Victor answers conference question: The purpose of West’s talk was Happy Times. Welcome back Bob, it’s great to have you -we miss you- kiss, kiss, hug, hug.

Muffled comment from participant:
I interviewed ?? Larry Blair recently.

Victor: No story had been told about this moment in our denominational history at that that particular moment, does not tell it from the African American perspective. At that moment. One of the reasons I wrote it was the people are dying .Benjamin Scott who was one of the noblest men I have ever known and who was the treasurer of the Black Affairs Counsel and who wrote a book on Beacon Press called The Coming of the Black Man is dead. Speaking of Ben Scott reminds me of it; I talked with Ben Scott’s wife about 2 months before he died. I asked if he would talk to me. He wouldn’t talk to me. It was just too painful; you cannot imagine the pain that this inflicted upon African American Unitarian Universalists. It is bottomless. It is unspeakable, I cannot recreate it.

Tracy Robinson Harris
Woman (only Victor is focused on with camera)
… it is not as though it was unilateral….There was so much pain among and between should we leave, Its not as if all blacks had the same opinion-- it was just on so many levels, should I come back and how many of them came back, not very many, but I just think psychologically the whole denomination and we were a very young denomination at that point too. That really another layer on top of that for me; it never gave it the time to settle in to become a more cohesive denomination, because so early on we were young and split on several major issues and that was one of the major influences that split.

??Joseph
Just a second, I have a couple of comments. The vast majority of blacks left. There were 300 delegates at the General Assembly and only 20 stayed. It wasn’t like a 50-50 split; it was more like a 90-10 split. 300 delegates only at ‘68 assembly and only 20 stayed in that time.…Why. The reasons it was painful that were hard to understand but one was around the accounting accusations irregularities that were hurled at the Black Affairs Caucus. When it was cleared all that information was not communicated in a timely fashion to the UUA Congregation on the national level and it was really local folks caring; giving a shit about what happening.

Victor: Long term fallout. What I have sketched for you are the immediate things as they happened. There were a number of really long term very important consequences of this controversy. One of them is that General Assemblies will never never allow this sort of thing to happen again. They are structured now so that members of the plannery session- matters on the plannery session sare studied by the UUA board before they come on the floor Yes, they are matters of immediate witness and there are matters of long term witness that can be brought up. There will never be the occasion where delegates have the opportunity to vote on the denominations money as they did in 1968 and 1969. In other words there was a stepping back from any kind of participatory democracy.

Colin or Joseph (?)
Did that happen in 1971, somebody put a motion on the floor of GA, let’s change everything.

Victor
I don’t know the answers to that, it’s an excellent question. I think it was ‘71 or ‘72.

Colin or Joseph (?)
I heard the same from David ?bunghoff, that is in a way one of the biggest shifts in the UUA, ?bongloff how did that happen? One of the most crucial shifts pro democracy [pro ??] to a movement where General Assembly is generally meaningless Division. For something to pass the General Assembly these days.

Victor
General Assembly now is basically a showcase for UUA programs.
If you go thru a GA book you will see what is going on probably 75 to 85% of the meetings of programs are UUA by departments at the UUA generated, as opposed to coming out of grass roots. There are some but not as many as there could be or should be.
70 out of 200. David Bowman is an expert on this and he knows exactly what is going on.

Victor
David B is an expert on this and he knows exactly

Man
What if anything is that relationship between and their work the conflict in Viet Nam;
If that sentiment fueled the walk out even more?

Victor
I don’t know the answer to that going on at the same time I don’t know
Not as many as there could be or should be, check it out It was a funny time and a hard time. Perhaps a personal story comes into this.

I had been overseas, I was not at Selma I was in South Africa. I had been the minister at the church in Captetown for 5 years and a fellowship in Johannesburg. I was some difficulties with the government, and it was time to leave- it was getting too hot and I returned to this country in the beginning of 1968 with all this occurring, I was just trying to catch up. When I heard about the Black affairs counsel I thought My God this is what I had hoped to see in South Africa. crazy thing of Black Americans writing their own agenda to demonstrate their own power ..drove me crazy in SA It was not really so with all that was going on around the denomination such as the USC.

