A Quaker Weekly VOLUME 5 MAY 23, 1959 NUMBER 21 dr ;sa m;stake to assume IN THIS ISSUE that God's communications to us are limited to technical speech, whether of the written or the spoken word. Even our The Everlasting Arms friends who walk by our side have many languages other by Richard H. Tafel than words. They speak to us in gestures, in. the glow or the gloom of their faces, in a touch Quakerism Created and Re-Created of the hand, in a token secretly left where we shall find it. by Errol T. Elliott Often their most meaningful communication is by the way of silence. So also God speaks Neigborhood Renewal and Integrated to us in the multitudinous voices of nature, the blessings Housing: The Powelton Story of His providence, the turning of an event. All our environ­ by Olcutt Sanders ment is vocal with His good­ ness, and those voiceless promptings from out the Editorial Comments silence of our soul are the fleet messengers of His will. by J. Barnard Walton -ANONYMOUS Detter from India FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY $5.00 A YEAR 326 FRIENDS JOURNAL May 23, 1959 Neighborhood Renewal and Integrated FRIENDS JOURNAL Housing: The Powelton Story NEW Friends Meeting near the center of a big A city is rare these days- even if the city is Phila­ delphia. But the Powelton Village Meeting is only one sign of fresh life in what five years ago seemed to be a dying neighborhood. The 15 or more persons gathered weekly for Quaker worship at St. Andrews Parish House comprise an in­ dulged Meeting under the care of Central Philadelphia Published weekly, but biweekly from June 13 to September 19 and December 19 to January 2, at 1615 Cherry Street, Monthly Meeting. They also represent some of the deter­ Philadelphia 2, Pennsylvania (Rittenhouse 6-7669) By Friends Publishing Corporation mined civic spirit that is remaking the Powelton area. WILLIAM HUBBEN MILDRED A. PURNELL This 25-block section of West Philadelphia has about Editor and Manager Assistant Editor MYRTLE M. WALLEN FREIDA L. SINGLETON 6,000 people living in 600 structures with 2,000 dwelling Advertisements Subscriptions units. CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENTS Many Philadelphians will remember Powelton as a RICHARD R. WOOD, Philadelphia quiet, rather somber community of single and twin Vic­ Africa ............................. Maurice Webb, Durban England ....... ...... ........Horace B. Pointing, London torian houses built during the latter half of the nine­ Joan Hewitt. London Germany .......................... Lottelore Roloff, Berlin teenth century. Aside from the architecture of the India ............................ Benjamin Polk, Calcutta Japan ........... ................. Hilary Conroy, Tokyo houses, its most notable features are its spacious yards Lake Erie Association ......... .... Kenneth lves, Detroit Lebanon ........ Calvin W. and Gwendolyn Schwabe, Beirut and wide, tree-lined streets, sharply setting it apart from Scandinavia .............. Ole Olden, Stavanger, Norway Switzerland ................... ... Robert J. Leach, Geneva the row houses to the north and west. Turkey ........... .... .. ... William L. Nute, Jr., Ankara Midwest (Five Years) .......... Russell E. Rees, Richmond As recently as 20 years ago this neighborhood re­ New England ................ Thomas R. Bodine, Hartford West Coast . ............ Ferner Nuhn, Claremont, Calif. mained a stable, well-kept community of single family BOARD OF MANAGERS homes, occupied for the most part by resident owners. 1966-1969: Howard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, Ruth 0. The social life centered around several large churches Maris, Margaret L. Matthews, Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr. 1957-1960: Mary R. Calhoun, Eleanor S. Clarke, Barbara in the immediate vicinity. Among these were two Friends L. Curtis, Arthur M. Dewees, Irving Hollingshead, Emily C. Johnson, Elizabeth H. Kirk. 1958-1961: J. C. Clement Meetings-one at 35th and Lancaster and the other at Alexandre, Carol P. Brainerd, Daniel D. Teat, Jr., Anne Wood, Mildred B. Young. 42nd and Powelton Avenue. THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five dollars or more to their subscriptions annually to help During the past two decades the pattern of living in meet the over-all cost of publication. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions, Can­ Powelton underwent a gradual but steady change. The ada, and Mexico: $6.00 a year, $2.75 for six months. Foreign countries: $5.60 a year. Single copies: filteen modern houses and community facilities of the suburbs cents. Checks should be made payable to Friends J oumal. Sample copies sent on request. began to attract the middle-income families living in the Second Class Postage Paid at Philadelphia, Pa. area. As these old neighborhood families moved away, houses were bought for conversion to rooms and apart­ ments to meet the increasing demand for rental housing from lower-income groups moving into the city. The Friends Meetings were laid down, and the buildings sold. For several years the neighborhood continued to maintain its white population because of the vigorous Contents Page efforts of a civic association in discouraging sales to Neighborhood Renewal and Integrated Housing: minority groups. Many properties during this time were The Powelton Story-Olcutt Sanders .. ....... 