Speaker: The UCA is a continuing effort that stands for a reform and then the prior question of how do you think of what is happening is not a congregation of violence act. We just got a point on that to say you know one of the things that I think we witnessed in the last four years is an extreme increase in xenophobia and in racist violence. It really prompted the leadership of the country and, and that our programming has not responded to that really and that we as a people are still actually struggling on that. You now what does it mean now that we are like torturing people in broad daylight and that it can happen to people whether they are from you know they are British citizens or US citizens. We do not even know that, you know so this level of the increase in violence that has in a way of racial premise and how can we, how are we working and responding to that is really more wanting us to dialogue and I also wanted just to hear from other people. So, maybe we can just go around for a minute and just hear you know what are the people’s concerns are and what questions are answered.

Woman’s Voice: Me, I just, I have no idea. And it is 01.15

Speaker: Everyone who could 01.18 (Laughter) growing up.

Woman’s Voice 2: I think Tracy made a real good point, which was that I would have done. He started off by saying that institutional struggle is well we took care of that didn’t we and I think that Unitarian Universal staff and see ourselves as progressive people and so the fact that this conflict or this, you know we have this kind of conflicting history or whatever is even harder for us to deal with then like we were the people who does not pretend to be very progressive. So, I think there is a greater contrast between our standards and our reality I guess and so that is I think that is the hardest part. It is like the sugar coating of it all. These projection of like ourselves as a very progressive people but we are actually trying to deal with this and start to come to terms with that. At least for me you know it has span like and I am also taken a back leg wait a minute like this is unlikely you know such an education like. So like now it is what I do without you know like really hard to distinct a newer breath. So it is I think it should be opened up. Put this thing into really.

Woman’s Voice 3: I think it is really hard to tell the whole story.

Woman’s Voice 2: I will place us in. That steady path that there was a time when we seem to think it was but I think it is hard for us and that is someone’s stuff. There is a lot of stuff in our walls and some of it helps us move forward. I think you know theologically we have an enormously rich story about being heretics that we can draw and help us stand up to certain kinds of impression and to certain ways of being religious in the world and then there are other parts of our story that just is plain... It is like they cut us off in the knees and, you know, just stop. We do not go there and I am a Southern Baptist by birth and so in my life not having a way to talk about sin and evil has been a really difficult part of being a Unitarian Universalist because by gosh I see it in a lot of places and we have not always been, I am sorry preaching. Got to stop. Had there always been the best at doing that. So Colin are you?

Colin: Yeah. I am just thinking like these words that we are using now are really. I think the word I am looking for is totalizing. They are like totalizing like you are either a racist or you are not. You are either white or you are not. You are either black or you are not, and I wonder if that it is like just part of the problem like I really one of the things I think about that really I wonder if it is not. They really are starting to trouble me a lot. With the whole idea of people of color like we suddenly got these things. It is people of color and white people as opposed to like we are lumping all of this different ethnicities and groups of people in together as just sort of one lump thing that is not white and I wonder if like so many of the other things that we are struggling with that like kind of that like we just want to like we do not want someone to be racists or we do not and like maybe some days I do things that are racist because I live in a white premises culture and like as somebody who is on some days at least white you know. I cannot help but doing that but that does not seem like I am always a racist and that maybe I can be both racist and not racist at the same time like maybe some of the choices that I make in terms of like the sorts of justice work I do in the way I do justice work maybe some of that is patronizing but at the same time it is empowering like maybe I am not willing to let go far enough. And so I just I wonder if like that sort of totalizing on with this or with that. We are here. We are over there. It is not like part of the problem that is helping us but for the end with the people.

Speaker: I think the world is way more complicated than either or and I also think that there is a place for confrontation and I will speak for myself around what it means for me to be white. I did not create it. I did not wake up and say well this is what white means in the United States but by God it is to find who I am. It has given me power privilege and while I want to honor the complexity of my own identity and others. If at the same time I am not able somehow to come to terms with the ways in which the social construction of reality through race has created for me an identity that gives me certain things, I am going to miss the boat because I am not going to be able to see what it means to be white. If all I see is that I am a woman of middle age from the Southern United States who grew up in the sexist culture. It took me years to learn that I am a white woman, white in front of woman because a lot of my experience of impression is about what it means to be a woman and I really had to struggle with that. So my own identity is very complex. So I am just sort of in the business of trying to hold both hand and figure out you know my business is congregations. My ministry is congregations and all of the programs that we offer up actually try to do both of those things. They try to address the whole institution sometimes by looking at its parts. They try to explore the complications of identities sometimes by saying we need to pay attention to this one right now. So yes, sometimes I totalize. I absolutely do. (Laughs) And sometimes I think it is necessary because I think it helps us see things that we need to see and deal with. So my cut on that.

