospective Justice in Healing Historical Injustice and Ills: Reparations Defined as “an attempt to administer justice years after the commission of a severe injustice or series of injustices,” we advocate that Quakerism adopt Retrospective Justice as a model for healing historical injustice. Our ministry is providing education on this call to action through e-newsletters, publications, and collaborative lecture-presentations with Friend Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a leader in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, the African National Congress, and transnational organizations. The Quakers of Color International Archive (QCIA) As a study-and-research collection, our archive documents the oral histories of Quakers of Color worldwide through videotaped interviews and transcriptions. Established in 2019, the QCIA is a partnership with UMass Amherst, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College, currently housed in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library of UMass Amherst. For access to these videotaped interviews and transcriptions of Friends of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latinx descent, please click here . Reforming Quakerism: Developing New Narratives & Models The BlackQuaker Project calls on Friends to take the following steps: Address the inadequacies of the acronym SPICES, which neglects the testimony of justice and constrains our vision of what Quakerism is and what it might be. Move the justice testimony to the front-burner in the Religious Society of Friends. Focus on structural violence–not just direct, visible violence–as we confront today’s domestic and international conflicts. Adopt a model of Retrospective Justice for healing historical injustice. The Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival & Forum Since 2021 we have been programming annual virtual screenings and fora to celebrate the lives and contributions of Quakers of African descent. Held over Zoom webinar, these events are free and open to the public with recordings of past installments available to view on our website. Click on the following text if you wish to watch recordings of our 2022 and 2023 events. Publications We remain committed to releasing e-newsletters, pamphlets, and books that give voice to Quakers of Color, both past and present. To subscribe to receive our e-newsletter, click here. To view a full record of all our past e-newsletters click here . To view a selected list of our other publications, click here . Advocacy: Paul Robeson & Bayard Rustin We work to restore Friend Bayard Rustin and Quaker-descendant Paul Robeson–who has been the focus of over 50 years of advocacy and research by Harold D. Weaver, Jr.– to their rightful places in world history. To view Dr. Weaver’s 1973 vintage video-lecture on Robeson, click here . To view our 2024 event, the Bayard Rustin Legacy Forum, click here . Harold D. Weaver & Anne Steere Nash at Guilford College Harold D. Weaver, Jr and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge deliver a joint orientation on Retrospetive Justice to QUNO-Geneva Staff Collaboration with Quaker Organizations and Beyond We continue to partner with key Quaker and non-Quaker organizations and initiatives, including the American Friends Service Committee, Haverford College, New England Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers), the Friends World Committee for Consultation, and the Independent Working Group for the extended United Nations’ International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). Click here to see a full list of our collaborators.

