Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always
Speaker 1: for tuning in. I kind of want to do a
Speaker 1: lost voice like previously Ridiculous History. Wait a minute, was
Speaker 1: that you doing the lost voice, Bend oh Man. That's
Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram And this is part two
Speaker 1: of our series on the heroic innovative and I would
Speaker 1: say extraordinary abolitionist Benjamin Lay. Yeah. When we last left
Speaker 1: our hero Um, he was starting off in his kind
Speaker 1: of radical protest career um doing things like, uh, beating
Speaker 1: people with tobacco pipes around the ankles I imagine um,
Speaker 1: getting thrown out into the mud, uh and then just
Speaker 1: laying there so people had to step over his muddied
Speaker 1: body and he would not be ignored what he been.
Speaker 1: He was pushing and preaching for the rights of enslaved
Speaker 1: people at a time where that was absolutely not a
Speaker 1: popular thing to do, and it got him blacklisted within
Speaker 1: his own community of the Quakers. And as we're going
Speaker 1: to see, that really escalated and we have multiple stories
Speaker 1: of his protest. One Sunday, people living in a town
Speaker 1: near Philadelphia, Abington, Pennsylvania, were met with a bizarre site
Speaker 1: outside of their morning Quaker gathering. The snow was thick
Speaker 1: on the ground, and Benjamin Lay, who was a member
Speaker 1: of that congregation, was there in the snow, not very
Speaker 1: well dressed. Yeah, this is a weird went to man.
Speaker 1: This guy was very creative in this protests. You have
Speaker 1: to give him that for sure, theatricality to it. He
Speaker 1: was in something of like an ass less chaps kind
Speaker 1: of situation, like a share or a prince might wear,
Speaker 1: only you know, it was more like a one legged
Speaker 1: trouser kind of thing. And he had a leg and
Speaker 1: a foot exposed and uh as the as the congregants
Speaker 1: um entered into into their place of worship, they would say, hey, Bud,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna freeze the death out here. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get real sick. Better cover that leg. And he
Speaker 1: would turn to them and say, ah, you pretend compassion
Speaker 1: for me, but you do not feel for the poor
Speaker 1: slaves in your fields who go all winter half clad.
Speaker 1: So he's calling these people out and not letting them
Speaker 1: be comfortable in there. You know, again, I've I've used
Speaker 1: the word too often in this episode, but their rank hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: He also protested slave owners, giving them no peace. As
Speaker 1: soon as somebody in the Quaker community who owned slaves
Speaker 1: stood up to talk at the meeting at the at
Speaker 1: the religious gathering, he would jump to his feet and
Speaker 1: he would cry out, you know, there's another slave master.
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing because not comfortable with the language. Now he's
Speaker 1: using some strong language there, but it's I think it's
Speaker 1: more meant to just be I think it was just
Speaker 1: more of a term that was generally you know, used
Speaker 1: in those days, for sure. But he is calling them
Speaker 1: out and saying, there you are, I see you. You
Speaker 1: don't get to talk because you have no compassion for
Speaker 1: for your fellow man. It all comes back to that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he he kept getting oustad. He was not
Speaker 1: a popular figure after, you know, causing all this ruckets
Speaker 1: at these meetings, and the elders, the church elders and
Speaker 1: the ministers as well, um started to get pretty peeved.
Speaker 1: I mean actually appointed like a like a cop a
Speaker 1: constable to a constable constable constable area, Yeah, to keep
Speaker 1: an eye out for him. I mean he you know,
Speaker 1: he was really making a making a splash. They had
Speaker 1: to hire a position just to keep him out of
Speaker 1: the meeting and they toss him out into the cold
Speaker 1: night or afternoon or morning, whatever it may have been.
Speaker 1: Whatever he showed up, who am I to say? Um?
Speaker 1: And yeah he was. They would bar the door and
Speaker 1: he was not allowed to return. And one time when
Speaker 1: he was thrown out of a meeting house and it
Speaker 1: was raining, he went right back to the door of
Speaker 1: the meeting house and laid down in the mud, so
Speaker 1: everybody who left the meeting had to step over his
Speaker 1: body while he stared at them. He's like something of
Speaker 1: like a combination performance artists and and uh and abolitionist protester.
