Intergenerational, or Multigenerational, Community

Many Unitarian Universalist congregations value multigenerational community in theory more than in practice. Online, find discussion about how worship, religious education, social actions, and other congregational functions might become more richly multigenerational.

The Reverend Tom Owen-Towle has written:

The mission of Unitarian Universalist (UU) religious education is to create and sustain an intergenerational community of truthfulness and service, holiness and love. This imperative should undergird and guide our social action, liturgy, and stewardship as well. Unitarian Universalist religious education is neither book nor guru centered. It is not adult or even child centered. It is congregation centered, wherein all ages cooperatively engage in what Starr Williams called 'a cycle of nurturing.' Hence, our educational perspective must be grounded in sound ecclesiology and focus on all members being religious, remembering, re-creative, responsible, respectful, renewable and reverent pilgrims.

Websites supported by St. Thomas University in Brunswick, Canada and Penn State's College of Agriculture and Extension offer many ideas and considerations about intergenerational community, including activities.

The Children's Crusade, Birmingham, Alabama

The marches in which children participated took place in the spring of 1963 during the Birmingham campaign orchestrated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and allies in the black civil rights movement. Read a detailed report on the Children's Crusade and find background, including primary sources, on the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement website. A National Parks Service website dedicated to historic places of the Civil Rights Movement describes what happened on May 2, 1963, when children joined the protest at Kelly Ingram Park.

On the Teaching Tolerance website, read a story about a schoolchildren's march in December, 2005 in Montgomery, Alabama, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott.