Racism, thats what it was.. The Fund for Racial Justice received $250,000 from the UU Society at Shelter Rock, N.Y. (then called the North Shore Unitarian Church), of which the UUA board voted to give $180,000 to BAC, $45,000 to BAWA, and use the remaining $25,000 for other UUA racial justice activities. The Seattle General Assembly in 1970 defeated a motion to restore full funding to the Black Affairs Council. Circuit Court judge who later became solicitor general of the United Statesthreatened to resign if the caucus demands were met, trustee Carleton Fisher said that if they were not met, it would rather conclusively indicate that we have lost touch completely with the very ground of our faith as Unitarian Universalists. The Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus, which had demanded that the board vote its proposals up or down without amendment, responded to the vote by urging its supporters to boycott the UUA Annual Fund. why are you [blacks] rejecting us? In Selma, a black man named Jimmy Jackson was killed and at that time you could count the number of Unitarians in Selma on your fingers. Throughout the late 1960s, Black Panther and police violence made headlines. Records, 1958-1983, bMS 1144, bMS 1144/3 (7), Box: 3, Folder: 7. 3. The occupants were tall blond Nordics with oriental like features on their light blue eyes. He offered these rejoinders: that separatism was a tactic, not a goal; that there was precedent for cabals, secret caucusesand worse in our denomination; and that 30 out of the 37 black UUs at the conference had joined the caucus. Following GA, the UUA board voted to give the BAC $250,000 for that year but not subsequent ones. They came to a better understanding of the whole world through the BAC. Ending Racism - do we need an 8th principal? - Unitarian Univeralist . . Scope and Contents: This collection consists largely of the records of the Black Affairs Council (BAC), and the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC). The one thing they all seem to agree on is that no compromise was possible. Materials date from 1961-1983 and include correspondence, printed announcements, newsletters, organizational . . Nor can a group move ahead when half is moving one way and the other half another, because force only begets resistance, and when relationships are abrogated, change cannot succeed. At another point in the business session, BAC chair Heyward Henry announced that the microphones will be possessed, and members of BUUC and the UU youth group stood at each of the floor mikes to prevent anyone else from speaking. We have to listen and follow the report from the Commission on Institutional Change. . When the cochair of BAWA attempted to address the meeting, BUUC/FULLBAC delegates again walked out. 414 13th Street. Author Interview with Leslie Mac, August 30, 2018. The chief event of the 1967 conference was the formation of the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC), which was an attempt on the part of the black participants in the conference to set their own priorities and goals. These stories are suitable for a congregations Time for All Ages and can be read at home as bedtime stories as well. (Skinner House, 2011). The white radicals, he wrote, fell over themselves trying to comply with the ridiculous demands of the blacks. A million dollars40 percent of the budgetwas cut, eliminating all twenty-one district executives and their offices, while the Office of Social Responsibility was combined with Religious Education to become the Department of Education and Social Concern. The BAC won again and, in that moment, lost. O Vishnu, Maya, Kali, Ishtar, Athene, IsisGreat Mother of Creation, Unitarian Universalist Association . In 1967, racial rioting left 23 dead in Newark, 43 in Detroit. My brother, who a little more than a year earlier had returned from attending a Swiss boarding school, chose to attend Morehouse College. The Rev. Regarding race, our religious traditions attitude during the first half of the twentieth century shifted with the nationsas its attitude liberalized, so did ours. Wests platform called for securing the remaining $750,000 in BAC funding not through the UUA Annual Fund but through voluntary campaigns. The ten-member commission included five African Americans and one Latino: Howard Harris, Wade H. McCree, Cornelius McDougald, the Rev. Imagine yourself on a wide, flowing river in a small boat, Unitarian Universalist Association Bac leader Ben Scott stayed, as did Thom Payne, who chose not to be a part of the UU black empowerment camp. Future UUA President William G. Sinkford left. [2] Located on the border between the Koreatown and Westlake neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and three blocks from the LA Metro stop at Wilshire and Vermont, First Church serves a racially and economically diverse population. I feel torn, but right now I have to put my time into the black community. Many silently drifted away. Launch antiracismreligious education programming: Do aUUACommon Read to examinethe roles systemic racismand white supremacy ideology play in contemporary justice issuesand find paths toward change. Dr. John L. Cashin Jr. and his wife, Joan, members of the Huntsville church, also marched. The level of commitment rose. Nevertheless, Gardner posits, there are no open and affirming black churches in Minneapolisand identifying as a queer person, I just made a choice that I would rather put up with the racism and the whiteness at the UU congregationthan the patriarchy and the homophobia at the black churches around here.3, Gardners experience at the First Universalist Church of Minneapolis would end up being similar to Leslie Macs and would propel her to take a leading role in Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism. Here are some "on ramps" to discussions about race, racism, and white supremacy. Hard choices had to be made. That too makes sense. The next day . Unitarian Universalism | The Pluralism Project Jack also pointed out that revolutions are never reasonable or rational. His