Two people talking at once

Colin (?)
Did the fact that the GA was in Boston, was that relevant. I have noticed I have om the Midwest and on west coast and my partner lives on the east coast there are huge cultural differences.

Victor
There was no African American representation.

Tracy Robinson Harris
I want to go back to the affect on local congregations. I think this came out when we started doing the toward homeless work in the 90’s I was part of the team who went with ??Robe Diaz that went to Denver to do some workshops with their congregation. Some of the work in the Civil Rights movement that proceeded that over the course of the last 20 years or so that I have been involved in our anti racism and anti oppression work. I have actually come to believe, though I am not 100 percent sure that it is true, that in the same way that people develop a sense of themselves with a racial identity, over time, that institutions can do the same. One of the things that has helped shape how we do our anti racism and anti oppression work in the 1990’s and into this era, is in some sense both the importance of the work that was done around the Civil Rights Movement and at the same time a sense of stuckness that I think partly because we made a difference and we were proud of what we had done in all those years.

So this in no way intended to diminish that work it is to point to a struggle that we have institutionally which is perhaps described as ‘Well, we took care of that didn’t we, back in the 60’s?’We were successful, the Board of Trusties went to Selma. So we kind of did it well and that’s enough. Another impact this has had institutionally is that its it has made us less capable of understanding and dealing with the aftermath of the Black Empowerment controversy, because we thought of ourselves in one way up to the point that that controversy developed and it gave us the opportunity to continue to grow in our identity as anti racist and anti oppression folks and we failed in some things and we were not able to follow through and to meet that crisis and come out of it with a new identity . We have turned back toward the Civil Rights Movement as the moment to that defined us institutionally so that is part of the context in which our anti racist work is shaped today and not necessarily because we actively identify with the period of the Civil Rights Movement the way we did but because it is in the walls.

I served for a time at the Community Church in Manhattan. Like a number of other places, a congregation that was deeply involved in a variety of ways, our anti racist work over decades starting with John Haynes Holmes. I get there and I am new minister recently called ready to go to work. I have 3 stories to kind of help shape that .
The first was as a congregation of two ministers, we divided up responsibilities of committees. I was to be the liaison to the Black History Committee which existed in that church maybe for 30 years before I ever showed up. I dutifully went to their first meeting in September and was ready to dig in and go to work. And they looked at me and said, ‘Thank you very much but we don’t actually need you here.’ So I turned around and left. I began to figure out what it meant for a white minister, in particular a white woman, to do this work in a congregation that had a long history of defining itself in terms of being engaged in civil rights and had defined itself thru the lens of integration.

So fast forward to a different way of understanding anti racist work that includes work around causing and identity development and dealing with issues Race based issues white based caucuses; in this case for white folks getting together and people of color and I ran head long into the deep self understanding that congregation still has about the Civil Rights and integration and this piece of doing anti racism and anti oppression work is antithetical to what they had stood for all these years. That this was actually racist, to separate groups in this way and to address racism in this way. So in one aspect of our institution we still struggle with in the broad sweep once the various efforts in the 1990‘s had come to the General Assembly and we had sort of recommitted ourselves as an institution. I think we have struggled to figure out how it is as an association of congregations that helps transform congregations in the directions that we are committed to going based on what our General Assemblies have told us we want to be in the future.

.For a goodly portion of the 90’s we worked with the model that had a lot to recommend it; particularly around the understanding of power as it is played out in the context of race, racial identity and racism. What it did not do well was to understand that a system that is governed by congregational polity; there are certain kinds of conversations and certain kinds of openings that need to be available lest we spend our time arguing over whether this particular point is right or not and in fact don’t do as much to actually look at the issues that are on the table and before us. So in an effort to get out of the ‘stucknesses’ if that’s a word, one of the things that we are institutionally trying to embody is kind of simple minded concept about meeting congregations where they are.

To believe that one is a commitment to justice in some way or another even if what they say in our principals about our commitments to justice equity and compassion. That if we have the capacity to be clear that we all have something to contribute and right or not and in fact don’t do as much to actually look at the issues that are on the table and before and that all must find a way to address race and racism in our congregations and in our institutions that we can find a way to get unstuck and move forward.

