Along with the liberation of slaves came the struggle for equality of women, led by Susan B. Anthony and other Quaker abolitionists. The push for women's right to vote, their right to hold property, their right to seek custody of their own children in divorce was, in the social context of the day, as radical as the elimination of slavery, and nearly as hard to achieve. The Testimony that we should not consider others, in whom God dwells, to be our enemies, has led to pacifism. Peace and justice are inseparable. What was radicalism in the past is too easily taken for granted today.
Radicalism is recognized as such only when it hits closer to home.
In the 1980's Quakers were heavily involved, along with other churches in the Sanctuary Movement. Thousands of Salvadorans and Guatemalans fled their homelands because of war and government oppression. They were routinely denied asylum in the US because our government was supporting the governments that were oppressing them. The churches and Friends meetings involved in the Sanctuary Movement organized to smuggle, transport, shelter, and support Central American refugees in acts of civil disobedience, in what has been called the new underground railroad. Some refugees were taken to Canada where they were more readily granted asylum.