appeals for forbearance came too late. In 1993, I led a history workshop on Diversity Day at the UUA General Assembly in Charlotte, North Carolina. The tension of this drama mounted from the opening session until the [adjournment] vote just before 5 p.m. And West recalls the day a television crew came to interview him about BAC, and a BAC leader, having got wind of it, invaded his office and preempted the cameras, never giving West a chance to speak. . Whether or not they fairly represented the denomination was hotly debated and is still a matter of contention. . The answer is that neither the Universalist Church of America (UCA) nor the American Unitarian Association (AUA) ever gave sustained backing to African-American congregations. Black Lives of UU's teach-in resources include stories of four Unitarians and Universalists born in the 19th century who lived into the 20th: Lewis McGee, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Barrier Williams, and Annie B. Jordan Willis. Because they were all the good guys. "Do you have to be an activist to be a UU?" Seminarian Thom Payne, an imposing presence, was posted at the door to shoo white interlopers away. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, while he was in Selma, Alabama, demonstrating for black civil rights. The board supported that position as well as another, not put forward by the Greeley administration, to give $50,000 to BAWA. Homer Jack, director of the UUA Department of Social Responsibility, called an Emergency Conference on Unitarian Universalist Response to the Black Rebellion. Euro-Americans have come to see that it is their own racism and cultural illiteracy they are called to address. Thirty-seven of the 150 attendees were African Americans. To tell the story as dispassionately as possible, lets start with a bare recital of the recorded facts, leaning heavily on the report of the Commission of Appraisal and four 1983 Minns lectures by the Rev. BAC was officially disbanded in 1979. I knew from the moment I arrived that there was going to be trouble, she says. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on clergy of all faiths to come to Selma after the savage beating of peaceful protesters on Sunday, March 7, 1965, UUs were ready to respond. We join together in fighting for a world where of us are free and thriving. Ed. The UUA meets black power, 1967-1971 | UU World Magazine Mac notes that she ended up leaving the church because the more black liberation work I was doing, the less inviting the church became to me. Mac was surprised and excited to find a number of other Black Unitarian Universalists present at the Movement for Black Lives convening and they shared similar experiences with her. This led to the setting up of a rival organization and lawsuits over control of funds. The chief event of the 1967 conference was the formation of the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC), which was an attempt on the part of the black participants in the conference to set their own priorities and goals. What if BAWA supporters, for their part, had not reacted to the caucus as if their lives were being questioned? Why has it been so difficult for the UUA to come to terms with what happened between 1967 and 1970? We started it by putting our UU principles through the lens of blackness, she posits. Three years later, BAC and BUUC split and two organizations claiming to be BAC emerged, leading to a lawsuit. Unitarian Universalist Association, black empowerment controversy Seek ways to amplify and incorporate the voices of people of color in all aspects of congregational life. Finally, it makes sense that after forty years, many wish for, but few are ready to seek, reconciliation. Here is how President Greeley describes the walkout at the Boston General Assembly in his autobiography: There were two most shocking moments for me in the Assembly. Yes, we still have far to go, she says, but everything is much fairer.. Like most UUs, they had left the religion of their birth because they were seekers who cherished religious freedom. Confrontation [was] in the air.. . An African American congregational leader said, I came to this church in 1915 because it was an unsegregated church. by Mark D. Morrison-Reed (Skinner House Books, 2011). But the BACs disaffiliation could not have been about the money alone. But why should that make reconciliation impossible? That means our first principle was black lives matter.4, Along with providing pastoral and spiritual care to Black UUs, Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism was explicitly created to forward the Movement for Black Lives. This is what always needed to happen, but reparationthe giving of $1 million to black concernshowever noble, was not meant to address that. African American Intellectual History Society, In July 2015, a group of Black Unitarian Universalists met at the Movement for Black Lives Convening in Cleveland, Ohio and formed a new organization: The Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism Organizing Collective (Black Lives UU or BLUU). In June, the General Assembly met in Cleveland. BLUU donated $5,000 to the Highlander Center in Tennessee and likewise provided $90,000 in disaster relief from Hurricane Harvey, most of which went directly to Black women who were affected by the storm. I am not the only UU who was irreversibly shaped by it. It also learned that all its discretionary reserves had been depleted by the ambitious agenda and vision of President Greeley, then approaching the end of his term. We on your Congregational Life field staff are here to support you in your ministries, to guide you toward effective governance, to connect you with other congregations, to challenge you to be in covenantal relationships, and to companion you so that you feel known, cared for, heard, seen and affirmed as a member congregation of the UUA. (617) 742-2100 | info@uua.org. While many of these activists are wary of traditional religious institutions and religious authorities, BLUUs leadership, which consists