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<title>Race:  Our Unfinished Agenda</title>
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<h1><br>First Unitarian Church of Rochester</h1>

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<h3 align=center>Race:  Our Unfinished Agenda</h3>

<p>
"Have you ever been discriminated against?"  That is the question that was put to me by members of a sixth grade class studying racial justice.  I answered them briefly; "No, I have belonged all my life to a privileged group - I am white, male, middle-class and heterosexual.  On the other hand, that fact makes me want to work against discrimination wherever it appears.  Will you join me?"  They will get that brief answer; you get a sermon on this Martin Luther King Sunday - our denomination-wide Journey Toward Wholeness celebration - a sermon on Race:  Our Unfinished Agenda.

<p>
The African American historian John Hope Franklin writes, "The very first thing we need to do is to confront our past. . .recognize it for what it was and is and not explain it away, excuse it, or justify it."[1]  Most of us assume our Unitarian Universalist history working for racial justice is replete with courageous heroes and heroines.  That is true, but it is only part of the truth.  Gloster Dalton, charter member of the first Universalist church in America at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1785 was a slave.  The Universalists condemned slavery in 1790 under the leadership of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush.

<p>
On the other hand, William Ellery Channing was called the "reluctant radical" because of his hesitancy to join the abolitionist cause.  The Rev. Samuel F. May of Syracuse was an ardent abolitionist who tried to bring Channing into the fold.  May had been at Channing's house and had spent the evening listening to the doctor's complaint that the Abolitionists were too precipitate, that they lacked tact, that they were, in short, too violent.  

<p>
May, unable to control his impatience any longer, broke out:  'Dr. Channing, I am tired of these complaints. . .It is not our fault that those who might have pleaded for the enslaved so much more wisely and eloquently. . .than we can, have been silent.  We are not to blame, sir, that you have not spoken.  And now that inferior men have begun to speak and act against what you acknowledge to be an awful system of iniquity, it is not becoming in you to complain of us because we do it in an inferior style.  Why, sir, have you not taken this matter in hand yourself?'  

<p>
Channing, unable to answer the rebuke, accepted the challenge saying,  'I have been silent too long.'  The next year Channing published his pamphlet on <cite>Slavery</cite>, and though never an abolitionist, became a champion of the anti-slavery movement."[2]

<p>
Many Unitarian and Universalist leaders like Theodore Parker, Olympia Brown and Mary A. Livermore condemned slavery.  In 1845, 304 of 344 Universalist ministers signed a Protest Against American Slavery.  Others, however, were not so heroic:  Hosea Ballou, whose 1805 <cite>Treatise on the Atonement</cite> was a theological benchmark in our history, refused to sign an anti-slavery statement because it wasn't a proper denominational question.  Millard Fillmore, the President who signed the Fugitive Slave Law mandating the return of escaped slaves; Daniel Webster, the law's champion; and Ezra Stiles Gannett who pleaded from the pulpit for its enforcement, were also counted among our forbears.  "Yes," said Parker of Gannett, "He is calling on his church members to kidnap mine."[3]

<p>
The 20th century was much like the 19th in terms of Unitarian Universalist ambivalence to racial justice.  John Haynes Holmes of the Community Church of New York, opened the door for African Americans by welcoming blacks to his church.  He attacked the denomination for pussy-footing on the issue and helped found of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

<p>
However, as Mark Morrison-Reed demonstrates in his disturbing work <cite>Black Pioneers in a White Denomination</cite>, African-American ministers, particularly Egbert Ethelred Brown and Lewis McGee, were shamefully treated by denominational leaders as they tried to establish and serve Unitarian and Universalist churches.  Morrison-Reed says that we were segregated then because we wanted to be.  He also reminds us that in justice-making, vision is more important than guilt.

<p>
The post-war era found us struggling for integration as we championed the civil rights movement.  James Luther Adams, one of our great prophetic voices, related one indicative anecdote as he and others tried to integrate the First Unitarian Church of Chicago in the 1960's.  Two board members objected on grounds that trying to desegregate was creedal and this was a non-creedal church.  One night the Board of Trustees really had it out:<br>
"All right, all right, Jones.  You say you; don't want the minister to preach in favor of (integration)?"<br>
"Well, no, you don't have to do it that way."<br>
"What is the purpose of this church?"  Adams asked.  <br>
"And we kept it up until about 1:30. . . .  We were all worn out, and he was exhausted.  Finally, he made in that church one of the great statements, for my money, in the history of religion.  "Okay, Jim.  The purpose of this church.... Um.  The purpose of this church is to get hold of people like me and change them."[4]

<p>
In 1963 the issue was joined at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in Chicago.  The issue?  
Could the denomination, officially on record for racial integration, compel several of its southern churches to accept black members?  The churches argued that this would violate congregational polity which gives each congregation ultimate control over its own affairs.  Advocates for the UUA resolution said racial justice transcended congregational polity.  

<p>
A compromise motion prevailed, forbidding discrimination in any new church, but not affecting current congregations.  This decision deeply disappointed Whitney Young, an active layman in our White Plains congregation and Executive Director of the Urban League, and me, and many others.