That’s my kinda short version of the last 30 or so years and where we have been as an institution. So those are my personal opinions, some of them are reflected in resources that we offer to our congregations. Some of them I speak about fairly regularly but I don’t mean to imply that all of what I said is agreed to by my colleagues involved in this work nor that the institution necessarily embodies those things but that is how I come to my particular responsiblity through those understandings. Here endeth the homily.
What else did you. Do you want to do a little back and forth.
What can I fill in?

Judith
….Do you mean the Crossroads or the curricula adults?

Tracy
..The ackets we use ..
.

Man continues ? Colin
back up and introduce yourself.

Tracy Robinson Harris
I am Tracy Robinson Harris I am currently serve as the director for Congregational Services at the UUAI have been on staff for 10 years I was hired originally by Bill Sanford when he was the direction of congregational extension services when he was the director deputy director in that staff. After Bill was elected president, the staff underwent a reorganization process. Our work for justice that had formerly been housed in a single location and known as the Faith in Action Department, that is one label you will here was distributed across the staff groups in ways that we thought would make it more likely that we would be able to reach more individuals and congregational leaders. Because religious education would continue to do what it does and Congregational Service could incorporate more into our fund raising work. An identity based ministry was developed and the justice based work was distributed differently and I have a chunk of that; Judith in Lifespan Faith Development has a chunk of that. I am here because of the chunk I am currently responsible for which will get time to the our fundraising work and others things. Which will get me to the names in a minute Julia, I really will get there.

Judith Frediani
I am Judith Frediani, and I have been on staff at the UUA for 20 years, isn’t that amazing!? I think I am like 5th in longevity. I have always been in the RE Department: Religious Education Department, which is now the Lifespan Faith Group. I came in originally as curriculum manager, became curriculum director. I am now director of the department and curriculum director. I will get into the history.

One thing that Tracy and I share that is worth mentioning is that UUA staff has had over the past 12 or 15 years leadership groups, interdepartmental leadership groups dedicated to anti racism whether it was called Core Team, Anti Racism Team, which was originally called Multi-Cultural and Anti Racism team and Tracy and I have been on that as long as we served there. So our work is beyond any particular box and we have kind of been in the middle of it. Jack are you speaking tonight? I know you are speaking tomorrow.

Jack Mendelsohn
Well I am Jack Mendelsohn and I was here at the divinity school from 1942 to 45 and so I represent the deep history and I am one of the real elders. I remember sitting in front of the fireplace every year blazing away was Robert Frost and the rest of us were grouped around like this and he was sitting there with his high topped shoes and very informal. When I was here at the Harvard Divinity School, there were no women; they didn’t come until about 1950 and no Blacks. And it was still the great liberal school of religious teaching of thought. As students we were concerned about race relations we were concerned by race relations issues, most of us were deeply affected by humanism as a prevailing religious philosophy. Humanism meant to us that in housing, and education and employment, and social class that Blacks had a case and it was necessary for us to address ourselves to it ;so we did.

It was entirely men. We were for the most part dedicated to racial reform. Before that
The Civil Rights Right’s Movement had not taken its form. It was able to occur under Martin Luther King. He was a minister in Boston and many knew him. He was very attractive. UUA felt under Martin Luther King’s leadership there was a place for us to be supportive. That is why we ended up in Selma in the 1960’s. We supported that Blacks had the right to vote and one of should have a vote all over the country and at that point it was mostly southern oriented at that time. One of our ministers killed in Selma, Jim Reeb supporting the Voting Rights Act.

He was a member of the congregation at Arlington Street Church working for the Quakers on housing issues in Boston, on racial housing issues. He was killed. We immediately mobilized to send people to Selma. I had to tell Jim’s family that he was dying in Birmingham; to spend the night with them; with their kids and what was to become his widow. I flew down to Montgomery with Elliot Richardson; who as lieutenant minister of Massachusetts. He was Unitarian at that time and he was very quiet on the plane. Finally he looked over and me and said, ‘This is all about the right to vote.’ Why yes it was. That was pretty much the attitude that existed in our ranks. And while the Civil Rights Movement was gaining strength and many of our minister were involved in it.