Woman’s Voice: So once that that we think we are not able to make sense with it so we can dismantle it and the point of fact it is just stupid and crazy and at some point you cannot make sense of it and that is when I feel like I ran into well you know multiple identities. So what it means to be whiter, you know how does it placed out in the congregation. It just makes me nuts. It just makes me nuts.

Man’s Voice: The construction and that you are identifying yourself as a white woman is one aspect of your identity but if it becomes simply totalizing then it becomes a barrier to moving beyond categories. You know I guess the Buddha says you know you have to get beyond all of those particularities but of course in the real world we also have to deal with the particularities on a given occasion. It is just important to be able to stand back from that and say but that is not all there is to say about it. I think that is where we get into trouble when we try to insist that you are either this or you are this you know, pretty agreed to have painting. It is important for a time to focus. It is important for a time to come back together.

Woman’s Voice: You know that mushroom last time my brother ate it he died. That is the same mushroom. I am not going to eat it and I mean there is really part of our congregant evolution was to review the leading categories and so there is a dynamic conflict between people living out their identities and other people’s comfort. I remember the mid sixties. My family was at the beach and a young man, I think it was a young man would buy the bicycle. He has really long hair. This is before it was really common. It was beginning and this young person was so whatever was buying a bike with a long hair and my father said I cannot tell more than that. It was a boy or a girl and I thought you do not have the right to know at a boy’s ass whether it is someone (laughter) who lived 10.06 and had not done anything for me and I realized the people want to know what is the exact, want to know. And there is that part of us who I want to know because it is easier from here. I think I will understand you or I think I can write you if I go through a few things. So, this you know.

Speaker 3: And when we do not realize how actually influent those category imagine yourself.

Speaker: And I think we get up. And if you take the adolescent environment.

Speaker: Yeah we necessarily have that and I was a huge proponent of it at the conferences that I went to not because I really figured out what was that I was supposed to be doing as a man in the men’s pocket (Laughter) so at that time I like it. No I have some better ideas now (Laughter) like you know 15 years later or whatever but because my woman friends came out of that women’s pockets so energized and so like much more like ready to tell me what they needed from me and like ready and just being themselves in a glowing positive way that you know that was not there before and so like what I had to do as a man was to let go of my need to understand exactly what was happening there and just recognize that it was good and that it was valuable and that maybe what I need to deter now and to see what is what the man should be doing there (Laughs) and that is where my experience would be racial complacent. One of the things that we have been experimenting with this business is this whole there is like a little in a young adult world that 12.01. There is like this tension between your personal racial identity, which has to do with your upper hand and your ethnicity and your culture.

Speaker: Also that as you said the intention is really clear and so these are questions about how to realize it.

Speaker: I was just going to tell you a generational thing on the floor of being sort of intentional then I should be you know were you and how different it really is and you know talking to my mother about her experiences as a grades grand. She is, you know, asset participating (Laughter) in the youth congregation going through learning to be white sort of thing and I remember her coming home when I was in elementary school sort of going, Ah, we are doing this. This is amazing and I had this exploding and actually I had seen a. It was such a new revelation for her and I will never have that moment I will never have that moment when I learned that I was white because I was never in an all white environment ever. And I was never isolated and we are in this traditional whether our kids still do grow up in moment whether in all-white environment whether completely segregated where they will have an experience at some point in their lives of realizing and then there is a whole generation of people who will never have that Ah-hah moment because it was instilled the need from birth that there are all these people out there with all these different skin colors and gross with women in the middle of it and so there is two totally different from this weird meshing of the stream whether there are still people who need that Ah-hah moment and we maybe able to sort of facilitate that Ah-hah moment and at the same time we need to learn how, to move to the next step. Okay once we have got there right away, go and out of this. So it is kind of a difficult out there.

