Participants in the Quaker Walk 2025 visited Friends Center on 5/11/2025.

A group of Friends from Brooklyn Quaker Meeting organized the walk as a Quaker/interfaith pilgrimage for peace and justice. They are walking from Flushing, Queens, to Washington, DC, to “affirm & defend everlasting human rights across all borders.”

They are carrying with them a copy of the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657. The remonstrance was a letter from settlers in Flushing (now part of Queens, NYC) to Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of New Holland, who had banned Quakers and Quaker worship. They wrote to say they would not, but would welcome any Quakers, and people of other faiths, who approached them with love. They said they would do unto others as they would have done unto them.

Today Quakers are well established. These Friends today call us to welcome new immigrants and other faiths in the same way that our neighbors in Flushing welcomed us in 1657.

Here is a photo of their support van in our loading zone. You can see the windows of the Race Street Quaker Meetinghouse reflected in the van windows!