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    Home » Everything Amish » Amish in the News

    Black Mennonites

    Published: Dec 31, 2011 · Updated: Jan 4, 2012 by Kevin Williams | 2 Comments

    A fascinating article appeared in the Philadelphia newspaper over the weekend.  There's been a program in the Keystone State for a number of years now that places the children of incarcerated mothers into foster homes.  Occasionally, those children are African-American and the foster homes are Old Order Mennonite. And in a few cases the Old Order Mennonite families have gone on to adopt the children.  Personally, I am aware of several instances of African-American children being adopted by Amish or Mennonite families.  I also know of a couple of cases where children of other nationalities have been adopted by plain families (for instance, some Ukrainian children were adopted by an Amish family who actually flew to the former Soviet Union to bring them home).  While these cases are rare, they do occur and the end result is often a successful assimilation and integration into Old Order Amish or Mennonite society.  And in a culture that is very insular and lack of genetic diversity can lead to inherited health problems, these children can help mix things up in a healthy way among the plain population.  Click here to read the Inquirer article.

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    About Kevin Williams

    Hi, my name is Kevin Williams and I am owner of Oasis Newsfeatures and editor of The Amish Cook newspaper column.

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    Comments

    1. Angela Brown

      March 05, 2020 at 7:33 am

      Thank you for posting this. I was just going to ask about African Americans in the Amish and Mennonite communities because I did notice in the picture from the other day that the little girl in the feet soaking picture appeared to be African American. I think it's absolutely wonderful that some of them are willing to open their hearts and homes to others in this way.

      Reply
      • Kevin

        March 05, 2020 at 4:57 pm

        Would be interesting how many people of color are adopted and raised Amish and stay Amish, there just aren't a lot of stats available.

        Reply

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    Kevin Williams - The Amish Editor Amish Cook Column

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    Welcome to Amish365, where I share my knowledge of Amish cooking and culture! I’ve spent almost three decades exploring Amish settlements and kitchens from Maine to Montana and almost everywhere in between. I’ll occasionally throw in stories of my travels, journalism adventures (I’m a Pulitzer prize-nominated journalist), fascination with grocery stores and Kmarts, and much more!

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