Main content

Extent:

2.5 linear ft. (2.5 linear feet.)

Abstract:

Common Ground was a community of faith founded by Quakers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1982 to break cycles of poverty, racism, and sexism through nonviolence education and action. Collaborative work with Baton Rouge Friends Meeting, local Clergy and Laity Concerned and Dignity chapters led to founding and shared workspace at Bienville House Center for Peace and Justice. Common Ground developed an educational program for abused residents and ex-residents from the city's domestic violence shelter. Providing sanctuary for Central American refugees led to successful national organizing in opposition to detention of those refugees in remote Oakdale, Louisiana. Eight journals and five newsletters created with and by grassroots women at their request were printed in-house in Lousiana and Indiana. In Georgia, Common Ground organized biannual leadership retreats with women from a diversity of cultures and faiths. The organization was dissolved in 2006

Held at: Swarthmore College Peace Collection [Contact Us]