 One of the people who has been diligent in documenting what unitarian Universalists have and Have not done With regard to issues involving race is Mark Morris and Reed Most of you who are here Know that you've picked up one or more of the books that mark has produced for us That have educated us deepened our understanding what you may not know is That mark is fun to work with mark I discovered has a gift of asking questions Penetrating questions That make one think hard reexamine assumptions and I Have no idea what he's going to do to us this morning But he's probably going to ask some questions that make us rethink more than one thing so with great pleasure I Present to you the Reverend doctor mark Morris and Reed adjunct faculty Meadville Lumberg Theological School in Chicago Mark. Thank you. Thank you So so, you know, you're already getting a culture rated How many of you saw the the movie Selma, I'm just oh well, almost everybody. Okay. Well You know one of the things you didn't Could you tell how about civil rights time in the movie that it was never on time? I don't know That's that's one of things you couldn't movies you can't tell that because they got to keep it going But that's not the way it was it apparently You know something else The something about the you didn't hear anything about the second world war in the movie, did you? You didn't expect to a bit You know something else the film is an approximation. You know that you notice. It's an approximation of the truth It's hovering there between fiction and Reality it isn't really what happened But it actually did catch the essence of what happened and this is fine. It's okay It's okay after 50 years. We're mythologizing these events. We're mythologizing them We're what we might say. We're spinning a civil rights saga and I don't use the term myth Pejoratively myths. What are they their narratives? They're the stories, right? That? that give our self-understanding coherence and give voice to our values and this is inevitable and it is good or Yeah, well or yeah, so the the film the film judiciously uses creative license to point to what is true The trouble is the events the context the complexity. That's all that's Stripped out it's stripped out for historian the movie is more like a snapshot You know, it's more like a snapshot of what happened in Selma because Selma doesn't make sense without World War two So my uncle my uncle Lloyd He enlisted was in his last year of college. He trained in Utah He was sent to Camp Lee, Virginia. He ended up in Elgin Field, Florida. There segregation was enforced Colored soldiers were barred from the movie theater and the PX, but guess not who the German POWs Yeah, yeah, yeah his unit the 1898 aviation engineering battalion landed in southern Italy began building Airfields uncle Lloyd saw the color three six six infantry regiment. That's the first all Negro regular army unit commanded by only Negro officers They saw the course the Nisei 442 422nd Japanese Americans, right? second made a second generation and the most most decorated force of any in the army and To their amazement the Brazilian troops, you know why the Brazilian troops were amazing They were completely integrated The USO right the USO the United Service Organization would provide it R and R for the troops They were supposed to and refuse to serve Negroes uncle Lloyd his buddies simply went to the British equivalent Indeed outside the US. Oh Lloyd didn't encounter discrimination Italy He wrote home to his grant his my mother my grandmother his mother over here. It's good for a change There is no obvious racial prejudice from the Italians They could not afford it now and they're and there is none from the white troops around This is the relief after the bigotry in the states particularly where we come from That was Washington DC So I listened to my uncle Lloyd stories and I learned yet There was much I didn't know and less even less than I understood So what did I know? I knew that during World War two the US Army was segregated But I didn't understand that then over 900,000 black GIs were usually consigned to serve as stevedores laborers cooks I Knew about the Tuskegee Airmen. I knew about the Nisei 4 440 set 42nd, but not about the half a million Half a million Mexican Americans or the hundred thousand Bissarios brought from Mexico to grow then harvest the crops the US needed How selective our memory how short lived our Gratitude how perverse to demonize immigrants we still and still need still need and so mean Spirited what to shut the door shut the door of a country full of the descendants of immigrants now that we're here And you know us I didn't know about I didn't know about the 25,000 Native American soldiers So I knew that the war led to African Americans getting jobs That they had never had before because the war effort needed them I knew African American scientists had worked on the atomic bomb. I didn't know it was only 20 I didn't know about the Hanford workers who would help mine the uranium I didn't know about the Committee on Fair Employment Practices much less that President Roosevelt's hand had been forced in 1942 by who a Philip Randolph when he threatened to lead the first March on Washington He said 50,000 African Americans were going to go to Washington and you know the Nazi propaganda machine would have loved that So I knew about the GI bill but not about the Inordinate number of African American soldiers who received dishonorable discharge 22 percent Of the you know of those who got it when they only made up 6.5 percent of the forces Triple and then of course they weren't eligible for the GI bill Yeah, I knew Mount Gallowed had used that to finish school But I didn't realize that the government also guaranteed a housing loan That was another of the benefits and maybe that's