 Yeah, well, if we have, I'm not going to say you're not supposed to be suspicious. If I'm missing something, then I'm not going to be suspicious. The front. I'm not going to be suspicious. I'm not going to be suspicious. Yeah, it's a new shirt. I'm not going to be suspicious. and it took 72 hours to get it out and it was coming back to me. It was a big day. It was a third day. And it was nice to be able to do it myself. It was fun. It was a really fun day. It was such a beautiful party. It was fun to feel it. It was a beautiful day. It was fun to feel it. It was fun. It may be that you were dancing for good And then I was realizing how appreciate you were. It's quite such an integrated case it's a little hard... It's really really hard to get these working down. And he said can you shoot it so you can see how your taken care of? I was surprised because of that. He said thank you. The job was really just being under Second time, good morning everybody. That was very appropriate because our voices are definitely needed. Good morning and welcome. And I'll ask that you now join us in a moment of centering silence. Okay, thank you. We will now have our end gathering him. Good morning and welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a place where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in a safe and accepting environment. Unitarian universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as we together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is James Morgan. Last time I stood here I was Steve Goldberg and it was an honor, believe me. And on behalf of the congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors. We are welcoming congregation so whoever you are we celebrate your presence among us. Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. Anybody know what this is? Cell phone. Let's please turn those devices off so that we won't be interrupted during the course of services which I know you will will definitely take something away from today. Experience guides are generally available to give a building tour after each service. So if you would like to learn more about this substantially sustainably designed addition to our national landmark meeting house please meet near the large glass windows on the left of the auditorium or to my right. We welcome children to stay with us during the service. Please remember that it often becomes difficult for those in attendance to hear in this acoustical environment and our child haven and commons are excellent places to go when you or your child needs to talk or move around. The service can still be seen and heard from those areas. I'd also like to take this moment to acknowledge the individuals who volunteer to make sure that our services runs smoothly. And again you know we should honor and appreciate the volunteerism that goes on here. It's a part of who we are as a congregation and so I encourage each of you to take an opportunity to volunteer as well. So our volunteers today are Mark Schultz, sound operator, lay minister, Dorit Bergen, our greeter, Elizabeth Barrett, Usher's, Gail, Henslin, Wally Brinkman, Richard Billfuss, and our coffee, Jeanine or Jean Hills. And those are our excellent volunteers and people who will continue I'm sure to be examples of support for what we do here at First Entertainment Society. Announcements, we have one special announcement today and that's concerning WUU, the radio station here for FUS. There are some surveys that you are being asked to fill out and you can return those surveys at the end of the service to Elizabeth out in the hallway who has volunteered to help us in that area. I would like to take a moment to share a brief reflection with you all this morning concerning Dr. Martin Luther King. I often in my travels and conversations throughout this city hear from others concerning our current social, economic, and political areas of life. What would Dr. King say today? And you know we we we're all familiar with I Have a Dream. I think we're all familiar with one of his more prominent speeches as well where he shared with us that he had been to the mountaintop. But I think something more appropriate is something Dr. King shared is more appropriate for our time. And when he began to speak about the war in Vietnam one of the things Dr. King stressed was that and I quote there comes a time when silence is betrayal. Close quote. And I share that with you because of the times we're in our voices, our strength, and our power are needed. The issues and the times are too important to remain silent not just for ourselves but for those generations that are coming behind us look at some of our children here today. They deserve our best. Let us move forward in strength and in power. Let us be that voice that does not betray. So again welcome and we hope that today's service will stimulate your mind deeply touch your heart and give you a spirit of action. Thank you. As our friend James mentioned a moment ago Martin Luther King he had a dream a dream that seized the imagination of a nation and initiated a moral revolution whose reverberations can still be felt today. Martins was an inclusive dream promising justice for all not just for the chosen few. His wide sympathies and his spiritual humility drew all of us Christian humanist Jew and convinced us that people of widely varying beliefs and backgrounds could live together could serve together putting aside their differences in pursuit of a common vision. Nearly 60 years have elapsed since he passed on but the dream still lives. The dream has to live. It is far from being realized and yet Martin's words echoing down the years challenge us still to maintain faith with what he and we stand for a world more fair and all its people won. I invite you to rise and brought to your spirit as we light our chalice this morning. Please join