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Chichester Meeting Historical Festival
Brenda Beadenkopf was the primary speaker for a history festival at Chichester Quaker Meeting. She delivered two speeches combined into one presentation. Supported by her husband Will, Brenda entertained and informed the audience with a PowerPoint presentation that delved into the history of President Lincoln's Quaker ancestors who were married and buried at that very Meeting. 
During her presentation, Brenda highlighted the significance of families such as the Flowers, Barnards, and the Morris family, all of whom were Quakers and are now recognized as ancestors of the 16th President of the United States. Brenda drew connections between the Lincoln ancestry and her own Quaker lineage, specifically tracing her roots back to the Founders of Valley Forge, a prominent Quaker settlement located outside of Philadelphia. This settlement played a pivotal role during the Revolutionary 
War, as it provided refuge to General Washington and his troops. Overall, Brenda's presentation was both informative and thought-provoking, shedding light on the intertwined histories of prominent Quaker families and their connections to significant historical figures.
Photos show Brenda ready to speak inside Chichester Meeting, mounting block for horses and carriages with the Meetinghouse in background, and the Meetinghouse front door showing bullet holes from the Revolutionary War.
Juneteenth Speaker
On June 19 Brenda and Will were featured speakers at a Juneteenth celebration in Vandalia for FREEDOM NEXT, a youth group affiliated with the Cass County GOP. To teach the youth more about the Underground Railroad history in the Vandalia area, Brenda gave a short overview of the UGRR in the area. Stating that Cassopolis and Vandalia were the intersection of two major lines on the Underground Railroad, she described how over 1,500 freedom seekers came through here to go on to Canada. It was almost exclusively a Quaker community, dedicated to the cause of freedom, at great risk to the participants. Then Will took on three first-person characters, 
changing outfits and accents to describe a raid by slave owners in 1847 that planned to capture blacks and take them back to slavery. The Kentucky Raid was stopped in its tracks by local citizens, and the outrage from the South hastened the Civil War.
Black History Breakfast 2026 Emcee
On February 4, our own Brenda Beadenkopf was honored to be emcee for the Cass County Black History Breakfast from 7:30-9:30am, hosted and sponsored by the Council on Aging, the Social Justice Alliance of Cass County, and 
the Minority Coalition of Cass County in Cassopolis, Michigan.
She started the morning off by telling some Black History stories from her own Philadelphia Quaker upbringing. How her Quaker parents raised her and her five siblings in two communities that intentionally raised their children with Black, White, Jewish and Asian neighbors during the 1950’s and 60’s, when defacto racial segregation was the norm.
Brenda also talked of her mother Marian Walker helping to de-segregate traditionally Black Cheyney University when it was Cheyney College, by being the first hiring for a racial quota in its Administration after Civil Rights legislation was enacted.
Beadenkopf conclud
ed her talk with the amazing story of her Philadelphia Quaker father, Charlie Walker, who worked with Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement as an expert in nonviolence, who assisted with training the leaders in nonviolence and writing training materials. She put in a plug for her books written about her parents, A Quaker Behind the Dream:Charlie Walker and the Civil Rights Movement, sold on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and read two selections from letters from King to Walker, one of them with King writing: “Let me express my personal appreciation to you for the interest you have taken in our struggle. Your moral support and Christian generosity give us renewed courage and vigor to carry on.”
Yearly Meeting 2025
The past summer of 2025, mid-July, found Brenda Beadenkopf and her husband Will at the Quaker (Friends) Yearly Meeting in Ohio enjoying brisk sales of her books, A Quaker Behind the Dream: Charlie Walker and the Civil Rights Movement, Volumes 1 and 2, and the handbook Organizing for Nonviolent Direct Action written by her father, which she has reprinted. Along with her two-part TRI-FOLD displays –- one for each Volume --- was an eye-catching, poster of with a huge portrait of Charlie. Many people in the halls stopped to talk with Will and Brenda about THE QUAKER INFULENCE ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. An addition this year at the booth was Dr. Thomas Devol, PhD, who is retired and now supplementing his income by selling Brenda’s books in upper New York state with knowledge and enthusiasm. Thank you, Dr. Devol!