because so few African Americans could access it because Banks wouldn't make loans to people moving into African American communities You see covenants by then illegal and real estate practices kept African Americans out of white neighborhoods and out of suburbs So even though I you know what even I learned that I didn't get I didn't really get it I didn't understand the implications first it forced African Americans into purchasing homes on Contract Contracts were often predatory Miss a single but miss its payment and you could lose everything because you had no equity second Loans determine what they determine not getting one determined where what neighborhood you could live in and Therefore what schools? Your children attended So if you want one explanation of the enduring income gap between black and white you can start there Racism that was and is Built into this system gave an additional boost to white Americans in their accrual of wealth and educational advantage and This was an advantage. They took and take for granted It fed the belief they bled fed the belief a false one that their prosperity was due solely to what they're in industriousness With this implicit of negative Assumptions about mafrican-american work ethic Euro-americans Don't want to know this Why? Well, you know in correcting the American narrative it dispels this kind of bootstrap myth It calls an inflated Self-understanding into question and along with undermining the self-interest it raises difficult moral questions Where is the remorse? How does one atone Should there be reparations What might they look like? knowing in its stirs of guilt and confusion It's so uncomfortable Better not to know World War two is rich rich with irony What do you have african-americans in uniform on the factory floors defending america's democratized racism from racist fascism Right and black soldiers returned home to face what they had been fighting where abroad Serving in the 82nd railhead company Charles Patterson unitarian came ashore at Anzio as They fought their way up the spine of Italy his company was literally wiped out Wiped out. He was sent home with a silver star Bronster Purpleheart After recovering he was assigned escort German pow's to prison camps in alabama in Birmingham the Germans ate where in the white section of the bus station but when the not-the-black soldiers guarding them and when sergeant Patterson leaned over to drink from a white fountain only fountain a white man slammed his head into the spout and As he stood there dazed and bleeding Patterson was surrounded by white folks Cursed and threatened him. He said later. He's lucky. He wasn't rich And others others didn't escape that fate So why why am I telling you these war stories? You know, it's not just because of the injustice that they describe No, no, it's about the lessons they offer one lesson one lesson is About unintended consequences. I mean World War two is what made Selma possible The war gave African-Americans opportunities that they would not have otherwise had The slogan, you know the slogan was double V right double V victory victory at home and abroad They returned to discrimination, but they returned with a changed Expectations with new sense of confidence of forged at a terrible price the experience changed the self-perception and worldview and this gave momentum to an emerging civil rights movement and They weren't alone. They weren't alone and being transformed by the world the experience of World War two also changed the worldview of many Euro-Americans When the scales fell from their eyes they was shocked at what they saw the oppression and Brutality on their own doorstep So this actually did this bore directly on what happened at Selma the afternoon of March 7 1965 the protest march from Selma to Montgomery began and Was savagely ended That evening ABC interrupted the broadcast of judgment at Norberg with Spencer Tracy It's drama about the war crime trials in the post-Nazi era and They and they cut from that to the footage of the Barbara Barbara's attack on the black citizens of Selma That connection Couldn't be missed Couldn't be missed Ethel Gorman president of the Unitarian Church of Birmingham recalled that two days later in a meeting Before we got down to business We expressed our horror at the scenes in Selma, which we had seen on TV We felt shame for our state as well as pity for the victims and fear because law enforcement Octaves our officers acted like Nazi storm troopers Carl Carl You need Carl Ulrich. Where's Carl put your hand to Carl. There he is Carl Ulrich Carl Ulrich was the minister Louisville At this point Kentucky. This is what he wrote to his brother The tactic the white power structure of air is to instill fear in the heart of the Negroes And this has been the tactic for the last hundred years and we in the rest of the country have just ignored it But after it was so vividly shown to us when everyone saw it clearly on TV And with the temper of the country it was almost impossible to ignore It's hard to believe but the fact is in America there is a police State and the troopers are not there to protect the Negro Three days after Bloody Sunday a minister from Long Island Stood at the Selma wall facing a phalanx of place and had to keep telling himself because he couldn't believe it This is the USA almost this is the USA One white alabaman would later compare the white Southerners to the majority of Germans who were good Germans during the Holocaust, you know, he couldn't help but make the connection. I mean March 1965 the 20th anniversary of the end of the war was at hand the trauma the war years had touched literally every adult and Was easily evoked They remembered the sacrifices made and many were aware of the consequences of inaction in the face of tyranny Enforcing people into new and