me in the words of affirmation that are printed in this morning's program. This congregation is dedicated to the proposition that behind all our differences beneath all our diversity there is a unity that makes us one and binds us forever together in spite of time and death and the spaces between the stars and on this fine january morning i invite you to turn to your neighbor in exchange with them a warm and friendly greeting. Please be seated except for those who would like to join Leslie Ross at the front for the message for all ages. Have any kids to join me up here? Welcome everyone you're sitting so far are people afraid of me? I'll just shift this way. All right good morning so you've had a couple hints so far this morning but does anyone know what the special day is tomorrow? Martin Luther King did that's right and does anyone know why we celebrate this heroic man? Okay that's right so he gave it a very important speech actually many very important speeches that talked about the importance of peace and love for kids yeah okay and he had some really important messages about how everyone should be treated equally no matter the color of the skin they of their skin they should be treated equally and had the same opportunities and he taught us some really important lessons about speaking for what you believe in and speaking for what's fair and courage and caring for other people so he was a really important person in our history in the history of our nation. Today i'm going to share a story with you about two girls who were able to join Martin Luther King Jr on one of his peaceful marches and the story is called a sweet smell of roses by Angela Johnson. After a night of soft rain there is a sweet smell of roses as my sister Minnie and I slipped past mama's door and out the house down charlotte street past the early morning milkman over the cobbled bridge and through the curb market to where everybody waits to march Minnie and I are only waist high to most of them waist high Minnie and me waist high holding hands and waiting to march there is a sweet smell of roses as everyone waits for Dr. King to speak and the colors the bright light from the sun on the flowers beside the road as we listen to Dr. King on the megaphone say we are right we march for equality and freedom then we start to march Minnie and me we look ahead and we walk faster like him clapping in time with our feet looking ahead just like him there is a sweet smell of roses even as we march past the people who scream shout and say you are not right equality can't be yours then we look farther down the road and keep holding hands feeling a part of it all walking our way toward freedom there is a sweet smell of roses as more people start marching with us pouring out of the side streets clapping and singing freedom freedom then someone picks me up and puts me on his shoulders somebody picks Minnie up too and we are high above everybody still marching there is a sweet smell of roses as we all gather in the center of town all together all here listening to Dr. King as the sun gets higher in the sky he talks about peace and love and non-violence and change for everybody and the sun gets higher in the sky when it's time to go we skip back hand in hand Minnie and me singing freedom songs along the streets through the curb market over the cobbled bridge and past the mailman to our house on charlotte street then there is mama worried face waiting there for us she smiles after a while hugging us and then takes our hands and as we tell her about the march the curtains float apart and there's a sweet smell of roses all through the house so Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement did a lot of things to really help our nation but we're not done with our work yet we still have marches to march and we still have peaceful protests to be a part of and we still need to speak for what we know is true and what we know is right and when I think about the smell of those roses I think about the smell of hope and what I have here is a bouquet of hope and so before you go off to your classes I want you to come and take a great big deep breath of this bouquet of hope and carry that hope with you to your classes in your homes and your schools and maybe even to a march so you want to come up and take a big deep breath of roses and then go to your classes thank you for joining me for the story this morning they smell good don't they that's all right your name is Rose please be seated so we continue with a selection from the 1992 book Two Nations Black and White Separate Hostile and Unequal by the sociologist Andrew Hacker who taught for many years at Queen's College in New York City let's entertain a parable he says suspend disbelief for a moment and assume that what follows might actually happen you will be visited tonight by an official a man you have never met he begins by telling you that he is extremely embarrassed the organization he represents has made a mistake and that hardly ever happens but according to their records you were to have been born black to another set of parents far from where you were raised however the rules being what they are this this error must be rectified and as soon as possible so midnight tonight you will become black and this will not simply mean a darker skin but the bodily and facial features associated with African ancestry however inside you will be the person you have always been your knowledge memories ideas all of this will remain intact but outwardly you will not be recognizable to anyone that you now know your visitor emphasizes that being born to the wrong parents that was in no way your fault and consequently his organization is prepared to offer you some reasonable recompense would you he asks care to name a sum of money that you might consider appropriate he adds that his group is by no means