New Hal Weaver Biography by Emma Lapsansky-Werner with Penetrating QCIA Interview by Rob Cox
Introduction:
The late UMass Amherst Special-Collections Director in the Du Bois Library, Robert S. Cox, interviewed Harold D. Weaver Jr. in a revealing, 82-minute dialogue. Guided by Cox’s contemplation of “what is Hal doing for Friends now?,” this interview spotlights Dr. Weaver’s involvement in developments of Quakerism worldwide, especially in relationship to the global Quaker-majority in Kenya and the growing membership across Latin America and other parts of Africa.
Today we share excerpts of this new transcript, which offers a glimpse into a thoughtful discussion of Hal’s life and spiritual journey, soon to be intimately documented in a full-life biography crafted by historian Emma Lapsansky-Werner: Child of Georgia, Citizen of the World: Snapshots in the Life of Harold D. Weaver, Jr. Picking up where the 2019 interview left off, Lapsansky-Werner offers a larger portrait of what Rob Cox hinted at in his probing exploration of Weaver’s life-journey.
Her forthcoming biography begins the narrative with Weaver’s birth–in Depression-era Georgia–into a family of dedicated educators, who modeled for their son a goal of helping to bring about what Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned as a sweeping human rights movement. Over the course of his nine-decade life, Dr. Hal Weaver has followed his father’s model of helping teachers to develop enlightening and inspiring fare for their students. Hal has also brought his own considerable leadership skills to the pursuit of that human justice and truth. The upcoming book–which chronicles Hal’s long involvement with Friends and with other seekers of Justice and Truth worldwide–reflects his experiences on five continents, with dozens of cultures and four languages. (Hal notes, with humor, that he also “studied–but did not learn–Chinese.”)
Excerpts from “Harold D. Weaver: Oral History with Robert S. Cox, August 26, 2019.”
Excerpt No. 1: “Becoming A Conscientious Objector”
Rob: When do you begin to consider yourself a Quaker? It’s not at Haverford, is it?
Hal: No, I really didn’t consider myself to be a Quaker while I was at Westtown or Haverford. As an adult, the first major impact that my Quaker education had on me was to lead me–a draftee in the U.S. Army–to apply for conscientious objector status. After willingly undergoing Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training at Camp Benning in Columbus, GA, I was assigned to teach others to kill. That is where I drew the line.
Martin Luther King’s non-violent human rights movement had a tremendous impact on my feelings and thinking–both his writings and actions, as well as the influence of Gandhi on his life. This helped convince me to think about the world through the eyes of Gandhi, to whom I had been introduced at Haverford but whose teachings I did internalize until I was in the military. As I grew into my own understanding of conscientious objection, I was surprised to find an empathetic company commander, Captain Johnny Johnson, who supported me in this. Even though he had been a professional military person all of his adult life. But he said he had met people before who were conscientious objectors and had come to respect them. So this was part of my reckoning with the fact that you can’t tell a person by the uniform. In fact, you can’t tell much about a person’s feelings or their thoughts by their skin color or any other thing. So Johnny Johnson supported me, but later, I ended up with another company commander who was bitter about his battlefield commission being removed, with his rank being reduced. And I seemed to be the one upon which his frustration landed: he set me up for court martial. I had stood at attention, as I knew I should, during the playing of the national anthem, but I did not salute because I was not in uniform and did not feel I was supposed to salute if I was not in uniform. So I was brought before a court martial, found guilty; but the case was eventually thrown out after two veteran sergeants testified that they would have done the same. After a trip to Washington to meet with the Adjutant General of the US Army, I was released from the military with a General Discharge under Honorable Conditions as being “unable to adjust.”
A major life-long skill from this experience: dealing effectively with challenging governmental bureaucracies, including future ones in France, the USSR, and China.
Excerpt No. 2: “Encounters with Bayard Rustin: Selected Convergence and Divergence.”
Rob: In New York in 1958 you had this job with the New York City Youth Board on the streets of New York and then you had this gig with Bayard the same year?
Hal: Right. I had arrived back in New York City in the spring of ’58. In fall ’58, Bayard was organizing the Youth March for Integrated Schools for April 1959. And I became a part of the organizing, the volunteering, which I remember mostly involved sending out letters, and contacting people to publicize the campaign. But it was an opportunity of meeting Bayard again. I am convinced that Bayard would not have been as successful in the mammoth 1963 March on Washington if he had not had the dry run organizing the smaller marches in DC in 1958 and 1959.
And, then, in 1964, our convergence continued when I took a job with the anti-poverty program, HARYOU (Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited). Bayard came by my office on several occasions, and we had a chance to talk about organizing young people, politicizing young people, and getting them involved in political and economic development in Black communities.
Divergence occurred on the issue of education in Black communities around the country. Bayard supported the United Federation of Teachers’ against Black-community control in New York City while I was strongly in favor of community control. As a matter of fact, I later organized at Cornell University in summer 1969 a U.S. Office of Education-financed Institute, which brought together educators specifically from cities that were trying to organize their own community-control systems. So, we trained teams of teachers, administrators, and School Board members from Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Harlem, Bedford Stuy, DC, and Durham, North Carolina. So Bayard and I were divergent at that point. This was the late ’60s and early ’70s, but my view of him, and of his life’s work, changed again after his death in 1987 when the documentary film, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, came out in January 2003. We hosted numerous screenings and discussions, including one at our home Meeting, Wellesley, before its release on national TV, PBS. And, finally, my advocacy for Bayard continued when I–as a Board member–initiated the action that led the AFSC Board in 2010 to restore his name to its rightful place as a major co-author of the impactful AFSC pamphlet, Speak Truth to Power.
Note: The two excerpts above have been edited for brevity and clarity for this e-newsletter. They will be fully restored for Dr. Lapsansky-Werner’s forthcoming biography of Weaver. The BQP is grateful for Cooper’s and Emma’s assistance in the preparation of this e-newsletter.
Conclusion:
In her upcoming book, Child of Georgia, Citizen of the World: Snapshots in the Life of Harold D. Weaver, Jr., Emma Lapsansky-Werner picks up where Cox’s interview left off, asking the question: “What can we learn from a man who internalized social justice in early childhood, and proceeded to take that message into the world across nine decades and five continents?
To listen to the full dialogue between Dr. Cox and Dr. Weaver, please visit the UMass Amherst installation of our Quakers of Color International Archive (QCIA) online here. We also encourage you to visit our QCIA’s new home at Haverford College Library’s Quaker and Special Collection to discover our latest interviews with Friends of Color around the world.
We would love to hear from you, including any responses to the following queries at theblackquakerproject@gmail.com.
- Who and what have influenced your spiritual journey?
- Why do you feel so few African Americans have joined the Religious Society of Friends? And how do you feel we should address this?
Peace and Blessings,
The BlackQuaker Project
Wellesley Friends Meeting,
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers)
www.theblackquakerproject.org
17 September 2026