<p>
If this was a low point in our struggle against racism, then the March on Washington and the memorial service for James Reeb given by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma were high points for me.  These were moments when the issues were clear.

<p>
Another high point was the summer of 1965 when Joyce and I led a work team in Suffolk, Virginia, for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.  Joyce taught at the first Head Start Project there and I coordinated an after-school program - both exclusively for black children.  

<p>
We hit discrimination head on when Joyce was picked up by the police in our very obvious Volkswagen Microbus, allegedly for speeding, but really because of what we were doing in that segregated city of the Old South.  A reporter from nearby Norfolk, who described himself as the only living, white Mississippi integrationist, saved the day and we were released.  The local Sheriff, J. C. Knight, interrupted our dinner hour one night to warn us against mixed race and gender occupancy - as we were living in a rural black community.

<p>
On our last night we were mightily embarrassed by shoddy treatment at a local restaurant which was not pleased with our integrated dinner party.  For one of few times in my life I exchanged angry words with the proprietor when I paid the bill.  Still, it was a heady time - right and wrong were clearly arrayed.

<p>
In 1966 all this changed - seemingly overnight.  Stokley Carmichael - Kwame Ture - who died just a week ago, uttered the fateful words "black power."  They echoed like a cannon shot across the nation.  Integration of black people into the white establishment and value system should no longer be the goal of black people.  Now it was empowerment.  African Americans must regain their lost pride and seize their rightful power.  They must no longer be passive recipients of what whites were willing to give them.

<p>
In our movement this struggle between integration and empowerment played out in the controversy surrounding the Black Affairs Council (BAC) - empowerment advocates - and Black and White Action (BAWA) - integration advocates.  

<p>
The issue came to a head at the 1968 General Assembly in Cleveland with a vote on a proposal to grant BAC one million dollars over a four year period for empowerment programming in which integration was secondary.

<p>
The most dramatic moment of the debate came when my predecessor here, David Rhys Williams, white hair shining like a halo around his head, deep voice thundering, came out foursquare for this funding proposal - which passed overwhelmingly to tumultuous cheering.  The euphoria did not last long, however, as fiscal reality caused UUA President Robert West, minister here from 1963 to 1970, with the Board of Trustees, to spread payments over a 5 year period.  This was interpreted by BAC as reneging on the deal, and it left the denomination to raise its own funds.  A few years later, all of us were wiser; but BAC was now only an historical footnote.

<p>
In subsequent years we have wrestled with our responsibility for racial justice - trying to understand our history - and more importantly trying to discern our future.  The learnings I think have been spelled out by two Unitarian Universalist African American theologians.  

<p>
Thandeka, now a professor at Meadville-Lombard Theological School, speaks of "the logic of zoning," by which she means "the thought process that reduces a social problem to an individual's behavior."[5]  It is blaming the welfare mother for not working while failing to understand her need for transportation, training and day care to keep a job.

<p>
I can illustrate this difference between personal behavior and social problems in a very personal way.  A few years ago I was taking a break from a denominational meeting by watching a college basketball game with the co-leaders of the UUA Department of Faith in Action, one black, one white.  I commented that there was only one white player on the University of Michigan team - for no apparent reason, to no apparent end.  But the moment I said it, I wished I could take the words back, for they had an inadvertently racist tinge - as if there were something wrong with this racial imbalance.  I had exhibited a hint of personal prejudice, though I think no real harm was done.

<p>
On the other hand, institutional racism is prejudice plus power - it has the capacity to really hurt people.  Now the more subtle issues of race and class come to the fore.  It is much more difficult to know what to do.  Welfare reform has a racial impact because black children are harmed far more than white children as a greater portion of them live in poverty.  

<p>
In <cite>Savage Inequalities</cite> Jonathan Kozol points out that an education system funded by property taxes is inherently unequal, racist in results,  and will always favor the most privileged people. 

<p>
Our societal obsession in building more prisons incarcerates a disproportionate percentage of people of color for longer sentences.  It is common knowledge that the death penalty is discriminatory against minorities who are more often executed than whites who commit identical crimes.

<p>
Minorities are more likely to be victims of violence because of their concentrations in inner cities, where violence is more likely to take place - concentrations in part created by discriminatory social policies dominated by whites.  

<p>
Toxic waste dumps are often placed in low income areas - often inhabited mainly by people of color.  

<p>
For the next two years we are encouraged to engage in a denomination-wide study of economic justice and racism, to understand more fully the racist results of our economic system.

<p>
William Jones, another black theologian in our movement, argues against an assimilation which generally meant minorities being accepted into the majority way of thinking and doing and being.  This was blending - the old concept of the melting pot.  But the white melting pot was assumed to be THE standard.  The inner logic of this kind of assimilation was to get rid of the different.  Thus blacks had to learn to sing white hymns in church, for example.  Whites could not be expected to sing gospel songs and spirituals.