Speaker 1: I really liked this guy his performance art for a
Speaker 1: good cause as opposed to just like naval gazing kind
Speaker 1: of Okay, Sorry, there's any performance art fans out there,
Speaker 1: I just don't get it. I'm a fan of it.
Speaker 1: I like the weird stuff, you know, also a fan
Speaker 1: of improv everywhere he would have I think he would
Speaker 1: have enjoyed that too. More of a flash mob guy myself.
Speaker 1: Get I'm kidding. I do like Matthew Barney. That's performance
Speaker 1: art some of it kind of right, what does he
Speaker 1: do again? And I did the whole cream Masters cycle
Speaker 1: where he kind of like dressed up and that's a weird.
Speaker 1: Like you know, we'd kind of like guy in a
Speaker 1: pink kilt and climbed all over the Googgenheim. But it's
Speaker 1: it's made. It's done for film. I guess it's the
Speaker 1: only performance already if it's done, like I r L
Speaker 1: like with real people. Yeah, Okay, he's a performance artist.
Speaker 1: I like Matthew Barney. Something really weird that I got
Speaker 1: into that has nothing to do with this episode. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna show this to you please. Okay. This is
Speaker 1: a kind of dancing called bouteau or bu t o
Speaker 1: h that is uh creepy and from Japan. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to describe it as best I can with
Speaker 1: the listeners. Okay, there's a gentleman looks that he like
Speaker 1: he has some sort of wedgy situation going on. He's
Speaker 1: wearing a cod piece. Uh, he's painted gray. He's hairless
Speaker 1: and bald and staggering around. Oh oh, he's kind of
Speaker 1: creatively falling. I love this. It looks like a tool video,
Speaker 1: um really does. Oh now he's rolling down the stairs.
Speaker 1: The underwear he's appears to be something of a thong.
Speaker 1: I was correct about the wedge, none of them seeing
Speaker 1: the back and now he's he's he's getting up slowly
Speaker 1: and then falling down again like an angry, awkward, evil baby.
Speaker 1: I dig this, ben Yeah, Okay, I take back everything
Speaker 1: I said about not liking performance. Well, maybe maybe we
Speaker 1: just have to find the right performance. This stuff is creepy,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a whole thing with it. Maybe, uh huh,
Speaker 1: maybe suitable for a different show. But yes, Benjamin, a
Speaker 1: performance are alright really quickly? Is there a history to
Speaker 1: this or is this like a new thing? There's a history.
Speaker 1: We gotta do a show about this. Okay, let's do
Speaker 1: a show about performance art throughout history. That feels like
Speaker 1: it could be its own podcast. Maybe good, let's give
Speaker 1: it a shot. Let's give it this bike some like
Speaker 1: really pivotal moment, and maybe we'll like spin it off.
Speaker 1: We'll spin off and do a whole another show. Yeah, Casey,
Speaker 1: are you cool with that? You've got plenty of time right,
Speaker 1: all the time in the world. Oh man, thanks, will
Speaker 1: you help us do this performance art show? Yeah? I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of Matthew Barney as well, so that's a
Speaker 1: good starting point. Good stuff. Yeah, when one last thing, casey,
Speaker 1: if you've got time while we're while we're rolling, if
Speaker 1: you to get kind of creeped out, check out this
Speaker 1: Bouteau dancing while we're recording. B U t O H cool.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it all right. What do you hear?
Speaker 1: What you think about? At the end there there will
Speaker 1: not be a quiz because I don't know enough about it,
Speaker 1: but performance art. Back to Benjamin Leigh. He uh, he
Speaker 1: keeps going right, man, he has his shining moment coming
Speaker 1: up in seventeen thirty eight. Oh dude, he keeps doubling
Speaker 1: down something referred to as the berry Juice Massacre of
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty eight. I love that it's so visual. Uh.
