This story was created collaboratively by several religious educators. As you prepare to share it, read the 1966 Ware Lecture "Don't Sleep Through the Revolution," by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in Hollywood, Florida, May 18, 1966.

This is adapted from a litany by Gail Forsyth-Vail, who suggests the following to maximize the reading's power: Identify seventeen people who will come forward to represent the generations of African Americans in the British colonies and in the United States. As you name the first generation,...

This reading requires seventeen people who are able to come forward and represent the generations of African Americans in the British colonies and in the United States. As you name the first generation, indicate to a person that they should stand. Each time you call a new generation, you indicate...

I want to talk about choice. I want to talk about the fact that just because someone who is out to destroy you says you chose to be the way you are does not mean the path of best protection is to counter with “no I didn’t, it’s not a choice, I was born this way and I’ve always been this...

My name is Mary Magdalene. You may have heard of me. I lived a long, long time ago, 2,000 years ago. And I’m here today to tell you the story of Easter as I saw it. But first I should tell you that some people think I'm a little crazy. Legend has it that I spent most of my life alone in a cave,...

A while ago my friend told me that his son had come home from school with a new put-down expression. “That is sooo gay.” My friend explained to his son that perhaps he didn’t want to say that—after all, he lived in a family with two daddies—“gay” as a put-down just didn’t seem the...

The first step is to notice the mountain. It is there. And it belongs to a range of mountains. There’s no going around it. The next step is to reach the kind of acceptance that has us praying in our hearts: "Lord, I don’t ask you to move the mountain, just give me the strength to climb." The...

We retell the birth, life, and death of Dr. King to symbolize that it is not until humanity can measure the worth and meaning of a single life, that it can extend worth that to all souls. But, this is a new day....

Holy and Creative Light, teach us to love this earth, our home. Together we live in one small house, even though to us it seems so large, with so many rooms. This quiet star, marbled blue and white, was hanging here and spinning in black space long before we came....

God of all oppressed persons, remind us of your presence in voices of protest; shatter our self-complacent faith in liberty freely given; and remind us of the cost of hard-won freedom. Let the pain of strangled dreams return us to a knowledge of our own triumphs in the struggle to be free....

Once upon a time there was a drop of water named Higgins. Higgins was no ordinary drop of water. He was a drop with a dream. Higgins lived in a valley where it had not rained in a very long time, so all the lovely green grass was turning brown, all the beautiful flowers were wilting, and all the...

We have come into this room of hope where our hearts and minds are opened to the future. We have come into this room of justice where we set aside our fear to name freely every oppression. We have come into this room of love where we know that no lives are insignificant....

We have come together to share our deepest concerns, speaking and singing words of inspiration and hope. We have committed ourselves to do what we can to ease the burdens of those who suffer, to stand for decency and compassion....

We shall overcome. When we can truly celebrate the diversity of contributions and talents offered by all people, we shall overcome hatred and prejudice and oppression. When we can truly extend our hands to one another in loving acceptance, we shall overcome the past that haunts us now. Living in...

In the summer of 1989, I attended the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists at the General Assembly at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale is right downtown, and it was my custom to get out of the hotel and university setting for most of my meals. One morning, as I was in town...