The Quakers In The Pre-Twentieth-Century Humanity Issues In The United States: Some Reasons Make Them Not Prominent
Nuriadi Nuriadi ,Muh Isnaeni
Keywords:
The Quakers; Quakerism; humanity issues; pacifism; American history ,
Abstract
The Quakers, officially called ‘the Religious Society of Friends”, took roles in struggling against the events that contradicted humanism spirit and principle. However, the group’s roles have been still not discussed prominently or properly in the United States history. The neglect comes from several factors: it was because of the Quakers’position as the minority; their involvements served as a part of large movement groups involving in the humanity issues; it was caused by the diversity of views and the quality of personality shown by Quakers; and it was because of the pacifism where the principle tended to prohibit them to totally involve in fighting physically against human rights abuse. Among the factors, pacifism was looked very prominent factor since it had restricted them appear as frontliners. They were even assumed less patriotic, inconsistent, and coward in their movements. Consequently, they were only as a subordinate group in the humanity movements