Speaker: Our theology has been more in the space of a diverse world because it actually I mean in a way it sort of calls, our tradition calls on us in the best of all possible ways to appropriate that is to recognize truth from many different places and bring it together in our particular religious community and so I just think there is a lot of stuff that makes it complicated into which the generational differences are now you know being lived out in ways that were not true when I was a teenager. You know I became a Unitarian Universalist when I was 18 and that was in 1970 or something or another and you know I look like Charles Chaplin for God sakes. I mean the whole different way of being in the world. That had a this identity struggle but it was not this one, it was a different way. I do not know it just feels sometimes like if we could let off, if we made enough space for archeology to lead after we could show us where we are heading. I think it can hold us in ways that we do not often experience! And I think one of them is in the deep diversity of human experience. And I keep wondering back to violence, but I am not sure how to get there and I do not know if this is the right moment but I have a half forming thought that I may toss out before I part from all of you tonight.

Speaker Three: Look, I mean, let me take a more specific question. I don’t think we really quite addressed that. I think your story is one of relatively continuous, early positive development we just had to come to recognize that after all we are a congregation and more like an organization. We cannot dictate to our congregation. We have to lead from where they are. Maybe you got to articulate and be more specifically aware of people you talk to and think that failure has occurred in that period.

Speaker One: And I would just say that my bet continuous but not without failure.

Speaker Three: Right!

Speaker One: I do see a continuity to it and I see that there have been….

Speaker Three: So can we try and pinpoint the failure a little bit so that we can maybe learn something from that?

Speaker Four: So the truth I am serving right now is sort of the most diverse new congregation I have ever seen that was not like a historically intergradient interaction. So not like first Chicago or community church in New York where there are generations of generally African American families that make up some sizeable portion of the church. I think that the most recent do not bring up congregational survey, which came out like two or three years ago. These numbers have increased dramatically since then and sent to about fifteen percent people cause. That is probably closer to 20 to 25 percent right now, which is remarkable for the entire congregation. But I believe in a place where the UA is getting ready to do this big marketing campaign.

Speaker One: What place is that?

Speaker Four: Well it is in Long Beach, Orange County. So there is this campaign where they are going to raise I think it is 100,000 dollars something along those lines, right.

Speaker One: That’s one of the things that talks into my daily way congregational services.

Speaker Four: So they are going to raise 100,000 dollars to do this marketing campaign and the consultant for this program came to me with our church or a portion of our church leadership and the plan that they laid out, they were like, “we wanted to do the L.A times, we wanted to do MPR, we wanted to do I think the Elijah Set Station,” and if the woman kept using some sort of phrase like “Cause that’s where we think that people who are like us and who are going to be attracted to our way of thinking where we will get in.” This drove the leadership of my church nuts. That mean I don’t think that the church is going to end up participating program because they feel like it is an example of institutionalized racism because people are not, they have internalized the institution has not in the UA has not internalized that there are people who cannot be attracted to Unitarian Universalist and following this outside. Outside the market, which is a word I did not pity. I hate to use here, and so they are like the leadership of my church is like if we are going to have a media campaign we want it to be in the Hispanic language. Right now it is better than Hispanic print media because we have a very sizeable Hispanic population to deport Southern California and we need to have people in our church who don’t speak English as the first language and speaking very, very little English. So they sometimes are not racist. They can sometimes talk about getting Spanish language Masters. And so I think that, that story to me is, in some way is kind of encompasses the way of it like, we failed or at least the UA as an institution is currently failing because we are talking about its race that always a racism. There is lot of great caucusing going on and yet the programs that were presenting are not like integrating this information. So I do not know if that helps or that is just a random story.

