In this special interim episode of Quakers Today, Sweet Miche shares how Quakers strive to embody religious freedom and the sacred right to provide sanctuary. We feature excerpts from the Quaker Walk to Washington, a remarkable 300-mile trek from Flushing, Queens—a place steeped in the origins of religious freedom in America—to Washington, D.C. This journey of deep spiritual conviction and witness highlights the ongoing Quaker commitment to justice.

You’ll hear from:

Max Goodman and Ross Brubeck: Attenders at Brooklyn (N.Y.) Meeting who grew up at Sandy Spring (Md.) Meeting, and two of the core organizers of the walk.

Diana Mejia and Stuart Sydenstricker: Quakers from Plainfield (N.J.) Meeting who lead Wind of the Spirit, an immigration advocacy center. 

Imani Cruz: Global Policy Coordinator for Migrant Justice at American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

A Journey of Faith and Action for Justice

This episode delves into the “Quaker Walk to Washington,” a pilgrimage rooted in the historical fight for religious freedom and the Quaker testimony of peace and justice.

The walk draws direct inspiration from the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance, a courageous declaration written for Quakers facing persecution in New Netherland. This document, which asserts the right to religious liberty and the protection of all people, served as a foundational text for the walk’s purpose. The episode also connects the walk to a recent lawsuit filed by Quaker meetings against the Department of Homeland Security, challenging policies that undermine the sanctity of worship spaces.

The 300-mile trek itself became a profound spiritual experience. The walkers reflect on the physical challenges and unexpected moments of deep connection, such as canoeing through dense fog—a powerful metaphor for walking forward in faith even when the path ahead is unclear. The walk fostered a sense of solidarity with migrants, mirroring their uncertain journeys, and demonstrated how Quaker meetings along the route extended radical hospitality and welcome, regardless of resources.

Beyond the symbolic act of walking, the episode explores the practical dimension of Quaker witness. Imani Cruz from AFSC outlines current legislative efforts to advocate for just immigration policies, including resisting increased funding for immigration enforcement and championing the Sensitive Locations Act, which aims to protect places like houses of worship from immigration intrusions legally.

The walkers brought their message of justice to Washington, D.C., culminating in a powerful symbolic act of nailing a contemporary remonstrance to a door on the National Mall.

Question for Next Season:

What is your favorite Quaker term that is common among Friends, but strange to outsiders?

Share your response by emailing podcast@quakerstoday.org or call/text 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377). Please include your name and location. Your responses may be featured in our next season!

Resources

• To learn more about the Quaker Walk to Washington and read the two remonstrances, visit QuakerWalk2025.org.
• Quakers Sue DHS over Immigration Enforcement and Religious Freedom from Friends Journal and QuakerSpeak
• Six Ways to Support Immigrants Right Now by AFSC
• Just Immigration from FCNL

Transcript

Max Goodman: As Quakers, we try to be quiet in our worship and loud in our witness. It’s worth considering what it really means to, to go to the still small voice, poor leadings that are challenging or leadings that challenge us to challenge society. And I know that I’ll be listening in the silence for clues of what we do next together.

Sweet Miche: Hi, I’m your host, Sweet Miche. We’re in between seasons here at Quakers today, which gives me an opportunity to share a profound story of how Quakers are striving to embody religious freedom and the sacred right to provide sanctuary. In this special interim episode of the podcast, we’re sharing excerpts from the Quaker Walk to Washington.

Just last month, a dedicated group of friends and fellow travelers undertook a remarkable 300 mile trek journeying from Flushing, Queens, a place steeped in the very origins of religious freedom in America, all the way to the heart of our nation’s capital, Washington DC. This was a journey not just of miles, but of deep spiritual conviction and witness.

Singers: Can be won. Many stones can form an arch. Singly none, singly none. And in union what we will, can be accomplished still. Drops of water turn the mill. Singly none. Singly none.

Max Goodman: In this legal discovery and historical discovery around our lawsuit with the Trump administration over protected spaces and the sanctuary of our worship. This document was brought to our attention. It was written in 1657, not by Quakers, but for Quakers at time when Quakerism and other forms of religious expression were illegal in the colony of New Netherland under Governor Peter Stuyvesant.

Today in America, Quakers are not the outsiders. We are incredibly insider. It’s a scary time, but it is essential that we who are in the least danger come into the fullness of our courage and speak out for people who will be punished for speaking out themselves.

