Tapestry of Faith: Resistance and Transformation: An Adult Program on Unitarian Universalist Social Justice History

Taking It Home: Civil Rights

I am more sorry than I can say that your fellowship is again being caught in the grinders of the advance of history in the south. I hope desperately that the group will not suffer unduly as the result of the events in which our people are participating in Jackson and Mississippi. On the other hand, I do not see how we could really avoid participating in this as we do have a stake in this with those people being persecuted and we must stand at this point or allow ourselves to be classified with the group of those who look on, but do very little. — Reverend Clifton Hoffman, writing to the president of the congregation of the First Unitarian Church in Jackson, Mississippi in 1966

Watch one of these award-winning documentaries about Unitarian Universalist involvement in the Civil Rights era:

  • The PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize offers a comprehensive treatment of the Civil Rights era. The late Henry Hampton, executive producer of the series, worked for the Unitarian Universalist Association from 1963 to 1968. As Director of Information for the UUA, Hampton led the UUA Board in their response to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for clerical leaders to come to Selma to participate in the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march of 1965. The stories of Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb and Unitarian Universalist layperson Viola Liuzzo, both of whom were murdered in Selma, can be found in Eyes on the Prize Episode 6, "Bridge to Freedom (1965)."
  • Home of the Brave, distributed by Bullfrog Films, is a documentary about Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman murdered in the Civil Rights Movement and why we hear so little about her. Told through the eyes of her children, the film follows the ongoing struggle of an American family to survive the consequences of their mother's heroism and the mystery behind her killing.