poor they can be quite generous when the circumstances warrant as they seem to be to be in this case and he finishes by saying that his records indicate that you are scheduled to live for another 50 years as a black man or woman in america how much financial recompense would you ask for when this parable has been put to white college students most seem to feel that it would not be out of place to ask for 50 million dollars or a million dollars for every coming black year and this calculation conveys as well as anything the value that white people place on their own skin indeed to be white is a gift whose value can only be appreciated if it is in danger of being lost in the eyes of white america hacker continues being black encapsulates your entire identity no other racial no other national origin is seen as having so pervasive a personality or character and so if you write a book on euclidean algorithms or on renaissance sculpture you will still be described as a black author and more than that you early learn that this nation feels no need or desire for your physical presence indeed your people are no longer needed as a source of cheap labor and you sense that many white citizens would heave a sigh of relief if you would simply disappear while few openly propose that you should return to africa they would hardly be disappointed were you to make that decision on your own those were andrew hacker's observations of 25 years ago tanahisi coats wrote these words in an essay that was published this month in the atlantic magazine obak barama barack obama appealed in his presidency to a belief in innocence and in particular a white innocence he ascribed the country's historical errors more to misunderstanding or the work of a small cabal rather than to any deliberate malevolence or widespread racism america is good obama insisted america is great obama's embrace of white innocence was demonstrably necessary as a matter of political survival because whenever he attempted to buck that initiative he was disciplined his mild objection to the arrest of harvard professor henry lewis gates jr in 2009 that contributed to a declining favorability among whites his comments after the killing of trayvon martin when he said if i had a son he would look like trayvon that helped to make that tragedy a rallying point for those who did not care about trayvon's killer as much as they cared about finding ways to oppose the president michael tesler a political science professor at uc ervine has studied the effect of obama's race on the american electorate and he says no other factor came close to dividing democratic primary voters as powerfully as their feelings about african americans a conclusion he reached after the 2008 election when he looked at the 2012 campaign four years later in a second study he said very little had improved analyzing the extent to which racial attitudes affected people associated with obama during the 2012 election tesler concluded that racial attitudes spilled over from the president into mass assessments of joe biden hillary clinton and even the obama's dog bow in addition political scientists from the university of washington and then uc la they have found a relatively strong relationship between racism and tea party membership now the notion that the tea party represented some sort of a righteous anger of an aggrieved class well that allowed everyone to avoid the horrifying and simple reality that a significant swath of the country simply did not like the fact that the president was black now pointing to citizens who voted for both obama and donald trump tana heesey coates says that does not disprove america's persistent racism in fact it underscores it because to secure the white house obama needed to be a harvard trained lawyer with a decade of political experience and this incredible gift for speaking to cross sections of the country and all donald trump needed was money and white bluster you do his final job with scott scott joplin as you do with mr bach you know relative to its peers in the big 10 the university of wisconsin madison is a pretty white school excluding the many non-resident aliens who are enrolled minorities constitute only 15 percent of the student body of which a mere 2.2 percent identify as african-american this has been a cause of some concern in recent years especially in light of several incidents of racial harassment in and around the uw campus but while the administration now seems eager to improve the racial climate some in state government have questioned these efforts and so it should come as no surprise then that a spring semester undergraduate course provocatively entitled the problem of whiteness drew a sharp rebuke from two conservative members of the legislature senator steve nas threatened the university with funding cuts over the matter saying if you support higher tuition or increase tax-based funding to the uw system then you need to explain to the hard working families of this state why money is being wasted to advance the politically correct agenda of liberal administrators and staff now nas gave no indication that he had studied professor daemon sajnani's syllabus whose contents could hardly be described as radical but sajnani's attempt to broach this topic of white privilege in an academic setting did not sit very well with these powerful beneficiaries of that very privilege and so they sought to quash the conversation before it could even get started and again this should not surprise us for as the last election proved beyond a reasonable doubt many white americans perhaps even a majority of white americans feel that they are now under siege if they see race as an issue at all in this country they are quite certain that they are the ones who are now operating at a disadvantage wasi wrote last summer that there is this sense that thanks to