unfamiliar situations the war disrupted the status quo Whether it was women working in the factories or men fighting Everyone endured changed suffered loss defending what their values and Many were transformed Nonetheless most white Americans fancibly fancibly hope that things would return to normal That is how they had been but not African-americans You know, there was no Going back the protest of the brave citizens of Selma only makes sense when it is understood as a consequence Of the second world war today Yeah today, you know, we assume we assume what I'll tell you what we assume we assume I know exactly what you guys soon. We saw the outpouring of support in the rush to Selma Was because of what the righteousness of the cause and the magnitude of the injustice you couldn't miss it You've heard that couldn't miss it But neither neither those nor the changes stemming from the war really really explained the response They don't It was of course because of the cause But it was relationships that compelled them to go the connection of one person to another for 57 a.m. Monday morning Martin Luther King, Jr. Dispatched a telegram calling all faith traditions to send clergy to join the citizens of Selma in another March Among those who were sent who to whom it was sent was the ua president Dana McClain Greeley And among those who responded were James Reeve Orloff Miller Clark Olson, actually we Stand up right right who was that bill bill stand up or off dick Gilbert dick Leonard Who else is here Jim Hobart? Clark Olson Ken McClain Who else is here? Carl come on Carl stand up Those who didn't stand up, please Let me talk. Let me talk with Jim Reeve was leading a housing program for the American Friends Service Committee in Boston Living in the black neighborhood of Dorchester's children enrolled in predominantly black schools He was totally immersed in the black empowerment in empowering the black community That Sunday evening Jim and Marie Reeve were having dinner with the webs Ted Webb was the ua mass bay district director Together they watched the new read newsreels of the attack on television Orloff Miller UUA director of UU college centers and his wife Mary Ann were having dinner with an interracial couple They watched the slaughter on TV The next morning when the call came to Miller Orloff who was on the 6-4 at our UUA headquarters at 25 Beacon Street rushed down to meet with Homer jack The director of the Department of Social Responsibility Homer handed Orloff the telegram in the margin Dana Greeley had written See if Homer would send out the alert to get some of our men to go and tell tell web Soon they were all working the phones. You used were preparing to go Homer jack Homer jack first met Martin Luther King in 1954 when Jack and two other colleagues had been among the first white clergy to go south in their support of the Montgomery bus boycott that summer Jack had preached that were for King at Ba-ba-ba spit it out at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. He'd preached about Martin. He'd preached about Mahatma Gandhi in 1957 they had traveled to Ghana together for the independence celebration in 1958 Jack visited Homer in the hot I say Homer visited Jack and no I'll get this out Homer visited dr. King in the hospital in New York City after he was stabbed MLK also knew Gene Reeves. He called Gene said Gene. I need you here. He said Martin I'll be there as soon as I can There's another vodka web. It was web When this case meant Ted Webb who called Jim Reeve It was probably Dana McClain Greeley who called his own nephew Brad Greeley Brad then phoned his colleague and conquered Arthur Jellison asked shall we go? And they went Orloff was director of the office of Cal college centers He started calling the college centers across the country also called his classmate Jack Taylor Who's serving in Champaign, Urbana? Jack didn't want to go but Orloff called and Jack went Jack Taylor Orloff Reeves MLK all had attended Boston School of Theology There's a pattern here gang There's a pattern here. I'd you know, you're you're bright. You see you see where what happened here, right? By Monday evening Jack was already in Selma Brad Greeley Reeve Orloff ten other colleagues and UUA staff were off flying to Atlanta What took them to Selma? Come you know already, you know where we're going with this. What took them to Selma? Relationship, thank you. It was relationships For others it was not a matter of being called but being sent Dave Johnson and Bloomington in Indiana arrived at church for a meeting was told by his board You were going to represent us and here is the money for the ticket and By midnight he and a church member were on a plane So too often we credit the righteousness of the cause and Emphasize the ideological commitment to progressive values and law the moral courage But these do not explain what happened. It was about being in what? Relationship So what do you do when your friend calls and says I'm going join me? What do you do when that call comes? You go You know, and it was no different for Clark Olson. It was no different Clark Olson Who you know, Clark was walking beside Orloff. It was it was it was James Reeve Orloff Miller Clark Olson. They're walking together when the three of them were attacked in Selma Olson heard about King's call on the radio To all the Selma and by the time he and he wanted to go But he didn't know how he's going to go because he didn't have the money in the time He got home a call had come and Church members had already called and said we'll pay for the ticket Not even a request He got home and The money was there Prior to the conclusion of the March to Montgomery members of the congregation and Park Forest Challenged their minister David Boomba to go They went the group I was there they listened to his