predominantly of queer-identified and trans individuals, is not just open and affirming toward those groups, but actually reflects much of the leadership of Black Lives Matter, many of whom also identify in similar ways. Robert West as UUA president, defeating the Rev. Read moreinNational Geographic's "The Race Issue.". In response to the race riots of 1967, some UU's got together and a group of them formed a Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus. Although the all-or-nothing tactic worked with the socially committed Euro-Americans at the conference, over the long haul it was doomed to failbecause ultimately UUs are wedded to individualism and reflexively distrust and resist authority, whatever the cause. Expressions of white supremacy can make a sense of belonging elusive. Thank you for this article, Chris. African Americans who were part of the UCA or AUA functioned in isolation, often without knowledge of one another or of the depth of their history within these two faith communities. At the 1969 General Assembly, which convened in Boston, the agenda included a proposal to allocate the second quarter million to BAC and $50,000 to BAWA. BLUU leaders note that in addition to them being influenced by BLM, they are in turn trying to shape the movement. Transformative Faith-The Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism Portraying the empowerment controversy as an institutional failure is short-sighted and misleading. To spark change, makespace in the community for self-reflection, study, and conversations about race. In the GA business meeting, the BAC funding proposal was placed on the agenda, and in an atmosphere of extraordinary emotional tension, the proponents of BAWA and the BAC competed for the support of the delegates. Found 19 Results | HOLLIS for In addition, middle-class, Unitarian Universalist African Americans probably became suddenly (and painfully) aware of how disconnected they were from the black community. The meeting was inspiring and tumultuous. His research and teaching interests are in African American and early American history, especially abolitionist thought, liberal religion, and secularism. Nor did things calm down after GA. Lawrence Ladd, now the UUAs Financial Advisor and then a UU youth leader, recalls arriving at a board meeting in January 1970 where budget cuts were being discussed, a scene he describes as unparalleled at any past meetings. President West had moved the meetings, which Greeley had held in the presidents office, to a larger room to accommodate observers. Eventually, the delegates voted to fund BAC but not BAWA. Jean Ott aptly called these events the white controversy over black empowerment. In a denomination that was 99 percent white, what else could it be? Others felt the need to distance themselves from whites and white institutions. Reticently, clumsily, episodically, UUs continue to lurch along. Except where otherwise noted, this work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows anyone to share and adapt our material as long as proper attribution is given. Jesse Jackson, then into the plenary session. Just as BUUC aimed to wed the political principles of Black Power with the theology of Unitarian Universalism, so too has BLUU endeavored to bring together the politics of the broader Movement for Black Lives with the religious ideals of the denomination. PDF FINDING AID FOR Black Empowerment Collection What had happened? Collaborate oninterfaith, intercultural programming, including worship. As Leslie Mac claims, this belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people, when you put that in the context of black liberation, that means that all black people have to be considered when youre organizing, when youre planning, when youre thinking what youre going to do.5, Showing up and actively contributing to the Movement for Black Lives is BLUUs indirect way of proselytizing and growing its membership. Rather than show up and pass out church flyers at activist gatherings and events, BLUU leaders instead show up, take part in, and help fund these events, activities that provide a powerful example of faith in action for activists suspicious of faith leaders. Unitarian Universalists never stopped trying. The late filmmaker Henry Hampton, a black caucus supporter, who was then the UUAs director of information, said, Black people at the conference became full-fledged liberals, for the first time [able] to determine their course.. Perhaps selective memory also made it hard for the denomination, especially its leaders, to understand why black UUs like Henry were angry. to achieve racial justice., 8. National UU groups that provide gatherings, webinars, and other resources around dismantling white supremacy include: Get clear on the ways your faith compels your activism. All of these records are related to the black empowerment controversy in the UUA in the late 1960s. [1] Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, [4] [a] [5] [b] who was begotten by God the Father [2] with the difference that . Unitarian Universalist movement, and its need for healing and transformation, rather than to the . What if BUUC leaders had been content with recognition and funding and had not also insisted on not one penny for BAWA? Privacy Policy. As UUA membership declined in general during this period, so did Black membership. Gardners religious upbringing was decidedly non-institutional, largely because of her grandfather, a conservative Baptist preacher who espoused a theology where women were evildancing was evil, everything was evil and everybody was going to Hell. Her father, traumatized by his early church experiences, tried to shield her from that and introduced her to spirituality and God as sort of in nature and also in community, and sort of to be really honoring the divine in every person and every individual, values that would mesh well with Unitarian Universalism, which she was introduced to shortly before starting a Masters degree in Justice and Peace Studies at the United Theological Seminary in Minnesota.