Sweet Miche: That’s Max Goodman, an attender at Brooklyn monthly meeting, and one of the core organizers who brought the Quaker Walk to Washington to fruition. The 1657 document he referenced is the Flushing Remonstrance. It was a courageous letter penned by early European settlers to the then. Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, declaring in no uncertain terms that their Quaker neighbors should not be deported, persecuted, or killed, simply because of their deeply held beliefs.

The Quaker Walk to Washington also follows in the direct footsteps of a recent lawsuit that a coalition of Quaker meetings filed against the Department of Homeland Security. The legal action was taken in response to the Trump administration’s decision to rescind a longstanding policy. That it protected houses of worship from immigration enforcement. A violation as friends believe of the inherent dignity of every human being, regardless of their background or immigration status.

While the walk was first organized by a small group of friends at Brooklyn Monthly Meeting just weeks before the walk commenced, Diana Mejia and her partner Stuart Sydenstricker, were led to join. Diana and Stuart are Quakers from Plainfield monthly meeting and lead Wind of the Spirit, an immigration advocacy and resource center in New Jersey.

Diana Mejia: It’s because what is unique is we have a group of people, gringos, they recognize that long time ago they were seen as foreigners, like extranjeros. Here we are humbly recognizign that happened to us. That is our story that happened to us. So we all have responsibility because by setting that we actually going inspire others, not only Quakers to recognize at some point in one part of life, they also were not welcome.

Sweet Miche: Stewart also shares why their involvement felt not just important, but essential.

Stuart Sydenstricker: A walk based on Quaker values, a walk based on supporting immigrants. We’re both immigrants, we’re both undocumented. We said, this seems to be what we gotta do. Then we, we got involved, so we really didn’t have an option not to because as these two elements of Quaker values of supporting the other. Being ourselves. The other at one point as well, you have these three hundreds miles of walk between these two points Flushing and D.C. But when you look at the whole thing that happened during these three weeks, of all these meetings that welcomed us, right? Some with a lot of resources, some with less resources, but everybody gave the best they had because they felt energized, they felt connected with, with this whole document and with the story of being welcomed by the stranger. Now making sure we can welcome as wel. It’s not just that someone wrote something, we’re gonna deliver. This is three weeks of something being made, being felt by the whole East Coast. Even if they don’t get it, we got it.

Sweet Miche: I got to join the walk for two truly remarkable moments. The first was a unique stretch where the walkers weren’t actually walking.

They were canoeing. This river crossing, as you’ll hear from Ross Breck, a friend from Brooklyn Monthly  Meeting, became a powerful spiritual center. The day was incredibly foggy. You couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of you. It was a tangible experience of venturing into the unknown, trusting the current, much like the walk itself. We have some experiential audio here, capturing the sounds and atmosphere as we arrived at the boat launch followed by Ross’s reflection on the significance of that moment.

Background Voices: Quakers are just into the bird song. Sometimes people look at be funny for saying you know, it’s a quiet walk. I mean, it is sounding beautiful. I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Let it shine when I go back home. I’m going to let it shine when I go back home. I’m going to let it shine when I go back home. I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Ross Brubeck: I’m gonna say that the river crossing it was one of two spiritual centers for me in the whole walk, and I didn’t, I did not expect it to be, I thought it was just gonna be, you know, canoeing, fine, fun, whatever. I’ve never had an experience like that with so many people.

The fact that the slate, the visual slate, was utterly clean. There was nothing in the foreground or background. It was just us on a river. And like I’ve thought about the idea of a religious experience as being some shared totality of perception where folks are all experiencing the, the same thing. I can’t say like how many miracles like that have happened on this trip, but the thing that stands out for me as evidence of, of these miracles was.

The river and the fact that we were all seeing the same thing, which was, um, nothing, we could not discern what was in front of us, which is the entire idea of the walk in the first place was to walk into something that we couldn’t understand or recognize.

Sweet Miche: The second time I connected with the walkers, it was a day before they arrived in dc. On that night, we gathered for dinner at the Friends Meeting of Washington with the American Friends Service Committee and Friends Committee on National Legislation. To learn how to translate the journey into legislative advocacy.

This is Imani Cruz, the Global Policy Coordinator for Migrant Justice at AFSC.