We began to attract middle class Blacks. We had a whole passel of them; professional people, middle class people; really humanistically inclined in religious matters and it was taking place at the Community Church in New York; taking place all across the country. Within Black culture there was something rising up called Black Power within the Black movement; so blacks began getting together to talk about this Black Power. There was another set of heroes like Stokey Carmichael. Black Empowerment: not just Martin Luther King but people with a much more aggressive and militant stand. The first thing we knew we had Black Caucuses gong on the Unitarian Universalist Movement. Many of my colleges were offended by this it never occurred to them they had been holding white caucuses for generations but the fact, that Blacks got together with common concerns seemed to be offensive to them.

We got a split developing in Unitarian Universalism ranks as it broke open in the late 60’s at the General Assembly in Boston when the previous General Assembly had voted to make available $250,000 a year for 4 years to establish a Black Affairs Counsel which would have Blacks and whites on it but which would have a dominant of black leadership. I was the vice chairman of the Black Affairs Counsel. In 1969, a backlash against that kind of Black Power leadership had developed in our ranks and we began to withdraw our support for Black Empowerment and Black Affairs Counsel.

We had well allover 100 Black leaders contributing on the floor of the Assembly demanding with great skill that the first item of business be the continuing support of the Black affairs Counsel and it was defeated in a very close vote and so it was put to the back of the agenda. We were doing all this other agenda before we took up the Black affairs business and virtually all the Black participants left and walked out and went out into the Stafford Hotel. At that point the chairman called a recess. I went out to find my affiliates and I found them in a meeting room. I begged them.. They were saying good bye. I begged them to stay while I went back to address the remaining delegates. I went the moderator and the president, Dan Greeley and asked for a Point of Personal Privilege which they granted me.

I told them what was happening; that this real presence of Black Unitarian Universalists was about to leave us. They had felt they had been told to go to the back of the bus; to the back of the agenda. I said, ‘I can’t function under those circumstances. I can’t act as if we can conduct business as usual. I am going to go over to Arlington Street Church. You are welcome.’ About half the people at the Assembly joined me; they were all white of course.

That’s where we ended up in 1969 and we have never recovered from it. We lost almost all of our black members because of the conflict, they drifted away. They felt they had been betrayed. They felt they had been massively misunderstood as separatists. They were not separatist. They simply believed if we wanted to relate ourselves to Black Constituencies and Black communities we had better accept the leadership of our own Blacks who knew something about it. That was really what the issue was. Devoted to integration with white leadership and we were challenged that in certain areas that we were better off with Black leadership. And we have never recovered.

Bill Singford our president was a young Unitarian Universalist working for Arlington Street Church as a youth director. He left our movement it took him years to come back. That was the way Blacks pretty generally felt about us. So we have had a tough struggle and we still have it. But the times have changed and we ought to get over it. We ought to be dealing with the present and not with the past. You were maybe going to have Victor come and talk to you. Oh, he did.
It’s been well studied and its a new time and we are quite sincere. As Tracy and Judith have been saying in our commitment to anti racist work and anti oppression work/ The question is how are we going to implement it?

Our president ??Bill Singford is out there doing it and he is doing a great job in representing us. And our Departments at UUA are doing a find job in helping churches as they now exist to be more anti racist as they now exist; to become more anti racist and anti prejudice with some success but we are a far far piece away from attracting that Black participants that we had through the Civil Rights Movement. That’s my take on it and that’s one reason I wanted to be here with you. You are on the cutting edge of our movement. You are going to be providing leadership in the years ahead. And the fact of the matter is that you are the ones who are going to deal with this anti-racism and anti-oppression issue. Folks like myself are gradually retiring into the background; while it is being taken up by new hands, new eyes, new ears and new voices. And that’s who you represent. It’s a badly needed task and I wish you well.

