Film Festival & Forum | blackquakerproject

We are thrilled to announce the Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival & Forum, a first-of-its-kind film festival that aims to educate all about the importance of Quakers of Color who for too long have remained within the margins of the Society of Friends and the wider world. From 12 February 2022, during Black History Month, until Paul Robeson’s 124th birthday, 9 April 2022, we will screen a film centered on a Quaker of Color, with an introduction from a guest expert and a follow-up discussion facilitated by BQP Director Dr. Harold D. (Hal) Weaver. Screenings will take place every other Saturday on Zoom at 1pm ET.

Our Honorees and Media
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The Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival is co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and co-presented with the DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst, the Coolidge Corner Theater, and the Goethe-Institut Boston.

Those to be celebrated include: Mahala Ashley Dickerson, Howard Thurman, and Bayard Rustin, three African American Friends featured in Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights (2011) (edited by Harold D. Weaver Jr., Paul Kriese, and Stephen W. Angell). We will also be celebrating Quakers of Color International Archive (QCIA) Interviewee, South African political leader, anti-aprtheid activist, and newly appointed QUNO-Geneva Director Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. The festival concludes by honoring prolific artist and human rights activist Paul Robeson and his two centuries of Quaker ancestors.

Our first screening will be a unique event, featuring a landmark dialogue between Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge and Palestinian Friend and AFSC General Secretary Joyce Ajlouny, the first two women of color to lead Quaker transnational organizations. The final screening on 9 April will also be presented at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Boston for a simultaneous online and in-person event.