Imani Cruz: So we often go in with a bigger vision, but we have a specific ask in a way that they can embody our vision in that moment. So right now we’re in a moment of, uh, called budget reconciliation and basically Congress is working to increase the budget in certain areas and they’re calling for a huge, I’m talking billions of dollar increase in immigration enforcement to ICE and CBP, which are the agencies that do much of the harm to communities on the ground. Also, our second ask is on the Sensitive Locations Act, and I think many of you might have heard a part of this policy for a long time. It has been known that ICE and CBP cannot go into what’s called sensitive locations, houses of worship, hospitals, courthouses, schools. And so the Trump administration did take it out after decades of precedent. This act is to make it a congressional law so that no president, no future leader, can decide whether it’s a sensitive location or not.

Sweet Miche: The morning of May 22nd brought the final four miles of the trek.

Diana Mejia: Has been a very powerful experience, this journey of faith. And you here because? We Quakers, we, we wanna keep the legacy to walk for justice. And here we are. We start May 4th. We have been walking, we have been crossing rivers. We have been asleep without knowing where we’re going to sleep or we will have something to eat or not. We wanna experience the journey of migrants, we wanna experience the journey of solidarity and in faith. We are working today in Washington, DC to make sure we deliver that message, we deliver our experience.

Sweet Miche: We sat in worship with over a hundred friends and allies by the Washington Monument. And finally, in a symbolic act reminiscent of Martin Luther’s defiant nailing of his 95 theses, the walkers brought their own door to the National Mall to nail the Flushing Remonstrance too.

Max Goodman: This hopefully is the opening step of a longer journey to a rebirth and Quaker action in these dark times. What we have done for the past 19 days has been mostly symbolic. We did not lift the uh, oppressive. The weight of fear that still hangs over their lives here among us in our communities. That requires that big things change, that big things shift. Those will not happen in 18 days, and those will not happen with a scrappy little group from Brooklyn, planning a big camping trip. This has been a warning bell ringing out danger. I hope that you all. Will join with us. We’ll join together on your own in your meetings monthly and yearly. Figure out how we can do the real work that will actually safeguard the lives, the livelihood, and the families of the people that we hope to protect here of the people who we recognize light in, but the country is not recognizing the light in.This is urgent. This is ongoing. Thank you for this finale. Don’t let it be the last finale.

We are trying to not have single savior figures, but if anyone’s gonna be it, it should be Diana, so she’s gonna nail the thing to the door.

Diana Mejia: You see, I’m not a carpenter.

Max Goodman: Hell yeah. That’s in there. So thank you everyone. This concludes the 300 mile Quaker Walk to Washington.

Sweet Miche: That was the Quaker Walk to Washington. If you’re interested in learning more about the walk, you can go to QuakerWalk2025.org. Thank you to everyone who offered interviews, audio and welcomed me and my dog, Bread, on the walk to Washington: Jess Hobbes Piffer, Lena Parker, Elena Callahan, Nathan Shroyer, Diana Mejia, Stuart Sydenstricker, Ross Brubeck, Max Goodman, and so many more.

Before we wrap up, I have a question for you to reflect on: What is your favorite Quaker term that is common among Friends, but strange to outsiders? When we start our next season in September, I’m excited to hear your answers. Leave a voicemail with your answer at 317-Quakers or respond via our social media pages.

If you stick around after the closing, you’ll hear Max Goodman read the old Flushing Remonstrance and the one that they wrote while walking to Washington. Thank you for listening to the special episode of Quakers Today, a project of Friends Publishing Corporation for updates on season five. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and X and visit our website where you’ll find show notes, transcripts, and more resources. That website is QuakersToday.org. Thank you, friend. I look forward to being with you again soon.

Max Goodman: Remonstrance Of the Inhabitants of the Town of Flushing to Governor Stuyvesant delivered December 27th, 1657.

Right Honorable,

You have been pleased to send unto us a certain prohibition or command that we should not receive or entertain any of those people called Quakers because they are supposed to be, by some, seducers of the people. For our part we cannot condemn them in this case, neither can we stretch out our hands against them, for out of Christ God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Wee desire therefore in this case not to judge least we be judged, neither to condemn least we be condemned, but rather let every man stand or fall to his own Master. Wee are bounde by the law to do good unto all men, especially to those of the household of faith. And though for the present we seem to be unsensible for the law and the Law giver, yet when death and the Law assault us, if wee have our advocate to seeke, who shall plead for us in this case of conscience betwixt God and our own souls; the powers of this world can neither attach us, neither excuse us, for if God justifye who can condemn and if God condemn there is none can justifye.