Applause

Tracy
Black Concerns Working Group that was appointed by the 90‘s association developed through the leadership of Mel Hoover. Working with religious institutions but not solely in the early to mid 90s when many of us were invited in Crossroads Ministry and highly identified with that name. Out of that leadership in that mid 90’s we developed our own in house version of that resource that is called Jubilee 2, which is basically a look at institutional and systemic…[cut in tape]

Judith
It was very apropos that Tracy spoke her stories. Because story really is the most powerful method of understanding. We learn,we relate and we empathize through story and no where is that clearer than in stories of oppression and so in the area as we are crafting a new curriculum for all generations which we call Tapestry of Faith. Youth and adult stories are central. But what stories. Both Tracy and ….. eluded to the story of Selma experience of our ministers and of James Reeb’s death. In ‘63,’64,’65 there was no new oppression. There was just a new story that got through to white people when they saw the dogs, when they saw the hoses, and when they saw children. Oh, that’s a story we can relate to. The oppression, of course, was hundreds of years old. So telling and listening to our stories is an important part of our Faith Development. Now Tapestry is going to tell stories that inspire us and relate and link us, nurture in us.. the ability to be the kind of people who will not tolerate injustice; who are not comfortable with injustice; who will understand the phrase I AM NOT FREE UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE. That’s one of the underlying premises of Faith Development Resources for the next generation to link the religious education. In my time has always been around social justice and social action I think it’s not as visible as it ought as it ought to be. The religious educators are not as visible and the children are not as visible and the youth are not as visible. Actually it was UU Educators who first presented Bill Jones to the UU community. He is one of our earliest African American UU ministers and academic, who actually struggled to be successful in our UU congregations because of who were and instead he went to academia. He writes and preaches Black history and racial justice. He has a couple of books out on Beacon Press . He will be a theme speaker at fall conference backing the 80’s religious teaches and preaches.

Religious leaders focused on linked oppression that produced Rainbow Children and Race to Justice. What we found actually and still find is that our children ,youth and religious educators are very very interested in living the values in ARAOA’s . They understand linked oppression and there is a disconnect often RE Progam and the youth and the young people and the sanctuary. Sometimes our youth think that all UUs have it uppermost in their minds and it isn’t uppermost in the sanctuary on Sunday. Some of the curriculum during the same period that Tracy is talking about in the UUA when we had these training programs for congregational adult leaders were producing programs like How to Open the Door.

We took Mark Morrison’s book, Black Pioneers in a White Denomination ;
Elizabeth ?Nastus was the editor who worked with Mark. We produced a whole program on our history as UUs with African American who wanted to enter the ministry and with race in general. In fact, Jack as part of the curriculum and part of the story. That curriculum came out in 1990.
Rainbow Children was written by several African ministers. Race to Justice for junior high A ??[cuts out] Rainbow program Jackie and I put together about a diversity of people that is about linked oppression, it’s ablism and ageism.

Many of the same things are linked no matter the oppression. You will have privilege, stereotyping; you will have discrimination. They operate in similar ways: heterosexism or homophobia both sexist. Also coming out of first the ministry department because Jackie James was there at that time, moving in the RE Department was the Beyond Categorical Thinking Program; was to help congregations call ministers without prejudice or fear of differences like race, ability and sexual orientation and so forth.
All these thing were going on in the Religious Education world problematically. The Racial Justice Team was a very radical team that we formed in ’85.

We went to crossroads, Shirley Brown’s prejudice production thing; we went to any training available. We were very clear what we wanted to educate about institutional prejudice and cultural racism and institutionalized racism. This was about 20 years ago. We tried to bring this to the Rainbow Children’s. It became one that educated about the different kinds of racism. We are very earnest. I think that completes the picture of the kinds of programs that people have had access to in these Core Teams .at the UUA, we actually had a chart, that had like Jubilee World; Beyond Categorical Thinking and Weaving The Fabric so that you could. This was a buffet, so a congregation could choose where they were, where they wanted to start and where they could go next. We just tried to have as many access points as possible to begin this. This work is hard and it’s scary and when you say it we are going to have a problem about racism yeah, it doesn’t attract everybody, so we have tried to make it accessible in so many ways.

Woman
Would you add into that mix JUFFT and Drum to continue it out

Tracy
It just changed in the wisdom of likened oppressions a lot has just changed in our congregations, regardless of the particulars of it and again the realization that in some way all of us have a commitment to justice and if we can engage in a partnership with a congregation in where they are and where they see their next most important step to be; and can show up with the commitment that racism will be part of the puzzle, that this will be part of the work that we do together. It’s just another way in. So Just Change is the name of this consulting program. There are a number of organizations that are related to the UUA in some ways but not part of the UUA.
That includes DRUM-- Diverse Revolution Unitarian Multi Cultural Ministries is an organization of people of color within UU. It is the successor to the African American Unit of Universities Ministries which is a gathering or was a gathering of [skips]

Scene changes of formed with a guiding documents and a formal leadership so they are now on the scene as well. Having been initially initiated by the leadership of DRUM; asking that there be an organization that white folks could be a part of that would focus on anti racism.
Woman

Tracy
Success in their ministries, whatever they might be, so that’s another piece of the puzzle.