reasons his excuses for not going and Then they informed him that they had an airline ticket for him And they asked would he use it and he knew that this decision would shape his life and he said Yes, and along with four or five members of his congregation. He flew to Alabama So what do you do when someone says go or go for us or go with us? You go because it's about being in Relationship now so So Yeah, Gordon knows me pretty well With whom might you you know who might you whom are you in relationship? That's what my question is That's the big question with whom are you in relationship? Who is it that might call and say shall we go and what are you gonna say? Yes Who is that? So I will tell you something else about the many who went to Selma for that second attack second attempt and for Subsequently to go across the William Petters bridge They went not only because of the relationships to one another but because of their relationships to African Americans James Reeve was completely Committed to working in the black community He had been at all souls when he was associate minister there and even many wasn't enough for him He had to be fully immersed in it and that's how he ended up in Dorchester Orloff Millers roommate at Boston University was an African American and when Orloff went to his wedding He found himself the only Euro American there Clark Olson and Bill Jones built a close relationship working together as student ministers Jean Reeves knew Martin Luther King from BU and later worked with Coretta King in Atlanta Jack Taylor's mentor was Howard Thurman in 1942 Homer Jack had been among the founders of Congress of Racial Equality Fred Lipp who went even though a board member told him that he might cost him his job Fred had attended Tuskegee Institute during his junior year of college And Viola Luzo not only had she joined the NAACP her best friend was Sarah Evans an African American woman Charles Blackburn who was the minister in Hunphill and he had he'd marched the day before Bloody Sunday had been the only Euro American student at Howard School of Divinity in 1958-59 There's were not casual relationships to African Americans And so this brings me back to the question with whom are you in relationship? to whom have you reached out with whom do you socialize is Their class is their culture their race different than your own to whom have you built bridges To whom have you built bridges? Building bridges between our divisions. I reach out to you Won't you reach out to me with all of our voices and all of our visions friends? We could make such sweet harmony again Building bridges between our divisions. I reach out to you Won't you reach out to me with all of our voices and all of our visions? Friends we could make such sweet harmony so To whom have you? Been building bridges to whom do you want to build bridges what? Relationships would make a difference in your life might might even transform your life flying Into Alabama from, California California Clark Olson arrived late But caught up with his colleagues and after dinner was walking beside orloff and James Reeve when they were attacked Asked Clark why he went and he puts it succinctly. I Decided to go I Decided to go The why you know the why is to get offered later is explanations, you know It's actually a guess. You know that it's actually a guess. It's a it's an approximation. It's a it's a hunch It's a rationalization It's always secondary to the Decision itself It's about Deciding to go It's about showing up It's not about this is tough for us gang It's not about being deliberative It's not about being careful. It's not about being rational No, no, no, no, no, it's about feeling compelled You feel it's about feeling gay. It's not about our minds. It's about our feelings It's tough for us. It's not our tradition, you know It's not our tradition, but that's what drives us to our greatness It's about feeling compelled, you know, I don't know I cannot know You know what for you? What's pressing for you? What's pressing in your region of the country? What's pressing for your congregation? I don't know. Is it immigration reform? Is it voter suppression? Is it the environment? Is it disability rights? State-sanctioned violence like against the unarmed like Michael Brown and Eric Gardner or the slangs of officers Liu and Ramos Yes, yes, yes, yes Yes, yes, yes black lives matter and As we learned Muslim lives matter and Hispanic lives matter and Those of police officers matter. What I know is that when there's a bridge When there's a connection a relationship Its existence is what compels you to act Without it the pull is yet to remain an observer outraged distressed But still by you more gesticulate rather than act Now I cannot know when another situation like Selma will arise again We can't none of us neither none of you know when that's gonna happen But I can give you the names of a dozen you use who helped found and double ACP chapters Chapters of the Urban League Chapters of core in the south they started human relation council. I mean we Inordinately number we helps found organizations like that and I can tell you the numbers of another dozen or more who are the local boards and And already mentioned the personal ties that many of those who went to Selma to black folks Whether institutional or personal they were in relationship to African Americans that bridge was there and when the time came it was easy if scary To go So I'm back to the question. You know what the question is with whom are you in relationship? Or or What's getting in the way of you're making? that relationship No, it takes a little courage Takes a little courage to step out of our comfort zones. You know cuz what hell we've built them into Fortresses It takes some courage because if we're honest the unknown is Scary thank you. Yes, I