Speaker: I think it is a relevant story and I think you are right. We need to struggle and the way I think about it at times is truth and advertising to use the marketing phrase which is to say this was true in Houston where we also did a campaign recently and it has to do with a whole range of things many of which we do not have figured out yet. One is for example we want to present ourselves in a way that makes it clear that we are welcoming to a whole variety of people that the values that we share and what holds us together and different people will come to be part of our communities because they share those values. On the other hand, we do not want to represent ourselves as something that we are not and my story around that is from the community church of New York when a number of our members who are persons of color some African-American and some from other ethnical cultural backgrounds went to their first general assembly and they were, and I was with them mortified. Because they assumed that their experience at community church of this divorce congregation would blah, blah, blah was what they were going to find a general assembly and a point fact that has happened point they did not. So I think it is like how do you both honest and visionary. So I think that is part of the struggle in advertising and I. Yeah, it is a hard thing. I do not necessarily see that in the category of failure. I tend to be an optimist institutionally. Else I probably would not be doing what I am doing. In the way that I understand this. It is that sometimes we screw up and we do not have it all figured out and advertising is still a new, enough thing for us that we are still trying it. Trying to figure out how to do it well. I am sorry your congregation may not participate. I think that there is perhaps more outreached to the communities that you would be most concerned about that is apparent. I will tell one more story. When we were doing marketing in Kansas City where we tested this. One of the congregations had very strong relationship to the African American community in the city because of personal connections and institutional connections and there were some people who really wanted us to advertise heavily in the African American community and the question we had to struggle with was how we do that with integrity. We are not trying to sheep steal from folks who found the congregation and we do not want to show up in the media in the African-American community to make ourselves feel good. If we do not have something to genuinely to offer we ought not to be there. Same thing is true with Spanish language advertising. If we do not have congregations for Spanish language ministry as available. What is it that we want to say to folks at their language that we can say with integrity? Those are some of the struggles.

Speaker: I want to say something else and maybe get to your question at the end of it. When Victor earlier today was discussing the humanism and the collective embrace of the struggle for voting and the marches in summer. And the affirmation of the integration, the theology of integration perhaps you would say or the Universalism of the notion of equal rights and how that would manifest in a kind of more than Christian Internationalism. You could, I would. I think we would have called that a success or a moment were there was a feeling that we were in someway in leadership theologically that had embraced something that was true and that was being affirmed in a way that was both in struggle against the main stream and yet so clearly where the power was. And it seems what still comes up as question of caucus, it presents us with a different kind of goal and a different kind of organizational process and you know. I mean in a way I often think of it in a clueless kind of terms like those are tribal thing going on. There is a radio thing going on. There is a thing of how do we collect in our own in a way to affirm ourselves but then how do we also have a general assembly or ,you know, a body where as equal individuals, we participate with power. And it seems to me that is the attention that we have not actually resolved and it is not just us like world has not resolved. So and you raised the question just after this and we are going to look at that more. Some ways that maybe different movements are addressing it and are trying to bring forward a kind of non-future idealized you know, sense of internationalism. A kind that embraces our history in our legacies in the world of publicity. And still unclear what that means in terms of our decision making process. And how do we still do that as a, you know, not even of thesis like who knew the other campaign. We are not going to do the election. You know, so it seems to me that still in process in the world but that it also seems to me that we are still, as if we would have seriously embraced the legacy as a humanist leadership we would be saying we need that if we are not going to sort this out if you want to play that. This is our potential. So in one way I feel that there is a failure in a sense of not taking that seriously as a problem in the world that has theological basis. And so I long for that, I am looking for that. That is one of the reasons for me, you know, including this work and other things. So there is that question of failure. There is a more sort of pragmatic one, which is, that if you look at the history of that movement instead, I am going to say now the humanist movement and said, “Well, it developed this notion of equality and democracy and the sense that in nobody just because you accepted Christ did not work, you know, you had this kind of a looking guide. You had no special purchase on anything. You know, we are all going to do this for what we can be with each other here and now and so this commitment you know did enliven not just the generation but you know huge movements that affected everything. Part of that was we were going to redistribute the wealth, you know, because there is no way to have equality without doing that. When it came up to the caucus movement and the challengers were saying “Oh, we were going to have preparations in some meaningful way.” That way, we did not, it the caucus model came in the way of the process. In other words the group that said, “Oh, we are going to have equality.” Could have meet the group that had said, ”We need status that we had never have.” So what then I think, what I see is having happened in the 80s in Iceland really after the commission report and that was said, “Okay, we need to recap on top of this and the journey to our goal is and all of this was that there is an African creating network that would do empowerment but did not have, you know, with Nathan or even so we spoke about a caucus as a place to reflect and get support. That is one kind of caucus but there is another kind, which says, this is actually what, this is decision-making body and it is arguable that first kind is not really the deal. So then, in the joint what is wrong with this effort to create these networks and to create this process of articulating and developing our inner racism and that, the support for that network has dropped away according to people that I had dialogue with. And clearly it was expensive and clearly, it was rejected included that there were lot of problems but then so maybe it is right. Maybe we are in process of evaluating, you know, how to do it better. But still that was, did that give more context to the question?

Interviewer: The networks of people of the next race.

