General Assembly 2018 Event

Program Description

Learn how the 2018 #MamasDayBailout in Kansas City came to be! Come hear about the process of executing a Bailout to free community members from remaining in jail simply because they cannot pay bail. Learn how congregations and our resources can be of use in resisting this way that people are criminalized for being poor. We’ll lift up the need to both alleviate the suffering now via Bailouts and push legislatively to actually #EndMoneyBail. BLUU and Love Resists will roll out our congregational #EndMoneyBail Toolkit at the panel. Moderated by Leslie Mac with Justice Gaston from Reale Justice Network & ACLU, MO, national and local organizers.

Speakers

Panelists are listed left-to-right as they appear in the video.

• Moderator: Leslie Mac
• LJ Brackson
• Ock Bowers
• Justice Gatson
• Antonio Ausler

More Public Witness from BLUU at GA 2018

Public Witness: Care Package Build Project

Join the Care Package Build Project where attendees will build Domestic Violence Care Packages for the Kansas City community. The space will be set up and open throughout General Assembly. Our goal is create 1,000 Care Package Bags in four days! This will take the Reale Justice team through the winter in terms of supply needs—a TRUE gift to these efforts in Kansas City.

People were asked to bring a gently-used purse or bag and generously support the Wish List of items for the care package build.

Public Witness: People of Color & Indigenous Hands On Project at Uzazi Village

An Uzazi Village-coordinated, BLUU-funded on-site project inviting People of Color & Indigenous General Assembly attendees to come to Uzazi Village to complete a hands on project and learn more about the work Mama Hakima is doing in Kansas City. Uzazi Village is dedicated to improving health inequities with models of care that are community supported and sustained. Their vision is for every family, a healthy baby; for every baby, a healthy village.

This is for people who identify as people of color (of African Descent, Black, Caribbean, Native/American Indian/Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latina/o/x and Hispanic, Middle Eastern/Arab, and Multiracial). Youth of color should consult their sponsors first but are welcome to attend.

How We Got Here

For BLUU it is clear that the role of Public Witness during General Assembly is to ensure that our efforts address the material needs of those most effected by injustice and to leave a lasting gift to the marginalized communities where we gather to rejoice, worship and do the business of our faith.

BLUU has always sought out opportunities to make authentic, effective connections between the UU faith and Black people doing incredible justice and equity work in their communities. For the last five months the BLUU Lead Team & Staff have been making connections with a host of incredible Black organizers in Kansas City leading to an incredible community dinner at Uzazi Village on Wednesday, April 25.

From this dinner two issues of focus for Public Witness 2018 emerged:

• End Money Bail: The national efforts to end the exploitative and unjust bail system in the United States have come to Kansas City and to the rest of the country as well. Part of Public Witness 2018 will include ways for attendees at General Assembly to support the Black organizers with the Reale Justice Network supported by the ACLU of Missouri in moving the End Money Bail efforts in Kansas City forward. In addition, for those unable to make the trip to Kansas City, BLUU has partnered with Love Resists to create a series of toolkits focused on education, advocacy and action to help UU Congregations plug directly into the important work already taking place in their communities to End Money Bail.
• Black & Brown Pre/Post Natal Wellness: The recent national attention via multiple reports highlighting the dangerous state of the health and wellness of Black Mothers and children is something the Black and Brown Kansas City organizing community has long been working on. General Assembly attendees will have an opportunity to learn more about the local efforts here in Kansas City from the leadership of Uzazi Village a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health inequities in the KC community, with models of care that can be community supported and sustained and replicated throughout the country.

We are excited to bring this new energy to Public Witness 2018 and to truly lean into our faith beliefs to leave a lasting gift to the people of Kansas City. For BLUU Public Witness is faith work—it is tied directly to our UU Principles and we are overjoyed to be able live more fully into those beliefs together at General Assembly.