Chicago’s Northside Friends’ participation in the American Friends Service Committee’s “Love as Action” vigil, a one-hour silent worship held Saturday, March 21 near Millenium Park, raised awareness and made headlines in Chicago.

Chicago Tribune reporter Laura Turbay interviewed Northside Friends, and photographer Josh Boland snapped photos as Quakers held silent vigil amid passersby at the busy site, under warm blue skies on the first day of Spring. The vigil is part of the periodic “Love as Action” events that AFSC has coordinated. This latest one was planned to take place in more than 25 cities throughout the U.S. AFSC’s Chicago office invited Friends from Chicagoland Meetings to show up together in a silent, public witness holding signs reflecting our Quaker values.

Interest was high three weeks into the war launched by the U.S. on Iran, sufficiently so that the Chicago Tribune dispatched its reporter to cover it in an article featured on page five of the Sunday, March 22, 2026 edition of the newspaper.

Northsider Kyran Esler, who was point person on site for AFSC’s Chicago office, was profiled and quoted in the story, as was Beth Burbank. “Self-proclaimed pacifists, Chicago area Quakers are feeling increasingly frustrated with the current state of affairs, including the war in Iran and the federal mass deportation campaign,” reported Turbay in the feature, which included slides of a number of Northsiders. “We don’t really believe we should be there right now,” Kyr Esler told Turbay. You can read the entire story at the Chicago Tribune website through this open gift link: