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Justice GA 2012 Video Recap

General Assembly 2012 Logo: June 20-24, Phoenix, AZ; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations: Justice GA

Video recap of Justice General Assembly 2012 with highlights from plenary, worship, and witness events.

Transcript

NARRATOR: Justice GA rose out of the triple-digit Phoenix heat with power, and determination, compassion, and love.

REV. PETER MORALES: More than two years ago, Unitarian Universalist were called to Phoenix by our Arizona congregations and our partners.

PABLO ALVARADO: We locked arms in the streets of this city to stop a great injustice.

REV. PETER MORALES: Well amigos in Arizona, we're back.

NARRATOR: And we were back in a big way. Nearly 4,000 of us, learning, worshipping, working, and witnessing together.

GINA COURTER: There are really three kinds of things we'll be working on in plenary together.

NARRATOR: With more emphasis on learning and working with community partners, planners agreed to streamline business plenary sessions. More than 100 workshops and the ware lecture delved into immigration and other justice issues and explored how do justice work at home.

TODD LANDFRIED: You have to ask at some point, how did we get in this mess? How did we get to this point where we have so much division in our country?

MARIA HINOJOSA: There is another America that is operating parallel to this one. In fact, it is here in Arizona where these two Americas have come face-to-face.

REV. SUSAN FREDERICK GRAY: You may experience this in your congregation, but our social action committee was like a silo. It was off to the side. They did things like did announcements in worship. But they were not connecting so the larger congregation.

DANIEL RODRIGUEZ: This is not about finding who to blame. This is about moving forward, right, for our works with not just immigrant youth, but for families and for our communities.

RICK RHOADS: It's important to have these theoretical discussions about immigration and racism and so on. But unless we're actually engaged in fighting against them, it's all talk.

NARRATOR: So we engaged and we worked together. For example, 600 of us were trained to help in a naturalization citizenship fair.

IMANI DROOGAN: It inspires me to come help these people out to become citizens. And plus, I like, follow my grandma's footsteps so she helps me out as well.

CHARLOTTE DROOGAN: So we're kind of practicing so we can take this back to our community.

REV. ABHI JANAMANCHI: Justice work for us is religious because we approach it as a form of spiritual practice. We approach our justice work not to save lives, but to serve life.

NARRATOR: Doing the work of justice calls on our faith, our spiritual grounding. Every day at Justice GA our spirits were fed.

REV. ZOLTAN KOPPANDI: We light this chalice as a symbol of our fate. We hope this light can guide us in our everyday lives. We hope this flame can be a guide for all seekers on this earth. We trust that it can be our light in times of darkness.

REV. JACQUELINE DUHART: And I believe that I and the world need each other for ongoing transformation toward justice.

REV. KAREN TSE: I am one. I am only one. I cannot do everything but I can do something. And I will do the one thing that I can do. So please do the one thing that you can do. Please join us on this journey.

NARRATOR: This journey took us to Maricopa County's Tent City Jail to shine a light on human rights abuses and to stand on the side of love.

REV. PETER MORALES: Those lights have to go back to Alabama, and Missouri, and Massachusetts, and Oregon, and California.

REV. GEOFFREY BLACK: Change does not happen overnight. People have to be persistent. We need to take this message throughout the nation. Because what we're looking at in that prison is a national disgrace.

[CHANTING]

GROUP: Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.

REV. PETER MORALES: You have to take it home.

REV. JOHN CRESTWELL: We've made some progress this week. They know we're here. We've still got a long way to go. And I just want to encourage everyone here to go home and start a little trouble in the name of justice.

For indeed, justice what we seek, beloved community becomes manifest from our persistent marching, our letter writing, our continuous public witnessing, our one-on-one conversations proclaiming that we stand on the side of love and on the side of justice. Justice is love in action. Justice is not just in what we say. It is in what you're willing to do.

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