C. Wess Daniels (@gatheringinlight.com)

The Underground Railroad Tree at Guilford College This past week, I was asked to give a few remarks for a fundraiser at New Garden Friends Meeting for the organization, Every Campus a Refuge. If you don't know about "ECAR" you need to check it out. It was started at Guilford College by faculty member, Diya Abdo in the fall of 2015 (NPR). > In September 2015, Pope Francis called on every European parish to host one refugee family. This simple yet powerful appeal resonated deeply with Dr. Abdo, sparking a revolutionary idea: Why couldn’t colleges and universities, with their abundant resources and supportive communities, serve as sanctuaries for refugees? About ECAR - Link The first chapter was at Guilford College and our first family moved in not that long after. Here is a very well-done, short documentary about that first family. ECAR has grown to more than 2 dozen campuses and has supported many refuge families. I'm really proud of Guilford's involvement in this program and inspired by the work that Diya Abdo and her team has accomplished over the last 10 years to support vulnerable families. My invitation was to speak of the local Quaker history with the Underground Railroad and our famous Witness tree that we visit on tours we give. The overlapping narratives of "sanctuary" in history of the Underground Railroad and present work of ECAR is important link for all involved. Below are my remarks. * * * This week my staff and I gave 10 underground railroad tours. Each tour consisted of 30-50 students from local schools and churches. Just last year, we took more than 1000 people back into the Guilford woods to share stories of the underground railroad. Many of our visitors are students from local schools, Guilford college, but we also have community leaders, religious folks, Quakers, out of state visitors, and alumni all joining to learn more. For those of you who haven't been on a tour, we always end at what we call **the witness tree.** The witness tree is a beautiful old Tulip tree that dates back well before the 1800s. We believe that it somewhere between 250-300 years old. This Tulip not only towers over the rest of the trees on the hillside where it stands, but its girth takes at least 12 middle schoolers to wrap around. We know because we've recently tested! We call it our Witness Tree for two main reasons. This was a tree that stood watch during the active years of the Underground Railroad in the New Garden Woods. The tree was there when an enslaved women named Ede fled David Caldwell's plantation (found where the botanical garden now stands) and hid there with her infant child until her child got sick and Ede decided to seek help from the Coffin family. It stood watch in the woods alongside the oaks and shagbark in 1817 when the first recorded journey of the Underground Railroad out of New Garden Woods took place as Levi Coffin and Freed Blackman, John Dimrey, traveled north to ensure John would not be re-enslaved by men who believe they had an inherited right to his body and intellect. The Tulip's canopy stood proud while an enslaved man—known only as Hamilton's Sol—worked for the freedom of those like him who were bound. Sol collaborated with Levi and Vestal Coffin to find people on the plantations most in need of escaping the bonds of enslavement. Our tree was a Witness to the more than 3000 freedom seekers who found safe passageway on that invisible train that ran through these parts: often at night, often in the cold, always with the support of others who believed another world was possible. A few years ago, we had a remarkable visitor to the campus: Robin Wall Kimmerer, the Potawatomi botanist, author, and environmental activist, best known for her book _Braiding Sweetgrass_ joined us on a walk through the Guilford woods to visit the Witness tree. Her wisdom that day left a deep impression on us. But there was one thing she said that changed everything about the way I understand the story of the underground railroad. Next to the platform where our guests sit to listen to stories and observe the Tulip at a distance that protects the roots of the tree from too much human impact, there is a sign that reads "Tulip Poplar dates back before 1800." A harmless enough sign at first, but Robin Wall Kimmerer pointed out to us that "poplar" names the tree as an object, the kind of lumber that the tree is to become. The name Poplar undoes the name Tulip by marking the tree, not as a subject, as she is when we talk about her as the Witness to the work of freedom and justice, but as an object meant to be cut down and turned into something "useful" for human consumption. But to remove poplar and refer to this Tulip tree as a Witness reminds us of the tree's subjectivity, agency, life and community exists outside of human maintenance or control. The tree has its own reciprocity with all the living things around it. This hit me like a ton of bricks: The tree as subject, like all the other living things that Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about, means that where I once saw the Underground Railroad as a powerful multiracial coalition, I now see that the circle of liberation expanded to include more participants, more allies: members of the more-than-human world. When we broaden the circle like this we are not just talking the power of a multiracial coalition but a multi-species coalition of justice and freedom. > "The trees, all act as one because the fungi have connected them. Through unity, survival. All flourishing is mutual. Soil, fungus, tree, squirrel, boy - all are the beneficiaries of reciprocity (P. 20)." Wall Kimmerer And of course this is always the kind of pattern reflected in the most successful movements of love and justice in our world. These are the ones that do not restrict circles or narrowly define who is in and who is out, as though justice mainly comes from being sure one is right rather than one is free. This pattern of extending the circle, looking for all the helpers everywhere, having the imagination possible to see that all of God's creation is living and bends towards justice and freedom is an imagination we desperately need more of in our world. Óscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was assassinated while serving communion to the poorest in his community once wrote: > I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God, who loves us and who wants to save us. Quaker Abolitionist John Woolman put it even more simply when he said, > "Let Love be the first motion." This is the pattern I see in the very origin story and ongoing work of Every Campus a Refuge. Expanding the circle of welcome, love, and justice into a coalition that exceeds our most imaginative movements. I mentioned earlier, this is a second reason why we call it the Witness tree: it is a witness to us and of us part as a part of this ongoing story and struggle to create a new world. It witnesses us as part of this ancient tradition of resistance, inviting us into the struggle and the dream what it takes to imagine a beloved community in Greensboro, in North Carolina, in the United States of America, and all around the world. What will the tree witness of us today? https://www.gatheringinlight.com/the-underground-railroad-tree-at-guilford-college/