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5. From Race Relations to Community Relations
- University of Illinois Press
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5. From Race Relations to Community Relations When AFSC leaders met to discuss an uncertain future as world war transitioned into cold war, they agreed with Executive Secretary Clarence Pickett that the Service Committee remained “dedicated to building the Kingdom of God on earth.” Just how to build it, however, remained unclear . The AFSC’s wartime aid to European and Japanese American refugees had revealed the need for a broader approach to race relations, but staff members faced numerous challenges, both internally and externally. Many Friends still struggled to confront racism. In addition, the coming of the Cold War generated societal anxieties about the lack of progress for racial minorities. While such concerns opened opportunities for reform, widespread resistance to racial change remained and even intensified in the face of calls for equality. If the race riots of 1919 had faded from Friends’ memories, renewed rioting in 1943 pushed Quakers to address once again what would become an even knottier problem in the looming Cold War competition for the hearts and minds of nonwhite populations across the globe.1 As AFSC leaders contemplated establishing a new race relations committee during the war, they envisioned a truly national program. Even more importantly, Friends now emphasized an “oblique approach” championed by Pickett and Homer Morris, secretary of the Social-Industrial Section (SIS). This new strategy, the executive secretary explained, suggested that “the best way to bridge gulfs of prejudice and fear is perhaps not so much to tackle them directly as to bring the various groups together in common work, recreation, and worship.”2 Morris agreed, urging the Service Committee to address “race” problems indirectly by focusing on From Race Relations to Community Relations 145 equal housing or job opportunities, much like work with refugees had moved beyond addressing race in isolation. Understanding an increasingly complicated and interconnected set of problems and the need to move more decisively to establish a national program, the AFSC focused its postwar interracial work in its new Race Relations Committee (RRC). As the committee became increasingly active after the war and pursued a broader conception of its work, Quakers came to see its title as outdated. They thus rechristened it the Community Relations Committee in 1952, a title that more accurately reflected new Quaker understandings and ambitions. A logical conclusion to the evolution of AFSC race work since the 1920s, the name change reflected a shifting emphasis from simply education to a wider scope of activism and an expanded understanding of “race” and its complex interaction with other social issues. The “Unfinished Business of Democracy”: An Overview of the Race Relations Committee As the integration of Friends’ schools continued to cause controversy during World War II, Morris argued that race was “one of the major problems of our time and we cannot solve or dodge it by trying to ignore it.”3 Morris’s concerns were reinforced by other Quakers, adding to momentum for the AFSC to engage with race work once again. Florence Kite, for example, observed that a “new concern” about race was arising, in part because the ideals used to rally support for the war were not being applied fully to African Americans. In the wake of race rioting in Detroit, Kite argued, it was time “to get at this ‘unfinished business of democracy.’” Doing so was hardly radical, she added, given Friends’ history as anti-slavery activists and Henry Cadbury’s more recent reminder that “race divisions represent a focal point on which many of the Quaker testimonies converge.” Further inspired by a visit from Bayard Rustin, who impressed with “his spirit and his efficient handling of race relations,” and work being done at an Indianapolis settlement house, AFSC staff began in early 1943 to consider what “new techniques” might be available to take on “a larger and more striking project . . . in this critical time.” As they did so, however, they admitted feeling “frankly baffled to know how to proceed.”4 Despite their uncertainty, AFSC leaders could look forward to postwar work with some optimism; there were signs of progress among Quakers . The Friends Neighborhood Guild in Philadelphia, for example, had begun to address racial issues in the 1920s; by the 1950s, its newly built community center offered library, public health, and recreation facilities [18.212.102.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:29 GMT) 146 chapter 5 to its interracial neighbors. Likewise, by this time the Mantua Project in western Philadelphia had begun to help African Americans with housing. Progress...