326 sold at low prices to speculators or to white residential Editorial Comments--]. Barnard Walton ......... 327 buyers with insufficient capital to convert and maintain The Everlasting Arms--Richard H. Tafel . ....... 328 the large obsolete buildings. Quakerism Created and Re-Created-Errol T. Elliott 330 By 1956 Powelton was a neighborhood in rapid tran­ Letter from India-Benjamin Polk .. ....... .... 331 sition. Well-maintained houses stood next to blighted Answered Prayer (poem)-Euell Gibbons . 332 properties. The area was not attractive to individual Books . .................. - . - . - . - . - - .... - . 333 home buyers, white or Negro. The prospect was that Friends and Their Friends . 334 this would become another metropolitan slum with tene- Letters to the Editor . 336 (Continued on page 332) FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) ESTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, MAY 23, 1959 VOL. 5 - No. 21 Editorial Comments ]. Barnard Walton wrote the following "Editorial can Friends Service Committee, and other vehicles for Comments" at the invitation of William Hubben, who expressing our testimonies in the life of the world. is on vacation. As one visits among Friends Meetings, both old and new, one notices the interfiow of the ideas expressed in The Growing Edge of Quakerism the FRIENDS JouRNAL and the ideas acted upon in life. OES anyone, perchance, remember looking at the People become interested in these ideas through study, "Facts and Figures about FRIENDS JouRNAL" in the D through action in work camps or other projects of serv­ issue of April 4 (page 217)? Were they merely some more ice, through fellowship with friends and neighbors, dry numbers, or did they indicate something of the direc­ through trying to answer their children's questions and tion in which we as a body of people are moving? helping to find answers in First-day school. Somewhere Who are the readers of the FRIENDS JouRNAL? Briefly, in this seeking process the FRIENDS JouRNAL comes in. the members of Friends General Conference; members In time the seeker becomes a finder and takes respon­ of kindred Meetings, like the Conservative Friends and sibility for the future direction of the movement. The the new independent Meetings; some from the Five pioneer exploration of thought goes ahead and opens Years Meeting who read also The American Friend; the way for the main body, which follows. members of the Wider Quaker Fellowship and other We may illustrate this growth by looking at the people who find value in the point of view expressed Southeastern Conference of Friends, which was held this in this paper. spring at St. Petersburg, Florida, March 13 to 15, 1959. For a long time it has been evident that the circu­ This gathering began as a picnic of three Friends Meet­ lation of the paper increases faster than the membership ings, Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Miami, held at the of the Meetings which may be considered its constitu­ Bok Tower at Lake Wales. There were then no meeting ency. The rate of growth of the Friends General Con­ houses, no established Monthly Meetings, and nearly all ference is a little under one per cent per year (from of the people were winter visitors. Now, in less than a 28,611 to 29,337 in the three years from December 31, generation, there are twelve meetings in Florida, two 1954, to December 31, 1957, or eight-tenths of one per in Georgia, and one in South Carolina. There are three cent per year). For the period of three and a half years meeting houses and the prospect of another. There are from the creation of the FRIENDS JouRNAL by the uniting eight First-day schools. · Nine Meetings organized as of the Friends lntelligencer and The Friend in July, 1955, Monthly Meetings report to the Friends World Com­ to the report of January 1, 1959, the subscription list mittee. Half of the active Friends are resident. increased from 4,830 to 5,154. This is two per cent per How does this growth of the external compare with year, or twice as fast as the increase in the Meetings. · the development of thought as expressed in the FRIENDS Why? JouRNAL? We may for the present leave the deeper .ques­ Let us look into the relationship of the FRIENDS tion of how it compares with the growth of the hfe of JouRNAL and its readers. A paper has no existence ex­ the spirit to the time of individual silent meditation cept as it has readers and writers. You, the writers and in the presence of the One who is source of the life of readers, create the body of news and the body of thought the spirit. that rise out of the life we live.