And for those jealousies and suspicions which some have of them, that they are destructive unto Magistracy and Ministerye, that cannot bee, for the Magistrate hath his sword in his hand and the Minister hath the sword in his hand, as witnesse those two great examples, which all Magistrates and Ministers are to follow, Moses and Christ, whom God raised up maintained and defended against all enemies both of flesh and spirit; and therefore that of God will stand, and that which is of man will come to nothing. And as the Lord hath taught Moses or the civil power to give an outward liberty in the state, by the law written in his heart designed for the good of all, and can truly judge who is good, who is evil, who is true and who is false, and can pass definitive sentence of life or death against that man which arises up against the fundamental law of the States General; soe he hath made his ministers a savor of life unto life and a savor of death unto death.

The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, soe love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage. And because our Saviour sayeth it is impossible but that offences will come, but woe unto him by whom they cometh, our desire is not to offend one of his little ones, in whatsoever form, name or title hee appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker, but shall be glad to see anything of God in any of them, desiring to doe unto all men as we desire all men should doe unto us, which is the true law both of Church and State; for our Saviour sayeth this is the law and the prophets. Therefore if any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egresse and regresse unto our Town, and houses, as God shall persuade our consciences, for we are bounde by the law of God and man to doe good unto all men and evil to noe man. And this is according to the patent and charter of our Towne, given unto us in the name of the States General, which we are not willing to infringe, and violate, but shall houlde to our patent and shall remaine, your humble subjects, the inhabitants of Vlishing. 

Max Goodman: Remonstrance Of the Quaker Walkers of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, to the United States Government delivered May 22nd, 2025

To our representatives,

Through your action or inaction, you have permitted the intrusion of federal officers into our houses of worship to abduct our friends and neighbors.  We cannot accept this transgression of the sacred; both the sacred stillness of our worship, and the divine human rights of our persecuted friends.  While the voice of power slanders them, calling non-citizens criminals, stirring fears of displacement and hatred of the newcomer, we know the truth: that we are all children of God, deserving of equal opportunity and safe harbor.  We know that our rights are endowed freely by Heaven, not conferred by the paperwork of citizenship.

Being ourselves immigrants, or their descendants, delivered to this land by a violent history, we cannot judge anyone else seeking freedom and shelter here today.  We are bound instead by a sacred obligation to do good to one another in all circumstances.  While the politics of the moment may be set against such hospitality, when forced to choose between the laws of man and the Law of God, between the politics of the moment and the politics of eternity, we will always choose to follow The Light.

As to those who say undocumented immigrants are destructive to our nation and its values, they themselves misunderstand our nation and its values.  American nationhood is not an ethnicity nor a mundane coincidence of culture.  It is a set of sacred principles, including equality before the law, due process, and free expression.  We are an exceptional nation because we are forged from the lineages of the world, yet unified in the centuries-long pursuit of a free and just society.  Our founding experiment is a state intended to provide liberty to all, protecting the inalienable rights of all people within its territories and subject to its power.  Every human being that our government detains has a right to due process and a jury of their peers.  No matter how often it is ignored, this is the highest civil law of our land – enshrined in the bill of rights.  If this administration can defile that law by making ICE the judge, jury and executioner for any class of people, we are in deep peril of losing our democratic republic.

Civic history teaches that assaults on the rights of any group imperil the rights of the entire nation. As all people are created equal by God, which we hold to be self-evident, we condemn the cruel and arbitrary subjugation of any person.  Our faith teaches us compassion for all forms of humanity, with no exceptions for human beings under the judgment of the law.  The golden rule which guides us flows from the witness of That Of God in all people.  It is the underlying law of all religions, the core of true morality.  Therefore, whoever may come to us in fear and in need, we are compelled by conscience to aid them, giving them free access to our homes and churches.  This is according to our traditions, both civic and religious, as Americans, and as Quakers.  We have a responsibility we refuse to neglect: to steward the utopian projects of our ancestors, for this nation, and for the kingdom of God.  In the protection of faith, in God and in our constitution, we will hold to our moral convictions as ministers, citizens, and patriots.  So long as you represent us, we demand that you do the same.

Your faithful constituents,  

American Friends among the the New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore Yearly Meetings