mean venturing into unfamiliar settings We feel off-balance. I mean, we don't like that gang, you know, we we Struct our we structure our lives to keep that from happening Situations in not in our control. We don't like that either You know aging stuff for us because we don't like being out of control. I mean these are Everybody has troubles you use that particularly have troubles with these issues You know and then we go in place are we not certain what the rules are You know and we get a little little anxious Little anxious that we avoid them so often. We don't feel anxious very often because And what doubts, you know doubts niggly doubts eat at you and you know that that's good And it's important that we feel those things Being careful and being cautious and hiding our vulnerabilities is not a recipe for change and Transformation what are we here for? What are we here? Some always say we're not here for a celebration. We're here to Reconsecrate ourselves Cree concert, but transformation you must to be transformed or recommit ourselves right to consecrate ourselves You have to commit and engage and then let the awkwardness and the anxiety And the relationship Reach in and change you you know you can turn difference into dialogue confusion into understanding Distance into camaraderie but you have to stop making excuses and Engage and Engage You can't you can do you know you can do this and it's see you you can do this right Rob We know we can do this Because what do you guys have what do you have? You have beloved community. That's why you're here. That's what brought you together That's what you have beloved community was beloved community do well with the community is a resource the feelings of reluctance that sense of vulnerability The doubts and dilemmas you will face and the ways you'll get wounded and I can guarantee you You will be wounded in doing this work, but these can be Transformed and they become ways of healing Yourselves and your community and the world with whom are you in relationship a Relationship that would compel you to take risk the first Sunday in December. I Was at noof noof That's the Netherlands Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Amsterdam During the sharing of joys and concerns bill an older your American male Got up and lit a candle for Ferguson and Michael Brown. I was touched. I was surprised When I told him so after the service he said my three grandsons When someone is that close The risk doesn't matter there is no longer matters they mean nothing You know in the context of relationship it's that's all it does not even secondary When the other is your brother your sister your friend your grandson compel to act and the thing is the wider the wider The wider your circle of friends The more often that's going to happen to you. That's the reality The wider the more engaged you are in life and with people the more often that's going to happen Why because we care? So I come back. I ask you with whom are you in relationship and What of your relationship To yourself Place yourselves in situations where friendships can evolve You know, that's all I'm really asking for not to save the world Just to place yourself in these situations. You don't place yourself because they scare you a little Do that and when then you act on behave behalf of justice You'll not be acting for others but with them with them and for yourself The outpouring of support in the rust of Selma was of course about the righteousness of the cause and the magnitude of the injustice But more important was what preceded the moment of decision For those who lived there in Selma those relationships Gave them courage For those who came there the relationships compelled them to go It's all about connection of one person to another Placing the cause first Can lead you astray? You know, it will an ideological commitments will certainly Lead you astray because it places right belief before right relationship No, not by any means necessary the ends always man if our manifestation of the means Being in relationship that is working together to address a problem. That's different It's kind of it's creating a space a Creative shared nine non ideological kind of synergy There's no us them It's we and from which that that that can see alternatives can spring forth and you find solidarity in Working together toward common cause. You don't know the answer comes out of your relationship Which is I think what happened for a time in Selma 1965 Such a commitment is fueled by a yearning a yearning For meaning in our lives or if I turn that around Our need to make meaning of our lives Make meaning of our lives Conscience Urges us for we have yes, we've trapped of better days A more just tomorrow and we still dream we still dream Whenever my life ends I want the comfort of knowing I poured it out. I Ported out for the values. I hold to you And for the people I love It's all I need to know my days and you know, it's what is this about? It's about being in love It's about being in love with one another Yes, it was one self too and with this world to which we are wed It's about being in love. That's all we're talking about Because once we're in love, what do you do you take? You take any risk necessary You know, that's what living fully and deeply and with integrity demands That's what it is. It's not standing on this not just standing on the side, but being compelled and consumed by love Consumed by love being in relationship in beloved beloved community is essential For alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen And our strength too limited to do all that must be done But together our vision widens And our strength is renewed And the people said and the people said and the people said Amen With your heart now a bowl of hope now and like a prayer now One last time now