All are invited to join us in Adin Ballou Park on July 31 from 2-4 p.m. for a modern variation on the "Anti-Slavery Picnic" held by the early Hopedale Community each August 1.

On July 31, 1834, the Emancipation Act was passed by the British Parliament, initiating the process of ending slavery in the British West Indies. Full freedom to all slaves was granted four years later, on August 1, 1838, by Queen Victoria. On the anniversary of this date, the community gathered to celebrate the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies and to pledge themselves anew to antislavery action in the United States.

In the spirit of the early Community, we gather with poetry, music, readings, and prayers, to honor our forebears' efforts and to renew our commitment to working for peace and freedom in our own time. You are invited to bring a song, poem, or reading to share. For more information, email Marcia Matthews or call Marcia at 508-478-0977.

Adin Ballou is on Twitter! If you have a Twitter account and want to receive Tweets from Adin Ballou you can follow him by searching @AdinBallou and clicking "Follow". If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still go to http://www.twitter.com and search for @AdinBallou. You will see some recent Tweets from or mentioning Adin Ballou. However, to receive regular Tweets, you must have an account.

Tony Alves, member of the Friends of Adin Ballou, manages the @AdinBallou Twitter feed. Tweets generally focus on historical events related to the life of Adin Ballou, the early Hopedale Community, and other significant historical facts of the era. Many of the facts Tweeted by @AdinBallou come from Adin Ballou’s own books, such as his autobiography, Christian Non-Resistance, Practical Christianity, and History of the Hopedale Community. Most Tweets are about peace, peacemaking, and non-resistance. @AdinBallou will also Re-Tweet (similar to forwarding an email) messages from organizations involved in social justice issues, particularly peace-making, abolition and civil rights organizations, equal rights and women’s rights advocates, and Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships.

@AdinBallou follows many organizations and individuals that promote and work for social justice throughout the world, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, Amnesty International, Save the Children, the Dalai Lama, the Peace Corp, and many others. Tweets from these organizations and individuals are sometimes Re-Tweeted by @AdinBallou when those Tweets deal directly with peace-making, equal rights, anti-slavery, world hunger, or other social action issues that might be important to Adin Ballou and the early Hopedale Community members if they were active in today’s modern world.

Twitter is an amazing world-wide social networking phenomenon. Through Twitter @AdinBallou connected with the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, a leading voice against slavery and human trafficking. Connecting with the descendents of Frederick Douglass and helping them continue his work by Re-Tweeting their messages has been like stepping back in time and becoming a participant in the abolitionist picnics in Nelson’s Grove. Over one hundred years have passed, and Adin Ballou and the Hopedale Community are still fighting slavery alongside Frederick Douglass.

Twitter is a free and fascinating public relations tool as well. Often Tweets from @AdinBallou will contain a link back to the Friends of Adin Ballou website or to the Adin Ballou Facebook page. In the future, some Tweets will promote the books and other items sold by the Friends of Adin Ballou.

If there is an organization or individual that you would like @AdinBallou to follow on Twitter, if you have any questions about the Adin Ballou Twitter presence, or if you would like to contribute historical facts (especially if you know that a particular special date in the life of Adin Ballou or the Hopedale Community is coming up), then please feel free to send suggestions to Tony Alves.

Adin Ballou is in Facebook as a public figure and Friends of Adin Ballou as a group. If someone "likes" the page or "joins" the group, they will receive all updates.

The website Sheltered from the Wicked World created and maintained by Dan Malloy of Hopedale, is a rich source of historical information and facts.

And while we are on the subject of Adin Ballou in the electronic age, we would like to announce that a Kindle version of Christian Non-Resistance is available for $6.00. Go to Amazon.com or follow the link from the FAB Bookstore.

Patricia is intrigued by the topic of equal rights for women in the Hopedale Community. "As you may recall," she says, "in 1850, Adin Ballou accompanied Abby Price and about 25 women from the Community to the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester. This seems significant. Even if equality was more of an ideal than a reality, the ideal was a good starting place. And there were some ways it was lived out, like equal wages."

Watch this site for further details!