To Live Peaceably Together: The American Friends Service Committee’s Campaign for Open Housing, by TRACY E. K’MEYER

Abstract

This historical monograph chronicles the varying strategies adopted by the Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), to improve the housing opportunities for black families. For almost three decades beginning from the 1940s, the AFSC made cohousing a priority whilst rarely being able to achieve wholesale success. Using the detailed local and national minutes and reports typical of Quaker organizations, Tracey K’Meyer has been able to reconstruct the successes and challenges of the initiatives. In so many ways and in concert with each other, hostile neighbors, developers, realtors, and the apparatus of local government—all supported by the fear of falling housing prices should neighborhoods become racially mixed—blocked attempts to desegregate the suburbs. It is a well-rehearsed history that continues today. What makes the book distinct is its detailed focus on a single faith-based organization’s attempts to promote equality of opportunity and the techniques it pioneered. Given the abundance of data available to the author, the account is rich both in chronological detail but also into the personalities and background of some of the leading staff members working on the ground in Chicago, Richmond, California, and Philadelphia. It gives an ample portrait of Quaker service agency and the value of the book lies in its meticulous attention to detail whilst remaining highly readable. As K’Meyer suggests, academic work on the activists remains under-researched.