A Quaker Action Group was founded in Philadelphia during the summer of 1966 to "apply nonviolent direct action as a witness against the war in Vietnam". Founding member Lawrence Scott was a Quaker and radical pacifist who had worked for the American Friends Service Committee in the 1950s, but resigned in protest at what he saw as the AFSC's preference for words over action. AQAG, which was based in the peace committees of the Religious Society of Friends' New York and Philadelphia Yearly meetings, aimed to renew the Society of Friends commitment to its historic peace testimony.