Call Number:

DG.243

Repository:

Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Extent:

2.5 linear ft. (2.5 linear feet.)

Preferred Citation:

Cite as: [Identification of item], in the Common Ground Records DG243, Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

Date:

1982-2006 (bulk)

Creator:

Common Ground (Organization : Baton Rouge, La.), Oliver, Hoyt, and Quinlan, Lilith

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

Common Ground was a nonprofit organization and faith community founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1982 by a Quaker couple, Lilith Quinlan and Hoyt Oliver, and a small group of friends from other faith traditions. Common Ground's mission was to break cycles of poverty, racism, and sexism through nonviolence education, organizing, trainings and action. Collaboration with Baton Rouge Friends Meeting, the local Clergy and Laity Concerned and Dignity chapters led to founding and complementary work at Bienville House Center for Peace and Justice. Common Ground's programs included offerings for abused children and providing hospitality for survivors of violence. Offering sanctuary for Central American refugees led to successful national organizing with legal, immigrant rights and religious/Sanctuary organizations in opposing U.S.Justice/INS/Bureau of Prisons' mass detention of refugees in remote Oakdale, Louisiana. National and regional conferences on nonviolence were held. From Indiana, the organization published journals and newsletters with and by grassroots women, including tenant organizers in New Orleans, leaders in India, Indigenous women across North America, and farmworker women in Florida. These journals, printed in-house on donated presses, were used as literacy, organizing, fundraising tools by the groups who requested and raised their voices by producing them. In Georgia, Common Ground sponsored "Women Promoting Wholeness," a group which created and organized biannual women's retreats for grassroots community leaders from diverse spiritual traditions. The organization was dissolved in 2006.

This collection is unprocessed and remains in the order in which it was donated.