Speaker: Of they had a racist trainers of the caucuses that were meeting of the process of going to the congregations and giving educational uplifting as possible.

Interviewer: But I would see that as a transformation.

SPEAKER 3: At least as I experienced them, particularly the work of identity based ministry has taken up some of that caucus in work and drum has taken up some of that, the trainers still meet, things are different now. That is absolutely true and yes they are changing but I do not, I do not see a kind of clean record or end or failure. I see transformation, but I see some continuity maybe not sufficient or maybe not strong enough to carry the same oath. Oof, I do not know what if, I do not know who is at war then on effective moment.

SPEAKER 4: It does not have the same kind of visibility, but.

SPEAKER 3: Yeah.

SPEAKER 4: That is what happens when things morph. For example, one thing that came out of that network that still has life were not the Massachusetts of Mass Bay district produced wilderness journey, are you watching that?

SPEAKER 2: Wilderness journey?

SPEAKER 3: Wilderness journey.

SPEAKER 4: Wilderness journey. Victor did mention it, that is a video.

SPEAKER 1: A video I was talking about.

SPEAKER 2: Oh.

SPEAKER 4: It is a video, ah that.

SPEAKER 1: I did mention the video.

SPEAKER 4: People in Mass Bay. Okay, and that was actually done as a video, but right now, literally right now I am having 250 DVD’s made. And then we want to give it to every district so forth. That is going to much more available if you want to see it.. This weekend, I believe that Thomas Jefferson transformation has a difficult.

SPEAKER 3: District.

SPEAKER 4: Is having their anti-racism, their annual anti-racism, and, and some of the people in that district are doing all kinds of work and did not just hire, they often they just hire for the anti-racism, multi-culture welfare of our nation is from that group. And you know what I mean. So, was not working and falls away. People refused to engage in activities that are not meaningful to them, unproductive for them but the effort gave if it is the visibility I think to the issue of racism. And in fact, I would like to lift up what Molly said earlier about I cannot believe I did not know this and it is upsetting. You are not alone and people of your age back when we, I think it was ‘96, when we, when Mark Larson read and spoke to general assembly we divided the entire general assembly 3,500 people into small groups.

SPEAKER 4: Were any of you there?

SPEAKER 4: Would you like to divide 3,500 people into small groups for two and a half hours. But it worked and I noticed one of the hundred small group leaders, we were in a circle just like this and there was a young woman, seventeen, she had just graduated from High School. You knew race when you gone off to college and she was on the verge of tears, she said, “I did not know this. I am going to lie to you. Nobody has told me the story” This morph also read it was African-American (34:03) ministry and told his story about the way he was treated in, in (34:08). But I mean, just the whole racism history, she said, “I thought it was all taken care of in the sixties. I thought it was (34:16).

SPEAKER 2: Uh-huh.

SPEAKER 4: And, but the sense of being betrayed, being lied to, wasn’t just her church, it was her parents, her school [banging] it’s, it’s United States.

SPEAKER 1: Uh-huh.

SPEAKER 4: And it was not (34:28) who have resistance to this story and [mike noise] so what I’m saying is part of this effort, with its clumsiness, its failures and its semi-successes and its real successes, is so that Mollies don’t say, “Nobody ever told me this, I have been lied to.” Um, I was trying to find ways that people can hear the story, can listen to people’s story, can take, um, their, can, can take their religious values to do something about this story, and they also should read Lies My Teacher Told Me and Howardson’s History, but [people laughing together] it will fill in the little of the blanks of our cover story.

SPEAKER 2: Tracy, you do that. One of you should actually explain what identity based (35:27) is.

SPEAKER 4: When, when the internal staff of organization took place, one of the things that, that we believed we knew was that Unitarian universalism did not serve persons who were part of historically-marginalized communities very well, whether that be person of color or someone with a disability or, um, deal with class issues, and so identity-based ministries were really a way to focus the attention of the institution on some of those historically-marginalized communities within our association and primarily, um, provide ministry to those persons to the extent possible and at the same time try to help our congregations develop capacities to be more inclusive, so that persons of color from whatever particular ethnic or cultural background or persons with disabilities or gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender folks could feel more welcome in more parts of our institution that is currently possible. That is, that is how I feel.

SPEAKER 2: But, but, it is staff members, (36:42) staff members.

SPEAKER 4: Yes.

