This week I talked with my old Friend Antho­ny Manousos about the [waves hand in the air] polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion we’re in. I’ve known Antho­ny for over 28 years now, back when we were part of a con­fer­ence to try to kick-start what lat­er was reborn as Quak­er Vol­un­tary Ser­vice (spoil­er: our attempt failed for what I think were most­ly gen­er­a­tional issues). Antho­ny is still protest­ing and wit­ness­ing to make a bet­ter world. I loved hear­ing his sto­ry of coali­tion work and the joy of orga­niz­ing with music. His arti­cle, “We Have No King,” appears in this mon­th’s Friends Jour­nal. 

I asked him what Quak­ers bring to protests:

One of the impor­tant things that we bring is our way of wor­ship. And our way of wor­ship helps to bring the tem­per­a­ture down. I think what the cur­rent regime wants is a vio­lent move­ment oppos­ing them. That plays out what they want (and cer­tain­ly the assas­si­na­tion of Char­lie Kirk plays into that sce­nario). What Quak­ers bring is a com­mit­ment to peace­ful protest. And when we’re around, we can be that strong, com­mit­ted, peace­ful pres­ence. And that’s important.

I also asked him a follow-up ques­tion of what we need to do to get out of the way and accept the lead­er­ship of oth­ers in social change. You can lis­ten to his answers or read them in the show notes.