The walls hold the roof which gives shelter. They also enclose a space in and throughout time. Who baked the apple pies for the original owners of 1272 Delaware? The servant’s quarters on the northern wing suggest that poor people worked for rich people, baking the sweet American apple pies for sweet oligarchic, patriarchal traditions. How much of those traditions have been uprooted?
A private property owner recently lectured me about work requirements for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and Medicaid (health coverage). He then began to lecture me about the “Protestant work ethic.” There are already requirements for these federal programs: it is income based.
Work requirements are another layer of requirements:
That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, as well as their supervisors, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But you shall require of them the same quantity of bricks as they have made previously, do not diminish it, for they are lazy; that is why they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ Let heavier work be laid upon them; then they will labor at it and pay no attention to deceptive words.” Exodus 5:6-9
The entrance gate to Auschwitz reads in German, Arbeit Macht Frei, “work sets you free.”
How much transfer of wealth from poor people’s labor to the aristocracy will good Christians and Quakers tolerate? How much cheap or free labor can the Epstein class oligarchs squeeze from us?
At the Network of Religious Communities (NRC), we actively support and advocate for SNAP, food justice and hunger solutions. Addressing hunger and poverty are universally agreed upon by the religiously, racially, culturally and economically diverse Board of Governors of the NRC. They recently voted to fund our SNAP program, food pantry and staff throughout the summer until September 30th because of massive federal cuts.
It is good to experience diverse communities practicing the Kwanzaa principle of Ujima – collective work and responsibility, or “mutual aid” in anarchist terms. Most recently, we learned that we were just awarded with a five year federal/state grant extension beginning October1st, which will cover some but not all expenses and salaries.
Another food justice organization, Freedom Gardens, is the newest occupant at the NRC. Rooted in the Black Liberation principles of “growing liberation and resilience” and Ubuntu, “I am because we are,” they envision a city where empty lots and public land are collectively owned and used for growing food. This is especially important in poor communities like the East Side of Buffalo.
The Gail V. Wells Freedom Food Forest at JFK Park has fruit and nut trees. Other locations, like the lot near the Michigan Street Baptist Church in the African American Heritage Corridor, are currently being cultivated. Gail, the founder who passed away, also helped to establish the agricultural area within Juneteenth.
Buffalo Quakers have worked the gardens and assisted the food program at Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church, a predominantly Black Church on the near East Side, not far from Jefferson and Glenwood where the Afro-Asian Bookshop was once located and is now occupied by a community garden, donation center and green space.
Down the block, the biking and advocacy group, “Colored Girls Bike Too” are centered at Holistic Cycles. This city block also houses The Challenger Newspaper, and the Apollo media center, which is next to the Frank E. Merriweather Library (named for the founder of The Criterion Newspaper), with its African circles and African and African American archival library in a circle opposite the overlapping circles which connect it to the auditorium circle (one of the great democratic debate and community spaces in the city).
Throughout the black community, efforts are being made to address liberation, land reclamation and food justice. These pillars of revolutionary and sustainable movement are part of living African American History. These pillars are fundamentally spiritual, and alternatives to violence projects (AVP), with which Quakers and the NRC can further cross pollinate.