PUBLIC WITNESS
"Justice is what love looks like in public."
- Cornell West -
Social justice is what our faith looks like in action. It is putting our beliefs to work through our bodies. We can make our love incarnate through our work for justice in our communities and the world. Prior to becoming a minister, I was a social justice organizer. My work focused on peace, racial, economic, and gender justice, and the environment.
We can build the world we dream about through soul work, systems work, and public witness if we join together.
Earth Day Rally
I led my congregation in our participation in the 2015 Earth Day Rally and Advocacy Day for Clean Jobs. The event was organized by UU Advocacy Network of Illinois, among other organizations, and was supporting a bill that would lower Illinois' carbon emissions and create tens of thousands of jobs, targeted at economically depressed areas like Austin. As a result of our meeting, one of the representatives of the church's district co-sponsored the bill that day.
Mass Moral March for Voting Rights in Raleigh, NC
In 2014, I led a delegation of around 15 people from the Saint Paul, Minnesota, to the Mass Moral March for voting rights. The march was the largest march for voting rights in the south since the civil rights movement. Led by the brilliant Rev. William Barber II, the Moral Monday movment is a broad and diverse movement for liberation. Unitarian Universalists in North Carolina are deeply involved, and called for UUs from around the country to show up and stand with them against targeted voter suppression. Our delegation was trained by movement organizers, we marched together, and then we reflected on what we had learned and were brining home. Back at Unity, we held an education session attended by ~50 church members.
Black Lives Matter
My ministry at Third has engaged with the Black Lives Matter movement. About one quarter of the congregation attended the Black Lives Matter rally in Oak Park, which I helped organize. Members have been involved with the Civilian Police
Accountability Council, a representative of which came to speak at the Sunday morning educational forum. Members have also been participating in the Chicago protests since the Laquan McDonald video was released. I have preached about the Black Lives Matter movement regularly, and attended protests and vigils with my congregants. Members have also supported the young black organizers of the movment in Chicago.
Nuclear Disarmament
For years I worked as an international policy analyst and advocate for nuclear disarmament. As the head of the Reaching Critical Will project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, I led thousands of civil society organizations from around the world in their advocacy at the United Nations. I was the UN's liaison to civil society for disarmament. I did nuclear disarmament advocacy with the Security Council, the Secretary-General, and diplomats and state departments from around the world. This photo is me talking with Dr. Hans Blix of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission about our book, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security?
The summer before I entered seminary, I organized Disarmament Summer with Think Outside the Bomb, the largest young adult nuclear disarmamenet group in the country. A flier for Disarmament Summer is at the bottom of the page; the photo on the right is of me speaking at a Los Alamos National Labs hearing.