affirmative action and lax immigration policies others have nudged ahead of them on the ladder of social ascent now three months after barack obama's first inauguration 66 percent of americans surveyed said that they regarded race relations in this country as generally good two-thirds as his second term of office draws to a close that percentage has flipped last summer 69 percent of those polled said that relations were mostly bad several developments helped to explain these peculiar numbers as we know a series of racially charged incidents started with the killing of trevon martin in florida and then michael brown in ferguson then sandra bland in texas which all culminated in the black lives matter movement which succeeded in alienating many whites ignoring the high incidence of violence against blacks in our criminal justice system critics of the movement claim that it sought that movement sought to prioritize black lives over white ones but of course as we know what was really being demanded was simply equal weight the acknowledgement that black lives also matter and that they can no longer be dispensed with at will point two during the presidential campaign much was made of the growing influence of immigrant and minority voters the calculus we were told is about to change whites would no longer be able to count on the political monopoly that we have always enjoyed and so in this respect our society may be close to reaching a tipping point back in 1992 andrew hacker who you've already heard from conducted research that showed that white flight from a community routinely began when black residency exceeded 8 percent this he observed is the point at which whites begin to worry about their property values and the honor of their white daughters and drug pushers in their midst more over hacker wrote this happens even when the blacks who move in have the same economic and social standing as the existing white residents owing to this particular phenomena residential segregation in our country has not declined very much in the last quarter century and now it appears that this other tipping point is about to be reached if it has not already been reached it appears that the prospect of being overwhelmed by newly enfranchised minority voters that this prospect may have motivated many whites to circle the wagons they chose to support a candidate who holds forth the promise of continued white dominance over a candidate with a vision of a multicultural multiracial future and then third the mere presence of a black family in the white house also had a profound impact now we know that barack obama will be leaving office at the end of this week with a positive approval rating around 55 percent michelle obama has become an admired figure in her own right but for all of that for many whites obama's presence in the oval office was an affront some of his political opponents announced from the get-go that they would not support any of his initiatives even if they agreed with them as lorenzo morris of howard university commented if you start off with such intense hostility and you don't call it racial it's hard to know what to call it except stupid nevertheless barack obama did make a persistent effort to be as he put it a president for all the people he often bent over backward to be inclusive when the congressional black caucus urged him to fund a program to reduce unemployment among black youth he responded by saying no i will fund a program for all youth in the united states still 32 of americans now blame the president for making the racial climate in our country worse now these have been in many ways heady and hopeful times for african americans loretto augustin herron she's a woman that worked with barack obama as he began his career as a community organizer in chicago for her it wasn't so much the policy proposed as his mere presence in the white house that mattered the most you cannot put a price tag on that she said we see a chance for us to fit into the u.s society in a way that we've never been able to do but even as he stood as as a symbol of achievement a symbol of possibility for some he represented a profound threat to others indeed obama produced provoked a counter movement that now controls the country as emory university's carole anderson observes in her book white rage the unspoken truth of our racial divide a backlash is always waiting it happened before she writes in the wake of reconstruction after desegregation and forced busting in response to the civil rights reforms and now again as barack obama prepares to leave office tana heesey coates says that obama went to considerable lengths to protect white innocence to avoid at all costs the complaint that he favored policies that served black interests exclusively and in this he succeeded yes there were some important gains made during his presidency but a half century after the passage of the civil rights act african-american still ranked near the bottom of every major socioeconomic measure in this country black household wealth one seventh that of white households black families earning a hundred thousand dollars or more are more likely to live in a disadvantage neighborhood than white families who make a third of that more blacks have acquired college degrees but their unemployment rate is the same as that with whites who have only a high school diploma and then of course there is this lack of equity in the criminal justice system remains a major problem i came across a study recently that was performed by the sarasota herald tribune newspaper in florida and they had conducted this thorough examination of sentencing patterns in that state their reporters discovered that florida judges sentenced blacks to longer prison terms in 60 percent of felony cases 68 percent of serious first-degree crimes 45 percent of burglaries the paper cited one