Speaker 1: September seventeen thirty eight, to be precise, it was six
Speaker 1: years after um he had come to America for the
Speaker 1: first time. He just waltzed his way into one of
Speaker 1: these Quaker meetings in New Jersey in a town called Burlington,
Speaker 1: which was a big meeting. It was one of the
Speaker 1: biggest events of the year, which is kind of weird
Speaker 1: because it was it was the Philadelphia yearly Meeting of Quakers,
Speaker 1: but it was in New Jersey for some reason. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of stuff happens in New Jersey's true,
Speaker 1: and it stays in New Jersey hopefully. Um. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: wore a big coat with like a military kind of
Speaker 1: style decor um, and he had a sword, and underneath
Speaker 1: it he had a book with a secret compartment in
Speaker 1: which he had uh, an animal bladder that was filled
Speaker 1: with with the red juice of something called a poke berry.
Speaker 1: You ever had a pokeberry, ben I don't believe. Is
Speaker 1: it like a razzleberry, pomegranate perhaps? Uh? You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what a pokeberry is, grapish, raspberry ish? If
Speaker 1: you've had a pokeberry right in, let us know, actually
Speaker 1: send us some recipes to well. The most important thing
Speaker 1: for our purposes and Benjamin Lay's purposes, is that it
Speaker 1: produced a bright, uh staining juice that he had stored
Speaker 1: secreted away inside this animal bladder, hidden in this cut
Speaker 1: out like sort of like you think of, you know,
Speaker 1: prison contraband being hidden inside like a holidaut bible or
Speaker 1: something like that. Right, yeah, exactly. I guess he wasn't
Speaker 1: banned from this particular meeting yet, that he hadn't gotten
Speaker 1: to Burlington yet, because he would have been you know,
Speaker 1: pretty noticeable people would have recognized him despite being disguised
Speaker 1: as a soldier and silly at least, Yeah, because of
Speaker 1: his unique posture too. So the way the Quaker meetings
Speaker 1: work is that there's no formal minister church ceremony. People
Speaker 1: speak as the spirit moves them, and so Lay waits
Speaker 1: his turn to speak. And when he finally rises to
Speaker 1: address this gathering of influential moving and shaking Quakers shaking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that works out. He freaks them out because he announces.
Speaker 1: He yells at the crowd. He said, God Almighty respects
Speaker 1: all people, equally, rich, poor men, women, white, black alike.
Speaker 1: Slave Keeping is the greatest sin in the world. How
Speaker 1: can you profess the Golden rule? How can people who
Speaker 1: say treat others the way you wish to be treated?
Speaker 1: How can you, of all people, keep slaves? He then
Speaker 1: throws off his coat. This is like a Quentin Tarantino nude.
Speaker 1: He's got a military guard. Yeah, that's right. Uh, And
Speaker 1: he does have he's got this sword with him, and
Speaker 1: he's got this book. And then people are starting to
Speaker 1: think something might be weird. And he has this he
Speaker 1: has this, uh, he has this speech. Right. Uh, could
Speaker 1: you could you give us a reading of at least
Speaker 1: that line or that titular moment. Oh boy, whatever, this
Speaker 1: is like a yeah, you're right, this is like a
Speaker 1: Tarantino asked, like, you know, bust a cap kind of moment.
Speaker 1: Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who
Speaker 1: enslave their fellow creatures. And with that he uh raised
Speaker 1: the book aloft and stabbed it, ran it through with
Speaker 1: his sword, um and the the oozy pokeberry fluids dripped
Speaker 1: down his arm. People thought that he had stabbed himself.