RELATED PROJECTS The China-Africa-Russia Project This project studies and facilitates training and education programs between African countries on the one hand and China, Russia, and USA on the other hand. The BlackFilm Project The BlackFilm Project is an independent, transnational, non-profit cultural and educational organization dedicated to using film and other visual media and moving images to foster understanding, respect, and appreciation of the people, cultures, and societies of Africa and the African Diaspora, past and present. To carry our mission, we are committed to developing and implementing programs and festivals at universities, schools, museums, libraries, and other non-theatrical venues in the Americas, in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. We are interested in improving the quality of Film, African American, African-Diasporic, Transnational, and Educational Studies throughout the world, both for the general public and for specialized, university audiences. Worldwide Collaborators and Clients as Lecturer, Programmer, Curator, and Consultant Harvard University Yale University Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Madison Ohio State University University of Redlands, CA College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME Weber State University, Utah University of Chicago University of Washington, Seattle University of Pennsylvania Temple University Howard University Virginia Union University Clarke-Atlanta University Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA Denver International Film Festival University of Colorado - Denver University of Denver DePaw Univeristy Princeton University Haverford College, PA Rutgers University, New Brunswick Rutgers University, Newark Rutgers University, Camden Goddard College, VT Talladeega College, AL Vorhees College, SC Harvard Film Archive Bowdoin College, ME Boston University Vermont International Film Festival New Orleans International Film Festival Black Film Festival, Newark, NJ USA Beijing Film Academy Beijing University Zhejiang Radio and TV University Sichuan University Guangzhou Foreign Studies University National Chiao Tung University (National Jiao Tong University), Taiwan Xi-an Quijiang Film and TV Investment (Group) Ltd., Xian American Studies Association annual meetings, Guangzhou and Kunming Beijing USA College of English, "Beijing USA Film Festival" Beijing Foreign Languages and Culture University Beijing Foreign Studies University Zhejiang Normal University GREATER CHINA United Nations, New York UNESCO, Paris University of Liverpool, UK University of Muenster, Germany University of Paris VIII-Vicennes/St. Denis, France McGill University, Canada Amiens International Film Festival, France Festival des 3 Continents, Nantes, France Zanzibar International Film Festival, Tanzania FESPACO (Pan-African Film Festival), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Carthage International Film Festival, Tunisia African Film Festival, Montreal, Canada Laval University, Quebec City, Canada Commenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia University of Montreal, Canada University of Toronto, Canada McMasters University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada TADIA International Conference on the African Presence in Asia, Goa, India University of Dakar, Senegal Sir Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada Dapper Museum, Paris Afro-Caribbean Festival, Veracruz, Mexico African Film Festival, Carlow, Ireland Nordic Art School, Kokolo, Finland Polytechnic University, Finland European Committee on African American Research (CAAR), UK and Germany Quai Branly Museum, Paris Various universities in Turkey, Germany University of Innsbruck, Austria European American Studies Association, University of Graz, Austria Festival Afro-Caribeno, Veracruz, Mexico CIDOC (Ivan Illich), Cuernavaca. Mexico 50th Anniversary Conference, First World Festival of Black Arts, Dakar, Senegal INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND EUROPE, AFRICA, ASIA, and THE AMERICAS: Paul Robeson House Story Paul Robeson House Story - Dr. Harold Weaver 00:00 / 00:00

Dr. Harold (Hal) Weaver - Director of the BlackQuaker Project Dr. Harold (Hal) D. Weaver is an Associate at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Hal spent his earliest days on a small Black college campus in Savannah, GA, later moving to Pennsylvania and attending Westtown School and Haverford College. From his early experience in Communist Moscow as a member of an official USSR-USA young adult exchange group, Hal has been a lifelong cultural ambassador. He has traveled the world breaking down barriers and building bridges between cultures, often using film as the medium through The BlackFilm Project and the China-Africa-Russia Project. A pioneer in Africana studies, he founded and chaired the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers. Last fall, Hal continued his mission to correct Cold War historiography by delivering lectures in Moscow, the UK, and Istanbul, on Paul Robeson, African decolonization, African students in the USSR, and his own transnational experiences in cultural diplomacy. He has procured the following honors throughout his academic career: Judith Weller Harvey Quaker Scholar, Guilford College, and Cadbury Scholar, Pendle Hill, 2019. Associate, Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Hal continues to break down barriers within the Religious Society of Friends, too, with his ministry, The BlackQuaker Project, one of the fruits of which was the publication of Black Fire: African-American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011), which Hal edited with Paul Kriese and Stephen W. Angell. A member of Wellesley Friends Meeting, Hal is active locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally among Quakers. He has served in governance roles with the Quaker United Nations Office, the American Friends Service Committee, Pendle Hill, Cambridge Friends School, and the Friends World Committee for Consultation. Photo courtesy of John Meyer.