<p>
True integration begins with the affirmation of coequality - the dialogue of equally valid points of view.  But this cannot happen until we have a pluralism in which each group brings its own integrity to the "welcome table."  The melting pot must be replaced with the mosaic - a diverse pattern of many colors to create beauty.  Or, as Jones puts it biblically, "the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and happily the lamb will get up again."[6]

<p>
And so, where are we now in our unfinished agenda as we journey toward wholeness?  I believe we need to do three things:  

<p>
(1) conduct a racism self-audit to discover those often subtle attitudes and behaviors that oppress persons of another group.  I believe there are tinges of racism in us all - a tendency to think of our own group as superior.  We don't like to acknowledge it, but I believe it is there.  My remark about race while watching a basketball game shows me the work I need to do.

<p>
(2)  individually and collectively we need to speak out when we learn of racial injustice - whether it be in housing patterns, discrimination in employment or unequal educational facilities.  If we look at our various task forces, we will find that each of them, in one way or another, is focused on fighting oppression of the "outs" and working to reduce the privileges of the "ins."  

<p>
The Iraq and the Gulf Task Force in part deals with our treatment of Muslims; 

<p>
The Accessibility Task Force with bias against the disabled; 

<p>
The Hunger, Housing and Homelessness Task Force deals with the poor; 

<p>
The Community Against Racism fights that particular evil; 

<p>
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Task Force battles homophobia; 

<p>
Our work in the School Partnership Program tries to equalize educational opportunity in the face of the oppression of urban poverty, as does our School 20 Playground Project.  

<p>
Our United Nations and Unitarian Universalist Service Committee programs take on a myriad issues - all focusing on creating the Beloved Community in a pluralistic world - all making real our commitment to the "inherent worth and dignity of every person," and "justice, equity and compassion in human relations."

<p>
(3) Spiritually we need to broaden our religious horizons to take more seriously modes of belief and behavior that seem foreign to us but are critical to others, and from which we can learn.  We have a rich history of working for racial justice, with many failures along the way.  We need to make amends for those failures, not to avoid guilt, but to build justice.  We need to celebrate the challenge of this always-unfinished agenda.  I think of this story as pointing the way.

<p>
Several years ago a Unitarian Universalist woman activist was in Ahmedabad, India, where Gandhi once had his ashram, at a conference with the leaders of nearly two dozen social change programs, mostly aimed at the empowerment of women, especially among the poorest of the poor.  At the close of the evening, the group began to sing what they called "struggle songs."  One was sung in English, then in Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Maharashtri, and other languages represented there.  It was "We Shall Overcome."

<p>
At first I didn't really know why I felt so overcome, why tears were streaking my cheeks.  Perhaps it was because I knew the song's origins.  The tune came from Africa.  It became a hymn among the Gullah people of the Georgia Sea Islands, who still speak an African dialect.  The words said, "I shall overcome."  From there it was taken by a Unitarian Universalist named Guy Carawan to a conference in East Tennessee.  One night, he and Zilphia Horton penned the words that made the song say "we."  What I was hearing was a yearning for kinship, carried by slaves from one continent to another, lifted up by people I knew, now being carried into the struggles of poor women half a world away and into their dialects.  Suddenly, the whole concept of world community became more than a goal for me.  It became something real, not merely a possibility, but an overwhelming imperative."[7]

<p>
In the words of poet Adrienne Rich:

<blockquote>
"....My heart is moved by all I cannot save:<br>
so much has been destroyed<br>
I have to cast my lot with those<br>
who age after age, perversely,<br>
with no extraordinary power,<br>
reconstitute the world."[8]
</blockquote>

When I announced to the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland I was accepting Dr. King's call to come to Washington, several members warned against it.  As a young activist I had preached integrated housing in Shaker Heights, a mostly white, upper-middle class suburb of Cleveland.  I was going too fast.  Yet upon my return from the March one of my critics praised it, saying he was glad I had gone.  People do change.

<p>
In 1965 I was a graduate student in Ethics and Society at the University of Chicago Divinity School, trying to learn to avoid my earlier mistakes in social activism.  Our denomination's Board of Trustees adjourned its meeting to Selma when it learned of the murder of the Rev. James Reeb, and urged others to join them.  Though unarmed, we were like a liberating army as we marched down the gauntlet of baton-wielding Alabama state troopers who surrounded the civil right citadel - Brown's Chapel.  Martin Luther King delivered so stirring a eulogy that I was moved to leave my graduate studies to return to the parish ministry where the action was.

<p><center><i>Richard Gilbert<br>January 17, 1999</i></center>

<p>
<ol>
<li>John Hope Franklin, source unknown.
<li>Samuel F. May and William Ellery Channing on Abolitionism, quoted in Jack Mendelsohn, <cite>Channing: the Reluctant Radical</cite>, p. 44.
<li>Empowerment, 19.
<li>James Luther Adams, <cite>The Prophetic Covenant</cite>, 1977.
<li><cite>The Center Post: An Occasional Journal of Rowe Camp and Conference Center</cite>, Fall 1995.
<li>William R. Jones, "The New Three R's," <cite>The Transient and the Permanent in Liberal Religion</cite>, (Boston:  Skinner House Books, 1995), 176.
<li>Source unknown.
<li>Adrienne Rich, "Natural Resources."
</ol>

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