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A Minute Commemorating Anthony Benezet the 31St of January 2013

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A Minute Commemorating Anthony Benezet the 31St of January 2013 A Minute Commemorating Anthony Benezet The 31st of January 2013 is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Anthony Benezet. It is the sense of Germantown Monthly Meeting that this date gives occasion for Friends in Germantown and Philadelphia, and all citizens of our city, to note, acknowledge, and celebrate Benezet's life and work. To that end we forward this minute, approved by Germantown Monthly Meeting on January 13, 2013, to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, with the request that, if agreed, it be forwarded to the Honorable Michael Nutter, Mayor of Philadelphia. Anthony Benezet was born in France to a Huguenot family that was forced to flee to England when he was still a baby. They came to Philadelphia in 1731, when Anthony was 17. He joined the Society of Friends, married, and lived for some time in Germantown, working at several trades before deciding on teaching. In 1742 Antony became a teacher at the Friends' English School of Philadelphia (now the William Penn Charter School) and continued there for 12 years. But he was not satisfied with teaching only affluent white boys. Benezet believed that all children should be educated equally. In 1750 he opened an evening class in his home at 115 Chestnut Street for African American children, both enslaved and free, and in 1754 founded the first public girls' school in America. In 1770, with the support of Friends, he established the African Free School as a division of Penn Charter, and at his death left his whole estate to support it. Throughout his life he continued to teach black children as well as white in schools and at home, often without charge. Many future black leaders were among his pupils. Benezet did other important humanitarian work; for example he was a founder of Pennsylvania Hospital, and gave great aid to Acadian refugees held prisoner in Philadelphia – an early example of the Quaker tradition of helping civilian victims of war. He himself considered educating black youth his greatest achievement. But he is best known to history for his work against slavery. Along with his friend John Woolman, he campaigned tirelessly to persuade Quakers, and others, to free their slaves. He founded the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. He published a great many tracts and pamphlets on the moral and practical evils of slavery, and corresponded on the subject (and others) with leaders including John Wesley, Benjamin Rush, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin. His carefully researched writings on the history of Africa and the Atlantic slave trade became essential reading for Abolitionists in England and France as well as America, and were extensively quoted in the Parliamentary debates of 1805-6 on abolishing the slave trade, and even in the act itself. Like the authors of the 1688 Germantown protest, but too few other white thinkers of the time, Benezet's opposition to slavery was firmly grounded in the religious belief that motivated all his humanitarian work: that all people are equal before God, and should be treated equally. In acting courageously on this belief he set a shining example. Anthony Benezet was a kind, humble man, not rich and often in poor health. But by his ideals and devoted work he gave our city better education and better health, and his writings helped shape a better world. At his funeral in 1784, some 400 black citizens marched along with an even larger number of whites. 21st century Philadelphians should be proud that he was once one of us. We hope that in this 300th year he will be recognized as he deserves to be. .
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