SPEAKER 2: Who focus on Unitarian universalists who have those identities or potential Unitarian universalists, as opposed to advocating a witness which is a different staff group which does the external fighting for racial justice, fighting for like, that because I heard, I heard the dichotomy because we’ve been talking a lot today about, within (37:00) but not talking about what is the association doing for racial justice in the world and what is it doing for that.

SPEAKER 4: But just.

SPEAKER 2: And so those are two different…

SPEAKER 4: Slight modification though that public witness isn’t just outside, because, um, they also help congregations, they work with congregations to go outside, you know, you know what I mean, and help us, um, you know, (37:37).

SPEAKER 2: Well we’ll worry about it but the focus is being like, one is about transforming.

SPEAKER 4: Can you just move, move out of the.[laughter] the guilty, I mean. (37:46).

SPEAKER 3: Ah, Jack (37:48) that we ask you, how in fact did the ministers actually get the call to go to serve?

SPEAKER 4: Um… [laughter].

SPEAKER 2: It was largely because Martin Luther King sent word to headquarters and they did…

SPEAKER 4: All denominations

SPEAKER 2: All denominations…

SPEAKER 3: Telephone? Letter? Telephone.

SPEAKER 4: Saying we need to help.

SPEAKER 5: But he called himself as one of the …

SPEAKER 4: Well, all kinds of ways of (38:21) and our president at that time, (38:25) and Homer Jack who ended with sort of responsibility to agree to bring out the, he just called. [coughing] The response was overwhelming. There were well over a hundred navy, 125-430 (38:47) went assigned.

SPEAKER 2: Yes, but how?

SPEAKER 5: But how did the minister in Albuquerque find out? How did the minister in , you know, Denver and Montana found out?

SPEAKER 4: Headquarters got the word out. It’s easy. [Laughing]

SPEAKER 2: Even without a website?

SPEAKER 4: We have telephones, we have…[Laughing].

SPEAKER 3: Well, it’s national…

SPEAKER 4: And the (39:18) Board was in session at that time, incidentally, coincidentally. And the (39:24) Board voted to adjourn to (39:27) as a Board. So we not only had all these ministerial leadership, we have the (39:24) Board officially showing up itself. But I don’t want you to overlook the fact that virtually every community in this country that has a (39:47) congregation is the better for it. And I have congregations all across the land, um, religious centers who have a sense of a civic purpose and they are all a blessing even if they have a hundred members or eight members.

SPEAKER 2: Do you have a sense of the number of, you know, one of the things that I’d like to emphasize is that it wasn’t only the ministries that came. I mean, we know that James Reed was killed and we also know that James Reed was killed and we also know that (40:22) was killed. Okay? Do we know how many you used, went down there? Do we know what that response was? Do we have any idea about that?

SPEAKER 4: No, we don’t. The (40:32) Board was mostly late, they all showed up, but…

SPEAKER 2: Jack was editor of (40:42) book 17 days or so on? Is that it? What is it? We are gonna take (40:50) and Jack actually collected the accounts from all the ministers who were there who responded to the call for their accounts and a number of those accounts are in the back of the book but not all, actually. We did actually try to make some determination of the ordinary lay person and there’s no way we can come up with a number but it does seem both, see, the ministers talked about who was there. I mean, they knew who was there. They recognize each other. They knew who came, you know. And so, anecdotally, there seemed to be fewer, fewer lay people than ministers. The ministers were, I think outnumbered to lady volunteers who went. and that’s about what we know but you’re absolutely right that there was some white people there and we all know who certainly won.

SPEAKER 4: And the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was heavy on clergy. I mean, they have a lot of clergy in the front ranks.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. That was the call for clergy

SPEAKER 2: Let me ask a question. You know that 20% of clergy showed up. My question is, what is Universally seen as the right cause, the right venue?

SPEAKER 4: Certainly overwhelmingly it seems Universal. Nothing is Universal. (Laughs)

SPEAKER 3: But some of us to (42:21) for their

SPEAKER 2: Yeah I know their congregations and then some of them did get. What are the things that has been said is that today, it is really hard to find an issue that there such an overwhelming grassroots gave up for.

SPEAKER 4: Utilitarian are certainly a belief for upping the minimum wage all across the land. Maybe again not Universal or a large support for that paradigm. But I think in terms of (43:03) marriage, equality is going to Christian and they are way up in front of them now.

