I

It is a very simple matter for people who form the dominant group in a society to develop what they call a philosophy of pacifism that makes few if any demands upon their ethical obligation to minority groups with which they may be having contacts. Such a philosophy becomes a mere quietus to be put into the hands of the minority to keep them peaceful and controllable. The difficulty a minority group faces is two-fold. First there is always present the danger which comes from the imitation of the dominant majority. In its position as a minority it may live vicariously the total life of the group that is contributing so largely to its discomfort. (1) The November 1928 issue of The world Tomorrow announced Thurman's forthcoming article as "The Tactics of Minority Groups."

(2) The World Tomorrow, published in New York City, was founded in January 1918 as the New World, adopting its subsequent name in June of that year. In 1921 a new editor, the former minister and longtime Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, helped make it one of the most influential journals on the Christian left. In the late 1920s the magazine played a major role in popularizing the career and ideas of Mohandas K. Gandhi in the United States. Among the journal's contributing editors during this period was Rufus M. Jones, the Quaker mystic and Haverford College professor with whom Thurman would spend several months of study in early 1929. The World Tomorrow took a turn toward Marxism in 1932, and folded in 1934 amid disputes over the compatibility of Christian pacifism with class warfare. It was absorbed into the Christian Century in August 1934.

(3) The Fellowship of Reconciliation was a nondenominational Christian pacifist organization founded in Britain in 1914 by Henry T. Hodgkin, an English Quaker. American branches were established shortly thereafter. It attracted American ministers who objected to America's entry into world War I, such as Norman Thomas and A. J. Muste, a longtime leader of FOR. Beyond pacifism as such, the organization was involved in a number of progressive social reforms, including opposition to segregation. African-Americans became increasingly involved with FOR, and by the late 1920s Thurman was a member of its board.