Simple, Brave, & Outlandish: what challenge can your Meeting meet?
Simple, Brave, & Outlandish: what challenge can your Meeting meet?
In Simple, Brave, & Outlandish, the 2025 Walton Lecture, Daquanna Harrison challenges us to meet the moment with bold action, and to reach down deep to be empowered by our love for others and for God.
Sharing stories from Black history and the experiences those who have been harmed constantly throughout our history, Daquanna warns that it is time to prepare for what’s coming, to be ready to do more. Who among us is ready to be a Harriet Tubman? Love calls us to protect and stand up for those who are being harmed. How deep is your love? For other people? For the Divine?
Drawing on the experiences of actions her own Meeting (Adelphi) has taken, and from her years of organizing experience, Daquanna guides us through considering actions that may seem ‘outlandish’ at first, but as it takes shape and is put into practice, will become a brave, or even a simple thing to do.
In the middle of this lecture, there is a pause when Friends met in break out rooms for their Meetings to brainstorm what actions they could take.
The song at the beginning of the lecture is “Stand Up,” performed by Cynthia Erivo, from the film Harriet.
Daquanna Harrison is a social justice leader creating protest movements, working with those most affected and the most likely to make change. She is an accomplished educator, and the owner of Elevation Educational Consulting Group, which provides trainings and leadership development to adult educators, government entities, and non-profits, and researches topics such as workforce development, DEI, and adult learning.
Within Quaker spaces, she was recently interviewed on QuakerSpeak, and has been the plenary speaker for the Friends General Conference and Baltimore Yearly Meeting. She presents multiple workshops at Quaker annual sessions, monthly meetings, and gatherings, including, “How will Quakers change the world, again?”, “Quakers and Mini-reparations” and others that challenge present day Quakers to lean into lessons of radical change and equity that our Quaker Ancestors left us, while listening deeply to how we can each do better than they did.
Daquanna is a member of Adelphi Friends Meeting in Maryland.
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