Speaker 1: I assume, I guess, so yeah. And then he threw
Speaker 1: this poke berry blood on the slave keepers, and he said,
Speaker 1: all Quakers who failed to heed the prophets call will
Speaker 1: expect physical, moral, and spiritual death. People go bananas, man,
Speaker 1: this is not what they were This is not what
Speaker 1: they signed up for, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: now they don't know if the guys actually bleeding, they're
Speaker 1: covered in blood. This is very much you know, there's
Speaker 1: a protest. It's a little theatrical. It works, though it's
Speaker 1: no secret all that. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: I feel like it's very apparent to you in case
Speaker 1: you both that a lot of times when I come
Speaker 1: into recording episode. I'm hungry and I always want to
Speaker 1: just sort of relate whatever we're talking about to food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. I always you always look a little peaking,
Speaker 1: you know, like I feel like you're you're picturing me
Speaker 1: as though I were a delicious roasted chicken, which, to
Speaker 1: be fair, is is the shape that I resemble. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's that's uh, that's unfair, but a delicious idea. And
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Speaker 1: com slash ridiculous nine. After he's done this, after he
Speaker 1: yells at the crowd and has that uh that that
Speaker 1: climactic moment, he just sort of shuts down and he
Speaker 1: stands there. He doesn't say anything, goes. People surround him
Speaker 1: and they haul him off from the building. He doesn't resist.
Speaker 1: He feels like what's done is done. He did what
Speaker 1: he came to do, and his life. Uh that's the thing.
Speaker 1: You know, if this were a biopic or if this
Speaker 1: were a fictionalized tale based on true events, we could
Speaker 1: say that that climactic moment led to happily ever after.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately we're not quite there yet, because during this
Speaker 1: age of his protest, and before his titular protests, and
Speaker 1: after he encountered a lot of hardship in his life, right,
Speaker 1: there was not a real happily ever after moment, you know,
Speaker 1: and it may well have spurred him on to you know,
Speaker 1: really double down on these protests and try to get
Speaker 1: his plant across. His beloved wife, Sarah passed away in
Speaker 1: five and the causes were unknown, and they had been
Speaker 1: together for seventeen years at that point, and you know,
Speaker 1: you could argue that that this gave him time, uh
Speaker 1: to really reflect and to really consider you know, the
Speaker 1: legacy um that he wanted to leave behind would have
Speaker 1: also been a carrying on of his wife's wishes, you know,
Speaker 1: because they were kind of a team on this stuff.
Speaker 1: And uh, he spent several years working on a manuscript
Speaker 1: of what would become the treatise called All Slave Keepers
Speaker 1: That Keep the Innocent in Bondage apost dates. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's a little bit strange, like in terms of structure,
Speaker 1: in terms of the type, is hard to pegs as
Speaker 1: what type of book it is exactly because it's some
Speaker 1: combinations of like almost like biblical ranting, kind of polemic prophecies,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, It had curated pieces by other writers.
Speaker 1: It had some kind of firsthand accounts of what he
Speaker 1: witnessed in Barbados, though done with kind of almost a
Speaker 1: stylized dreamlike quality, I guess you could say. And then
Speaker 1: a part of it was also his autobiography, but really
Speaker 1: forward thinking even in literature, like the way you know,
Speaker 1: he would have been very out there to to to
Speaker 1: stray away from a traditional a memoir or like treatise
Speaker 1: in that way, right, Yeah, fragmentary differences in format internally
Speaker 1: and so on. He knew that the Quakers would never
Speaker 1: approve of this book, the Board of Overseers rather, and
Speaker 1: he went directly to his friends. Uh, you know him,
Speaker 1: you love him, if you'll listen to ridiculous history. The
Speaker 1: Benjamin bond runs deep because he went to Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: who at the time was um, I don't know, not
Speaker 1: ignoring the resurrection men in his abode in England. He
Speaker 1: was in the US, and he said, yeah, sure, I'll
Speaker 1: publish this. This becomes one of the founding key text
Speaker 1: of the antislavery movement in the Atlantic, and it's seen
Speaker 1: as an important groundbreaking step in abolitionist thought. It is
Speaker 1: the most militant stand against slavery published up to that point.