SPEAKER 5: I think if there is anybody promoting torture? I mean, it’s pretty Universal on that, too.

SPEAKER 4: On separation of church and state, I think we are very solidly united on that and very much of a force.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah?

SPEAKER 4: I do. I mean things could be a lot worse. We could have Tom Delaney as president if we are going to have a (43:37). It is bad enough that but it is not as bad as it might be.

SPEAKER 2: Perhaps you were saying at least some of those issues. I agree there is a lot of consensus, but there is not the passion

SPEAKER 4: Well no,

SPEAKER 5: Not a singular event?

SPEAKER 4: We have been off in the spirituality until for about 20 years and its kind of dulled that message. We gotten that much more inwardly and much more of a self now, proof that who used to be. And that has dulled our effect but it is not right to dull, by any means.

SPEAKER 2: I do not know if there this strong natural movements but lots of stuff.

SPEAKER 4: What makes you say that they do not exist?

SPEAKER 2: I do not know if there is a strong visible national movements like the Civil Right’s Movement. You know, I get an email from the coalition of (44:46) and I (44:47)

SPEAKER 4: you know that is so. It is different but there is back by union, we work from equality for all workers with an international alliance (45:03) we are fighting for better working conditions for the people in their uppermost (45:09) Every first Wednesday of the month. You know, we are unified. We have seen enough. This view just kind of fell into the (45:22) educators (45:29) and this part of the ending of my thesis and so most part of that we are talking about. This still goes on today. Everyday and is a source of poverty in America (45:44). And Brazil (45:50) coming to what goes on and I got a first one and glad to be here as now officially a beating.

SPEAKER: It took a morning walk through Lincoln Park, which runs along the shore of Lake Michigan and while the parks’ open areas several children kicking the ball between them. They were all boys around seven or eight seated on the bench to one side and with a smile watching over the children’s happy antics was an elderly white haired man. It was a heartwarming scene, a leisurely Sunday in the park. The elderly man would laugh and call out encouragingly to the boys while their attempts to kick the ball failed. Whenever another child approached, the others were called out and invited enough to join in. Their ranks grew by ones and twos. Then a boy in a jacket came along but no one asked him to join in. Unlike the others this boy was Afro-American. He stood in a shade of a nearby tree. He gazed, his gaze riveted on the children playing with the ball. The old gentleman also ignored him. When other children hit the ball and fell down, the boy laughed out loud and cheered. The elderly man rose from the bench, red faced and started to scream on him. The boy glared back at the man. His eyes burning with anger and hurt. He shouted retort at the man then abruptly turned and ran away. His shoulders quivering with painful humiliation. And the face clouded over it. He wanted to run after the boy but the boy had disappeared from sight. Powerful indignation sees Arcadia. His hands unconsciously clenched until fist trembled. He felt a helpless sense of anger towards a society where such unjust treatment of a young boy passed unchallenged. This incident happened at the centennial where Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation of abolishing slavery in America was approaching and in the park that boy, this American that such treatment occurred everyday. The boy’s heart must have been cruelly assaulted time and again, leaving a gaping wound that bled with anger and sadness. Arcadia said to himself and I am sure that Jack noticed and said that himself over the years. When Arcadia thought of the boy’s future, his own heart ached. The question boiled down to how to change people’s heart and minds. The (48:31) and of course that AAU teaches that current dignity and equality of all human beings. There was no other solution to the problem of racial discrimination than realizing a human revolution in each individual. In his heart, he addressed the young boy in the park. I promise you that I will build this society truly worthy of your love and pride. The New Human Revolution Volume 1, page 146-151. Thank you.

SPEAKER: So that is what we are doing in those organizations.

SPEAKER: Very well thanks. We are going to get back to you in the morning. (Clapping sounds). Thank you.

SPEAKER: Yes. He is doing, he is behaving morally and…

SPEAKER: Talking today about Aden Ballou who is our one great Unitarian Universalists contributors to the theory of the philosophy of nonviolent action, nonviolent resistance to people and some little bit of background on how he came to that place and how he related to, I mean similar to, I mean similar problems how he interacted with some of the other people and ideas that were available at that time. So this particular part of being Ballou’s story actually starts in the early 1830s, which is a time when the abolitionist movement was just getting organized. The American antislavery society organized the 1833 when Roy Garrison had begun publishing it.