We Come from a People Bound for Freedom

Seen from below, a flock of pigeons flies from the lower left to the upper right of the frame, against the white and pale blue background of a cloudy sky.

[Written for two voices. To be read with energy and urgency. This reading can be adapted for your own context.]

Voice 1: We come from a people bound for freedom,
determined to loosen the fetters of orthodoxy.

Voice 2: William Ellery Channing
Voice 1: William Ellery Channing
Voice 2: Declared reason and conscience to be our guides.

Voice 1: John Murray
Voice 2: John Murray
Voice 1: Survived a shipwreck and preached a gospel of Love.

[Here you may include an early religious ancestor fitting your context. For example, the author used the following for their own context.]

Voice 2: Eli Ballou
Voice 1: Eli Ballou
Voice 2: Pushed beyond the boxes of traditional Christian beliefs, preaching and teaching a fresh word in these green hills until this very church was founded 160 years ago.

Voice 1: We come from a people bound for freedom,
determined to loosen the fetters of racial supremacy.

Voice 2: Nathan Johnson
Voice 1: Nathan Johnson
Voice 2: A Black Universalist in New Bedford, Massachusetts, who sheltered Frederick Douglass on his first night of freedom.

Voice 1: James Reeb
Voice 2: James Reeb
Voice 1: A White minister from the north, who answered the call to march from Selma to Montgomery and was met with the violence of white supremacists. His death further catalyzed the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Voice 2: Ysaye Barnwell
Voice 1: Ysaye Barnwell
Voice 2: Founded the Jubilee Singers, the first Black-led Unitarian Universalist gospel choir.

Voice 1: We come from a people bound for freedom,
determined to loosen the fetters of patriarchy.

Voice 2: Olympia Brown
Voice 1: Olympia Brown
Voice 2: Fought to be admitted to seminary and became the first woman ordained by a denomination in the United States. Campaigned for women’s suffrage until the 19th amendment was finally ratified.

Voice 1: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Voice 2: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Voice 1: Spoke to the National Women’s Rights Convention, insisting to the largely White-led suffragists that Black women and men must not be ignored in the movement for equal treatment.

Voice 2: Sylvie Thygeson
Voice 1: Sylvie Thygeson
Voice 2: Helped to open one of the first birth control clinics in the United States, in St. Paul, Minnesota, fifty years before birth control became legal.

Voice 1: We come from a people bound for freedom,
determined to loosen the fetters of all that dehumanizes and separates us from our dignity and sacred worth.

Voice 2: Dorothea Dix
Voice 1: Dorothea Dix
Voice 2: Visited the cells of the mentally ill in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Louisiana, and North Carolina, bringing to light their mistreatment and working to establish humane hospitals and just laws.

Voice 1: Martha and Waitstill Sharp
Voice 2: Martha and Waitstill Sharp
Voice 1: Worked in secret to secure passage for those persecuted by the Nazis in Europe, saving hundreds of lives.

Voice 2: Zach Wahls
Voice 1: Zach Wahls
Voice 2: Raised by two moms, he spoke out against Iowa’s attempt to ban same-sex marriage and advocated for gender equality in the Boy Scouts of America.

Voice 1: We continue today seeking to be truth-tellers in our time.
Voice 2: We continue today as barrier-breakers in the here and now.
Voice 1: We continue today as peace-makers for this moment.

Both voices together: We are bound for freedom building on foundations laid before us.
Let us give thanks.