Speaker 1: Because I don't want to, like, you know, overstate the obvious,
Speaker 1: but I think it can't be overstated really how important
Speaker 1: printed word was in like changing hearts and minds. Like
Speaker 1: you can throw you know, sticky fake blood on people
Speaker 1: all day long and you're probably ultimately just gonna piss
Speaker 1: them off. But when you really start laying your ideas
Speaker 1: out in a way that lots of people can understand
Speaker 1: and get their hands on, that's when ideas really start
Speaker 1: to spread. So he he really did put his money
Speaker 1: where his mouth was and take it to the next level, uh,
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, getting this idea out there.
Speaker 1: And he was absolutely revolutionary in that way because no
Speaker 1: one else was kind of thinking quite like he was,
Speaker 1: or at the very least not going public correct opinions.
Speaker 1: So what's fascinating about this is that he comes along.
Speaker 1: He's a magnificent individual who comes along at the perfect
Speaker 1: time because there's a generational struggle between Quakers over the
Speaker 1: specific issue of owning slaves and then still saying you
Speaker 1: obey the dictates or the teachings of the Quaker belief system.
Speaker 1: So by the seven teen thirties, Quaker attitudes toward what
Speaker 1: has been called at times the peculiar institution towards the
Speaker 1: owning of human beings has begun to change, and lay
Speaker 1: says repeatedly he's not saying abolish the Quaker religion or anything.
Speaker 1: He's fighting against these hypocrites. And his most determined enemies
Speaker 1: are elders of the organization who are also very wealthy,
Speaker 1: by the way, and others are ministers. He had fighting
Speaker 1: words for them, such as time for such old, rusty
Speaker 1: candlesticks to be moved out of their place. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: old people being stuck in their ways and not wanting
Speaker 1: to move into the future. Rights. It's a crazy talk.
Speaker 1: It was a weird time, and so it's a weird
Speaker 1: time now, it really is. But yeah, I mean, just
Speaker 1: like they didn't like it when he was, you know,
Speaker 1: disrupting their meetings. They didn't like it when he took
Speaker 1: that talk to the streets and to the people. They
Speaker 1: really didn't like it because they considered him just a
Speaker 1: real uh troublemaker and uh did not like what he
Speaker 1: was putting down with the help of of our boy
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin. So they disowned him. They essentially, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's not called that in Quicker religion, but
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, excommunicated him from his faith,
Speaker 1: which he which he loved. And you know, again, if
Speaker 1: you read more about Quakerism, all of these things make sense,
Speaker 1: like in terms of that they would be anti slavery.
Speaker 1: So it's just a lot of the tenants and the
Speaker 1: belief systems within Quakerism. It's all about being interconnected and
Speaker 1: being as one within the universe and you know, loving
Speaker 1: your your neighbor as yourself, like you said, been the
Speaker 1: golden rule. That to me is always the biggest sticking
Speaker 1: point when you're like, how can you say that, that
Speaker 1: you believe that and still hate people? You know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's that's the thing. He was right the whole time.
Speaker 1: But people didn't want to hear the unpleasant truth. Despite
Speaker 1: being disowned, he would still go to worship services and
Speaker 1: argue against the evils of slavery. But he became increasingly
Speaker 1: hermited away, and he started to live of a life
Speaker 1: that might sound a little bit hippie to some of
Speaker 1: us and a little bit idyllic to others. He built
Speaker 1: his own home in Abington, that town we mentioned near Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: near us water Spring. He made a cottage in a cave.
Speaker 1: He lied the entrance with stone. He had a library
Speaker 1: inside his his cave home. He planted apple, peach, and
Speaker 1: walnut orchards. He tended a b colony. He grew, you know,
Speaker 1: he had a garden with potatoes, squash, radishes, melons. He
Speaker 1: almost became a vegan, except for the honey. I think
Speaker 1: that's even to this day a contentious subject within veganism.
