Early Quaker Practice and the Advocacy for Polyvocality Then, Now, and Beyond

Controversies generated by the subjugation of man by man do not come without questioning or challenges to such a drive that would transform one faction of the human race into beasts of burden as a result of the hue of the skin. Both the questioning of and challenges to that heinous system aim at reestablishing an ideal egalitarianism among men. This paper strives to shed light on how Quaker advocacy for polyvocality at the inception of slavery, during and after the “abolition” of the same, has come to be one of the places of memory from which HBCUs could tap and enrich their wealth of peaceful, nonviolent resistance to make Black voices resonate in the 21st century and beyond with committed writing and activism that speak truth to power.