In support of gun violence prevention and Gun Violence Awareness Month in June, Friends wore orange to our June 2 Meeting for Worship.
Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor when she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15—just one week after performing at President Obama’s 2nd inaugural parade in 2013. After her death, Hadiya’s friends and family asked all of us to stand up, speak out, and wear orange to raise awareness about gun violence. Since then, orange has been the defining color of the gun violence prevention movement.
Nonviolence is a core belief of Quakerism that George Fox and other founders first presented in the Peace Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to Charles II of England in 1660:
We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and
fighting with outward weapons for any end or under any pretense whatever;
this is our testimony to the whole world.
— Declaration George Fox and other Friends to Charles II of England, 1660/61