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

Taking It Home: Responding to Calls for Black Empowerment

"Black Empowerment," "walkout," "racist"...the words we use, the language we have to describe the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s are loaded. Why, for example, do we use the term "Black Empowerment Controversy"? It seems to make the anguish of that period the fault of the relatively small group of African American Unitarian Universalists, rather than the result of the white Unitarian Universalist encounter with race and racism. The term "White Power Controversy" would be more accurate in many ways and would direct attention to the broad Unitarian Universalist movement, and its need for healing and transformation, rather than to the small, marginalized group of "black" people and their allies. — Rev. William Sinkford, in his introduction to Long Challenge: The Empowerment Controversy by Victor H. Carpenter

Watch the YouTube video Wilderness Journey: The Struggle for Black Empowerment and Racial Justice with the UUA 1967-1970 on your own or with a group from your congregation. Plan ample time for reflection or discussion afterward. Obtain the 75-minute DVD from your Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) district office or from the UUA Multicultural Growth and Witness staff group. The DVD includes first person accounts of events introduced in this workshop.