Speaker 1: Do I remember? Am I wrong? Is it is exclusively
Speaker 1: no no go for vegans? Well, uh, none of the
Speaker 1: three of us are vegans. But we've done I've heard
Speaker 1: it as I've heard it generate great debate too, because
Speaker 1: they're saying, well, are you still vegan if you eat
Speaker 1: any animal product under any circumstances, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But then again, I think there's some B twelve supplements
Speaker 1: that some people have to take when they are practicing veganism,
Speaker 1: and those supplements may contain insect parts. That's a good yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question, um, But it's true. So essentially,
Speaker 1: he was let's just say he was a vegan intens
Speaker 1: and purposes, uh, two hundred years before anyone even thought
Speaker 1: of that as being a thing, let alone like a
Speaker 1: fashionable thing. He says that he sees the presence of
Speaker 1: God and all living things, so he can't eat flesh
Speaker 1: because animals are God's creatures just as he is. He
Speaker 1: makes his own clothes to avoid the exploitation of the
Speaker 1: labor of others, and he boycott's everything produced by slave labor.
Speaker 1: He lives pretty well until about seventeen fifty seven. He's
Speaker 1: elderly at this point, he's seventy five, right, Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: sort of in his twilight years. He's just you know,
Speaker 1: spends his days tending his garden and making his own
Speaker 1: fabric and just kind of keeping himself busy. But then
Speaker 1: one day a visitor comes in knocking on his his
Speaker 1: little cave door. Yes, a group of Quaker reformers had
Speaker 1: recently undertaken a purification campaign. They called for a return
Speaker 1: to simpler ways of living, stricter discipline in the church,
Speaker 1: and a gradual end to slavery. All of this meant
Speaker 1: to appease God, they imagined, was quite angry. Ley was
Speaker 1: told that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, after a lot of
Speaker 1: back and forth in Hemming and Hoying, had started a
Speaker 1: process to discipline and eventually disown Quakers who traded slaves. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: slaveholding itself was still going to be around for another
Speaker 1: eighteen years in the community. But this was the first big, substantive,
Speaker 1: concrete step toward abolition. And how did Late take the news.
Speaker 1: It's a little hard to say. Initially, the reports um
Speaker 1: that we've read in the Smithsonian magazine article about the
Speaker 1: Quaker comment indicate that he kind of hush fell over him, um,
Speaker 1: and he took some time to really think about it,
Speaker 1: because he was obviously a really thoughtful, kind reflective individual.
Speaker 1: And he's also like, you know, getting up there in
Speaker 1: years at this point. And then um, he gets up.
Speaker 1: He was sitting in a chair at the time, and
Speaker 1: uh assumes this pose of of devotional reverence, according to
Speaker 1: this piece, and then speaks and says thanksgiving and praise
Speaker 1: be rendered unto the Lord God. I can now die
Speaker 1: in peace. And then he instantly died. I'm kidding, that's
Speaker 1: not true. Well, I mean, he definitely took a turn
Speaker 1: for the worst. Right. This is such a weird moment
Speaker 1: to the way it's written, because it sounds like he
Speaker 1: says thanksgiving him praise be rendered unto the Lord God,
Speaker 1: and then he just stand there for a while, and
Speaker 1: then he says, I can now die in peace. We
Speaker 1: don't know today exactly what led to his demise, but
Speaker 1: we know he asked to be taken to the home
Speaker 1: of his old friend Joshua Morris and Abington as his
Speaker 1: health deteriorated, and he passed away there on February three,
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty nine, at the age of seventy seven. History
Speaker 1: has vindicated Benjamin Lay. Like most Quakers in his day
Speaker 1: and age, he opposed the idea of carrying distinctions of
Speaker 1: class into the afterlife. So he's buried in an unmarked
Speaker 1: grave near his wife in the Quaker burial ground in
Speaker 1: the town of Abington. And I don't know then you
Speaker 1: made the point of history, he kind of vindicated him.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, you know, all it took to
Speaker 1: vindicate him was just realizing how on the right side
Speaker 1: of history he was from the start. And I think
Speaker 1: for him it was meaningful that his people kind vindicated him.
