Connecting With Others Through Anti-Racism Work

March 1, 2002

When the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Church of Cheyenne, WY (127 members), teamed with an African-American women's group to develop an anti-racism education program and offered it to public school teachers for Black History Month a year ago, it expected a modest response.

Instead, requests flooded in. The same thing happened this February. Each year about 1,200 third- through sixth-graders were bused to the church for two hours of black history, music, and art. The project is one example of anti-racism projects undertaken by UU congregations as part of the Journey Toward Wholeness program through the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Department of Faith in Action.

Cheyenne congregation's anti-racism interest developed in 1999 after First Unitarian Church of Denver sponsored a free anti-racism workshop for UU congregations. Cheyenne's new anti-racism team attended. Fired up by the workshop, the team joined with the black women's group, Love and Charity, and organized a community celebration and the school program. The program includes videos about prejudice and the Civil Rights era, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Buffalo Soldier re-enactors, African-American inventors, African folk tales, spirituals as freedom songs, and quilts as "freedom maps."

Accompanying the week-long educational program has been a Friday night gospel extravaganza and a Saturday music and history celebration, plus a soul food taster. The program cost, excluding volunteer hours, has been $1,000 to $2,000, mostly for copying resources for teachers and students, feeding volunteers, food for the taster, and hiring an African dance group. About half the money has come from the Wyoming Arts Council.

First UU Church of Nashville, TN (383), is part of a community group, Tying Nashville Together, which explores racial discrimination and holds rallies to lobby elected officials.

The congregation also sponsors an annual human rights lecture and holds a joint service with an African-American Baptist congregation. Director of Religious Education Emily Green organized Camp Neighborhood last summer, bringing together for five days children from the congregation and from a racially diverse elementary school.

The congregation is also involved in "Diversity in Dialogue" groups—small racially diverse groups that discuss racism. "Our members feel good about the anti-racism work we do," says Carleen Dowell, Board Chair. "Many haven't had sustained interactions with people of color before."

First UU Society, Burlington, VT (514), helped organize four panel discussions on racism in Vermont last year, earning news coverage. It hosts speakers such as UU Service Committee Director Valora Washington, celebrates Kwaanza, and has installed an anti-racism bulletin board.

The congregation's anti-racism efforts grew out of a study group Rev. Gary Kowalski formed using the curriculum, "How Open the Door." "People were hungering for it," he said. "When we did the 'Fulfilling the Promise' survey in 1998 we found people in our congregation felt this was valuable work and was exactly what we needed to be engaged in. In Vermont it's easy to forget we live in a multicultural world. This helps us remember that."

For more information contact interconnections @ uua.org.

Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.

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Connecting With Others Through Anti-Racism Work