Newtown Quakers to Hear Joan Countryman, Pioneering Educator, Author and Civil Rights Activist

Newtown Quakers to Hear Joan Countryman, Pioneering Educator and Activist

Joan Countryman, Founding Head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, will speak on “Reflections on Race in 21st Century America: One Quaker View” at the historic Newtown Friends Meetinghouse, 219 Court Street www.newtownfriendsmeeting.org at 9:45 a.m. on First Day (Sunday), October 18. The public is invited to attend.

Joan Countryman is an educator, civil rights activist and Quaker.

While a student in the early 1960s, Countryman said she was ”led to march right from college in the spring of 1962 into poor black communities in the rural South or the urban North, to create and support organizations that promoted voting rights, quality education, public accommodations and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.”

Joan Countryman was Head of Lincoln School, a Friends School for girls in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1993 until her retirement in 2005. From August 2006 until March 2007 she served as a consultant and Founding Head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. She then led the Atlanta Girls’ School in Atlanta, Georgia. Previously, Joan had served as Assistant Head for Academic Planning and Director of Studies at Germantown Friends School where she taught mathematics from 1970 to 1993.

Joan grew up in Philadelphia, entered GFS as a third grader in 1948 and was the school’s first African-American graduate. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, a Master’s from Yale University, and studied at the London School of Economics as a Fulbright Scholar. She has received honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, Moore College of Art, Roger Williams University, and Sarah Lawrence College.

A member of Germantown Monthly Meeting, Joan serves on the School Committee of Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, and the Board of Trustees of Xavier High School for Boys in New York City, and is an honorary trustee of Sarah Lawrence College. She is chair of the board of the Kendal Corporation, chair of Friends Center City, and a member of the board of directors of Friends Fiduciary Corporation.

Joan and her husband, Edward Jakmauh, a retired architect and Principal with Ballinger Associates, live in Philadelphia at Friends Center City Riverfront and are active members of Friends in the City (FitC), an organization of older adults committed to promoting the advantages of city living, giving back to the community, and healthy aging.

Newtown Friends Meeting, co-founded by “Peaceable Kingdom” painter and Quaker minister, Edward Hicks, in 1815, is open to all who wish to attend. Regular First Day Education classes (Sunday School) for all ages begin at 9:45 a.m. and Meeting for Worship begins at 11 a.m. Childcare is provided.

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