Speaker 1: But like he never faltered and never really questioned his mission. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think that's pretty pretty inspiring. Um, And especially
Speaker 1: in this day and age where it seems like people
Speaker 1: are willing to flip and abandon their morals just you know,
Speaker 1: on the drop of a hat. Um. So it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty cool figure. And uh, not to mention um this
Speaker 1: idea that he's kind of a bit of a footnote
Speaker 1: in the history of abolitionism until pretty recently. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was re embraced finally by the Quakers after almost three
Speaker 1: hundred years had passed. The four groups linked to the
Speaker 1: original people who disowned events communicated him from the Society
Speaker 1: of Friends, the Abington Monthly Meeting, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
Speaker 1: the North London Monthly Meeting, and the Friends of the
Speaker 1: Southern East Anglia Meeting released a joint statement recognizing the
Speaker 1: integrity and courage of a man who called slaveholders, including Quakers,
Speaker 1: to account who protested the domination of slavery, upheld the
Speaker 1: equality of the sexes, and lived his life with integrity
Speaker 1: according to his Quaker beliefs. In this statement, go to
Speaker 1: the end and says, we hold that Benjamin Lay was
Speaker 1: a friend of the truth. We are in unity with
Speaker 1: the spirit of Benjamin Lay as apologies go where his
Speaker 1: acknowledgements go. That's pretty heavy. It's a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, I think, I think, I think
Speaker 1: it did did the job. And you know, and again
Speaker 1: even the historical record in terms of his influence on abolition,
Speaker 1: we're starting to see him kind of you know emerge, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, at least with people that follow history um
Speaker 1: as more you know, noted figure. His biographer, Benjamin Rush,
Speaker 1: who was an abolitionist himself and actually one of the
Speaker 1: signers of the Declaration of Independence, was his first biographer,
Speaker 1: by the way, referred to him as a Christian philosopher
Speaker 1: and said that at least in Pennsylvania at the time,
Speaker 1: Leigh was a household name. But as time went on
Speaker 1: he started to appear less and less in these histories,
Speaker 1: in these discussions. Uh. And it was kind of um
Speaker 1: treated as sort of a kuk you know, and I
Speaker 1: could see how that could be, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: shoehorned to the narrative considering some of the stunts that
Speaker 1: he pulled. Uh. And but but yeah, it started to
Speaker 1: kind of pick up steam or at least um in
Speaker 1: the record, and he was looked at as as having
Speaker 1: suffered some sort of head injury. Um. And this image
Speaker 1: of him as sort of a unreliable figure and sort
Speaker 1: of more of a crank um really kind of held up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true, and perhaps we end the story on
Speaker 1: this note. According to Benjamin Rush, you know, Lay was
Speaker 1: known to everyone in Pennsylvania. His portrait was in a
Speaker 1: lot of homes throughout Philadelphia, and he burned incredibly bright.
Speaker 1: And he shows us that one person can make a difference.
Speaker 1: And despite the fact that he has been excluded from
Speaker 1: so many abolitionist narratives, as they say in this Atlas
Speaker 1: Obscure Art goal that we've referenced earlier, that we can
Speaker 1: finally give the title of as as Natasha Frost says
Speaker 1: inner article, the eighteenth century Quaker dwarf who challenge slavery,
Speaker 1: meat eating, and racism. He refuses to be extinguished from history. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I maybe uh, mistakenly started to set it up
Speaker 1: as though he really did get his due historically, and
Speaker 1: I think again, within people that really are familiar and
Speaker 1: want to do the work, Uh, you can find out
Speaker 1: about this guy. There are some resources you know about him,
Speaker 1: but he still largely isn't seen as like a central figure.
Speaker 1: Um although as we know through his book and disseminating
Speaker 1: his ideas really did seem to turn the tide at
Speaker 1: least within the Quaker community, by the way, which holds
Speaker 1: um these tenants as the most important facets of their faith.
Speaker 1: And I think he is a steadfast example of all
Speaker 1: of these simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and sustainability. Agreed.
Speaker 1: So this concludes our episode, but not our show. No question,
Speaker 1: no quester, no quister. That's what I say to myself.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of like saying no wammy's
Speaker 1: before what it's a whammy? I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: was that bankrupts is that when you go bankrupt and
Speaker 1: Wheel of Fortune? It's it's from a game show. It's
Speaker 1: Wheel of Fortune. They say, no wammy's on Wheel of Fortune?
