How a Small Group of Quaker Activists Took on PNC Bank and Won

In 2009, a small group of Quakers from Philadelphia decided to do something about climate change. Calling themselves the “Earth Quaker Action Team,” they took on one of the largest banks in the country.
5 years and 125 actions later, PNC Bank decided to change its policy of funding mountaintop removal coal mining. How did they do it?
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Transcript:
Eileen Flanagan: It was actually one of our young non-Quaker members who made the suggestion. this young member said, “Let’s have Quaker-style worship in bank lobbies.” And so we started doing that and many people found it to be an extremely profound experience of prayer, sitting on the floor… even if the manager is calling security.
How a Small Group of Quaker Activists Took on PNC Bank and Won
George Lakey: Quakers in my yearly meeting, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, had for years been struggling with the challenge of a climate that’s going increasingly out of control.
Ingrid Lakey: There was a gathering of Philadelphia-area Quakers in the summer of 2009 when everyone was abuzz around, “what do we do about climate change? What does stewardship mean to us as Friends?” And so out of that, people started meeting in living rooms. It was mostly Quakers who were meeting, though not all, saying, “what would it look like for us to draw on this legacy of being very powerful people who were disrupting a system that’s harming us?” And so out of that was born this group, Earth Quaker Action Team.
Choosing a Target
Matthew Armstead: The Earth Quaker Action Team tried to figure out where to start if we had this passion about doing something to shift the environment. Also there was this analysis growing that the economy is wrapped up in what we do with the environment. So in looking around and sampling potential places to start, PNC showed up.
Lina Blount: PNC Bank was a bank that a lot of Quaker organizations had money with because they were originally founded by this merger of a Quaker bank and an additional bank. As a target it made a lot of sense because there was this connection to a number of different Quaker organizations and communities that had their money with PNC. Our demand to PNC was that they stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining.
The Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
Hannah Jeffrey: Mountaintop removal coal mining is not your typical coal mining. You are razing the top of a mountain. You are blowing it up and going in and picking out the little bits of coal.
Matthew Armstead: It takes very few jobs. The entire mountain can get taken apart by 18 people. So where traditional coal mining was hundreds to thousands of jobs, this was reducing jobs to about 18. The downside on top of just coal mining is that the top of that mountain gets pushed into the valley next to the mountain, which is where the water beds are. And so people’s water sources get poisoned by minerals that are in the ground that get activated by the dynamite process and the moving process.
Ingrid Lakey: It’s a lot of machinery; it’s very capital-intensive. So banks have been pretty majorly part of the ability to do this kind of coal mining. And what we found is that PNC Bank was a major funder of mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia.
George Lakey: So any way you look at it, this is an offense against the planet. It’s an offense against people. It’s where economic justice and climate justice coincide. Let’s tackle it.
Ingrid Lakey: This bank that had Quaker roots, this bank that called itself the greenest bank in the business was in fact blowing up mountains to get coal which is a major contributor to climate change. So we thought, “that’s not cool! We can’t let that slide.” Calling on our own belief in our integrity, we decided to call them out on it.
More: fdsj.nl/eqat
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The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.

[@Quakerspeak]

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[@2pu4u]

So inspiring. Proud to be a Quaker!

[@qkranarchist3015]

Thank you! I'm glad we are publishing how we stand in the way actively for our principles. Please continue this type of publishing. We need to show how to stand up, stand in the way, disrupt, and more. This is our history. We are hiding significant actions by individual Friends or small groups of Quakers now do under a bushel. Let's publish.

[@bsimpson639]

Wow. Talk about low-hanging fruit! The ONLY entities profiting from that kind of mining are the corporations and banks.

[@julirensch]

Bravo Friends, Bravo Quakers, Bravo this concerted effort for Justice.

[@aaronssimplelife8309]

I'm inspired. Thank you.

Very Amazing and Great Awakening

[@Itsrainingcatsyall]

This is so cool 😍😍😍

[@charliesmith4072]

History has not been kind to people who reject Quaker actions.

[@aaronbarrie180]

Good work. PNC is horrible