![]() And we’re trying to make gardens where people come outside to a safe place and they get to know each other.” We’re trying to help kids learn how to read well. We’re inspired by her and ask, ‘WWLD: What Would Lucretia Do?’ “We aren’t going after major public policy change or overthrowing major institutions. “We’re not as brave as Lucretia Mott,” says Jean. Jean and Peter, Quakers who live in Northwest Philadelphia, are carrying on Mott’s legacy and the original purpose of the 300-year-old space: burial ground, playground for children, and gardens. Plain grave markers are common to Quakers, who espouse equality among people.īuried in this national historic site are Swarthmore co-founder Lucretia Mott, a white Quaker who in the 19th century advocated equal rights for women and enslaved Africans Robert Purvis, a Black abolitionist with ties to the Underground Railroad and Edward Parrish, the College’s first president. It takes up a city block, sprinkled with shade trees and rows of tiny, weathered headstones protruding like gray half-moons out of the ground. ![]() The 5-acre fenced graveyard is an oasis of green in the middle of concrete, rowhouses, and newly built low-income and senior housing. Streeter was the African American pastor of the Quaker meetinghouse-turned-Baptist church near the burial ground. Ramos Bautista, of Puerto Rican heritage, has lived in Fairhill for 33 years. “I was touched by their story,” Jean says, “so Peter and I started working with the project.” Beatrice Streeter, as they worked to rid the corner of the biggest open-air cocaine market in the city. The Quakers from HFH were the backup team for community activists from the predominantly Hispanic and Black neighborhood, including Peaches Ramos Bautista and the Rev. ![]() ![]() Her husband, Peter ’69, volunteered with HFH on weekends until 2015 when he retired as a doctor. Today, Jean is executive director of Historic Fair Hill (HFH), a Quaker nonprofit that has maintained the Fair Hill Burial Ground since 1993. ![]()
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