Speaker 1: Do they must be bankrupt? I think it's from a
Speaker 1: thing called press your Luck. You're right, no press your luck. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like we just I feel like
Speaker 1: the freeze no Wammy's has become has grown beyond press
Speaker 1: your luck. I think you're right. Then, well, no Wammy's,
Speaker 1: no quisters. Uh So before we go, Casey he groom,
Speaker 1: want to check in with you real quick. Did you
Speaker 1: did you get a chance to look at some of
Speaker 1: that bizarre dancing? Yeah? My my YouTube recommendations will never
Speaker 1: be the same again. But it's great stuff. I was
Speaker 1: looking at. Yeah, I was looking at a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: and it started to remind me of the seri these
Speaker 1: of films. I'm familiar with this Taiwanese filmmaker Siming Leong
Speaker 1: who made a film called a Journey to the West
Speaker 1: where a monk walks as slowly as possible through crowded
Speaker 1: public spaces. And I googled that along with Bhuto and
Speaker 1: found a text saying that one influenced the other. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: just the idea of walking very, very slowly, almost so
Speaker 1: that you know, to the casual observer you appear still,
Speaker 1: and then if you look long enough you see that
Speaker 1: there is movement happening. But yeah, it looks like some
Speaker 1: really interesting stuff that's so weird. I'm glad you guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed it and don't think it's incredibly creepy. I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of the incredibly creepy and weird. Likewise likewise, Uh
Speaker 1: so this concludes our episode, but not our show. No,
Speaker 1: you know, we like to keep the conversation going after
Speaker 1: the audio has stopped rolling. Where can people find us? Oh,
Speaker 1: they can find us in the usual spots on the
Speaker 1: social media's are a Ridiculous history or is there a
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History Show? And I think we're pridiculous? Is it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The website. We have a website called Ridiculous History Show
Speaker 1: where you can also get some weird T shirt. Is
Speaker 1: it a dot com, dot biz, dot gov? It's a
Speaker 1: dot com okay, the old school dot Yeah. You can
Speaker 1: find our Facebook group, Ridiculous Historians on on the Facebook
Speaker 1: where you just have to answer a very simple question,
Speaker 1: which is either naming myself or Ben's uh name, and
Speaker 1: then you are in like Flynn Babies and uh we
Speaker 1: precipated all kinds of conversations and memory and fun historical
Speaker 1: musings in that space pretty regularly. And it's it's a
Speaker 1: good group of folks, So come check out ridiculous Historians
Speaker 1: on Facebook. If you don't want to do any of that,
Speaker 1: and you want to just hit me and Ben up individually,
Speaker 1: because we are our own people, you can do so.
Speaker 1: I am on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown exclusively.
Speaker 1: I don't really do the Twitter and more of a
Speaker 1: more of a lurker. I got hypnotized by this weird
Speaker 1: performance are But you can still find me online on
Speaker 1: Twitter where I'm Ben Bulling h s W. Or you
Speaker 1: can find me getting into various words of shenanigans on Instagram,
Speaker 1: where I am going by very creative handle at Ben Bowling.
Speaker 1: At least she locked it down, buddy. Is there is
Speaker 1: there a Noel Brown already? No? I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: I just thought you like the name that you got.
Speaker 1: I do like the name. Yeah, I went for I
Speaker 1: went for that immediately. Big thanks to super producer Casey
Speaker 1: Pegram Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Christopher hasciotis here
Speaker 1: in spirit. Jonathan's Strickland a k a. The Quister not
Speaker 1: here in spirit. He's more of a demonic cloud that
Speaker 1: sort of lurks over the proceedings, and big big thanks
Speaker 1: of course, to Gabe Louisier, to Benjamin Ley, to Eve's
Speaker 1: Jeff Coache and to Matthew Now, the guy who just
Speaker 1: went on ridiculous historians and amended the score. I believe
Speaker 1: that we are ten to eight now in favor of Twister. Still,
Speaker 1: we'll see you next time. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,