Jack
Are you all related together in some institutional sense?[ pointing at the youth listening]
You come from different schools.
Voices
They are not all in school. Some of us are intern ministries. Intern here.

Jack
How do you keep in touch with one another?

Colin
This is an organizing group for this event.

Deane
I freely state that I am one of those older integrationist people. That is what I grew up with. I am more into the wholeness or community. What do you say to people who are stuck in that era as we move into a new one radically different from it? How do you work with them alleviating the divisiveness of the movement?

Judith
The thing that comes to mind in response to your concern, that is what those caucuses, they are optional. I don’t think that everyone is dividing everyone into categories. People seem to be more empowered and freer if they are comfortable in their identity. These groups are opportunities for people to not only.. [muffled. mike dropped ] This is particularly true for people who are not part of the majority of straight white people- or straight white males or whatever.
It is really an opportunity for those who want that kind of growth. And I think, the discomfort, and I have seen it in the youth and young adult movement. There is tremendous flexibility in how you use choose to identify no on tells you. There are groups in which you will feel comfortable. Because it’s not been divisive, its’ to bring your true self you; your whole self to the larger community by being comfortable and in your own skin. I think resistance to it-- I felt it myself , but I do wonder whether those of us from older integrationists, frankly in white dominant culture don’t still have anxiety about being displaced—about not knowing, not being in charge, not being included, as part of our privileges that all doors were open to us. I am totally waxing psychological; new experience for the dominant culture to not be in control.

Deane
I come from a different perspective. There are a growing number of people nowadays in particular that are uncomfortable or unsure of their identity. For example, the assumption that I am part of the white dominant culture. Not true or maybe true depending on how you identify me. There are so many people like that. Eleanor Roosevelt said ‘We have been here so long I am not sure how much Black blood we have.’
That are being encouraged to choose an identity. Perhaps when they are not ready to; particularly I see it with the young adults. The whole thing now about not picking a gender; It’s a really cool movement. I can’t actually figure out how they do that but uh it’s really cool that they are trying that. I think it is counter productive not from uh…..

Judith
Those caucuses don’t create the challenge. I think the complexity of identity in a multicultural but also racist society that creates a challenge for some people. These groups are important support - for some they are not .I don’t think the complexity of society is the challenge.

Julia
…the fundamental reason people get up to go to church on Sunday morning is not to go to an anti racist program on Sunday morning, but for a whole other experience and all these other things too. How can we not compartmentalize so much but think of other ways, not just to do programs but to do worship, other ways to do theology that sort of break through these categorizations. You don’t have to take an identity; you are not being forced to take an identity hopefully every single Sunday morning. I am just throwing that out

Jack
If we don’t get it together around the central concern, with the prophetic edge, out squeezing out the prophetic because we are getting so concerned about these other things u under the term ‘spiritual’. Is that what you are concerned about?

Julia
I am concerned abut compartmentalizing too much

Jack
What brings them together is the congregation.

Judith
Dick Gilbert and Barney Nelson in 1987, in a dual address: Dick Gilbert retired from Rochester after 28 years. I don’t know if you are familiar with his work as a social justice minister; his model. 3 equal chunks: religious education, social action and pastoral care; together they are a whole. Social action and religious education are two branches of the same tree. His model of ministry as a social justice minister sees the community, at the center, the core of the circle is the worshipping community. Religious education social action and pastoral care, that worship is the core; that’s a model that doesn’t compartmentalize people, it reaches on all those levels and expects each person to minister in each of those areas. Every one is pastoral, everyone is an educator.

Jack
Everyone is a community minister and everyone is a civic minister.

Man
Tracy won’t be with us tomorrow. It might be a good time to approach you with some questions.