Workshop/Roundtable Discussion at New England Yearly Meeting | August 2018

PUBLICATIONS Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011), edited by Harold D. Weaver, Jr., Paul Kriese, Stephen W. Angell, and Anne Steere Nash. Philadelphia: Quaker Press of FGC, 2011. "Black Fire is a landmark book that reframes our understanding of Quakerism, for it highlights the degree to which American Quakers were interracial almost from the outset, with black leaders shaping Friends' spiritual and reform visions. Brilliantly conceived and beautifully edited, it should be required reading for anyone interested in American religion and reform." -- John Stauffer (Chair of History of American Civilization at Harvard University) "'No country can tell its history truthfully until all its scrolls are unrolled.' ... In Black Fire , as these narratives unfurl, the reader gets a close look at the broad diversity within the black Quaker experience.... For nearly a century, historians and philosophers... have struggled to understand and interpret the many moving parts of face relations, religion, and social justice. Black Fire presents some of those moving parts of the history relating to the Religious Society of Friends, unrolling some new scrolls and offering us new foundations from which to continue to explore African American stories, Quaker stories, and the intersections between the two." -- Emma Lapsansky-Werner (Emeritus Professor of History of the Quaker Collection at Haverford College) "Black Fire is a unique, much-needed contribution to the continuing conversation about religion and race in the United States, and the place of Quakers in it. The editors have created what may well be the definitive anthology." -- Thomas Hamm (Quaker historian and Professor of History at Earlham College) Black Fire Book Launch , March 6th, 2011 Facing Unbearable Truths "Facing Unbearable Truths," (2008) presented 4th month, 2008, by Dr. Harold Weaver, with an introduction by Ann Cook-Frantz. Beacon Hill Friends House Weed Lecture. Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives Dr. Harold Weaver of the BlackQuaker Project asks Friends to look at societal problems through new lenses: confronting systemic violence with antiviolence; acknowledging institutional and systemic racism, rather than merely individual racism; considering a retrospective justice program that compensates for and helps remove the historical inequities related to the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, and their legacies – Jim Crowism, other forms of dehumanization and exploitation, police brutality, and the school-to-prison pipeline. This unjust world is maintained by misinformation and disinformation in the media, formal education, scholarship, and political discourse. Hal Weaver lays out steps and queries in this pamphlet to guide Friends and others to begin addressing these concerns in the wider world. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #465 October 2020 Purchase The Red and the Black: The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic (2021) Read Dr. Weaver's chapter here! ONLINE ARTICLES FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS "A Proposed Plan of Action for Friends: Education & Justice, " by Dr. Harold (Hal) Weaver for The Freedom & Justice Crier (Issue #21, Summer 2009). Article begins on page 3. Read here. "Working Draft from the Ad Hoc Committee for a Justice Testimony," by Dr. Harold (Hal) Weaver for The Freedom & Justice Crier (Issue #20, Winter-Spring 2009). Article begins on page 10. Read here. Hal is currently working on his memoirs, Black Fire: An African American Quaker Seeker-Activist in a White-Supremacist Nation, which will become Volume 2 of the trilogy. Planning has begun on Volume 3 of the anthology Black Fire , which will include writings by contemporary Quakers of color worldwide. "A Proposed Plan for Retrospective Justice," by Dr. Harold (Hal) Weaver for Friends Journal (Published January 3, 2021). Read here.

Nordic Art School | Kokkola, Finland | September 2008 In September 2008, Hal lectured in Kokkola as a guest at the Nordic Art School. In addition to teaching, Dr. Weaver held an open lecture on African-American film for the public.

The BlackQuaker Project (1) celebrates the lives and contributions of Quakers of Color worldwide and (2) documents and addresses their concerns. It is an outreach and inreach ministry of Wellesley Friends Meeting, guided by the Quaker testimonies of Truth, Peace, Equality, Justice, and Community. The BlackQuaker Project Hal Weaver lectures on Paul Robeson, whose Quaker ancestors date back more than 300 years. Nordic Art School | Kokkola, Finland September 2008 WHO WE ARE Meet our team! QUAKERS OF COLOR SPEAK Learn about the Quakers of Color International Archive! JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER Join our mailing list to receive monthly e-newsletters! SOCIAL MEDIA Follow our work on Facebook and Instagram!