egregious instance in which two teenagers from the same florida county one white one black each with no prior arrests were charged with armed robbery following the prosecutor and defense attorney's joint recommendation the judge in that case sentenced the white defendant the white youth to probation the same judge handed the black youth a four-year term in the state prison the best deal i could get for you his lawyer told him similar discrepancies undoubtedly are present in other states and i would bet in the state of wisconsin as well this situation did not appear by magic tanahisi coach says it's the result of our government's effort over many decades to create a pigmentocracy one that will continue he says without explicit intervention this pigmentocracy that he alludes to has actually been taking shape not just for the several decades but for several centuries according to the historian robert parkinson early patriots revolutionary war patriots used it to rally the 13 colonies around a common cause he discovered that up and down the eastern seaboard newspapers in the 1770s regularly printed stories about black perfidy and the loyalty of blacks and native americans to the british crown the ostensible goal of those articles was to unify whites by planting seeds of fear and suspicion of their non-white neighbors now blacks and native americans also fought alongside white patriots but parkinson found that the newspapers never printed those commendable stories and with independence the trend intensified you may know of course that thomas jefferson favored the deportation of blacks that he argued that due to innate differences between the two races integration could never be achieved should blacks and whites remain together in this country he predicted the extermination of one by the other was inevitable james madison was of a similar turn of mind proposing that blacks should be banished to the interior wilderness of the country james monroe his successor backed an expedition to africa for the purpose of establishing a country liberia where american blacks could be resettled david reynolds says that the founders were deeply bigoted about race and they would not accept even the possibility of coexistence and so he says this raises fundamental questions about the basis of american democracy that still divides the country this is not a matter solely of historical interest these men that i've mentioned as well as many others who promoted slavery or helped create and maintain jim crowe they're still very much a part of our national consciousness our cities are full of their statues bridges highways public buildings are named for them their faces appear on our national currency but when efforts are made to remove those names or their faces tainted by racism they are met with fierce white resistance as was also the case of course with the confederate battle flag the difference in perspective between whites and blacks on matters such as these is profound and it has created in recent years a great deal of tension among us a point of supposed regional pride for one becomes a source of acute distress for the other and instead of trying to understand that distress whites often become defensive accusing their black citizens fellow citizens of being overly sensitive or or playing the race card as john may have says history to such folks becomes utterly irrelevant because discussions of race in america have to center around the protection of white sensibilities so what then is to be done the election of donald trump makes it clear as wasi wrote wrote notes that racial resentment is indeed a renewable resource was there any possibility of changing that probably not at the policy level at least certainly not in the near term you know 10 years ago the former uwh history professor timothy tyson 10 years ago he complained that the kinds of initiatives it would take to heal the enduring scars of slavery's legacy those initiatives are completely off of the political chart today what was true 10 years ago is even more true today which does not mean that we shouldn't try to accomplish what we can through local public and private partnerships and faith-based initiatives which is something that we here at f us have made a priority in the past several years and beyond that just as important is the responsibility each of us must take for ourselves as we seek to transform america's consciousness and its pigmentocracy and here a gentleman by the name of gordon alport a pioneer in the field of personality psychology maybe of some help to us at harvard university gordon alport developed an avid interest in prejudice and how to overcome prejudice and so in the same year that the supreme court case brown versus the board of education was settled 1954 he introduced his contact theory alport proposed that personal biases prejudices can be overcome through cross-cultural experiences seems like common sense to us today but it wasn't in 1954 prejudice he declared back then is ultimately rooted in social segregation but it's not enough he maintained merely to rub shoulders with the objects of your bias to effectively reduce prejudice he said one must consort with individuals of comparable social and economic status proactively arrange for meaningful encounters create opportunities to work together toward a common goal combat stereotypes and actively support and work for equality all five of those need to be in place for you to transcend your native prejudices now to some extent recent research based on the cumulative results of harvard university's implicit bias test those results tend to support alport's thesis that personal bias does register a decline among those tested when they make an effort to connect with the source of that bias so the longer short of it is is that race is still very relevant to all of us in this country and that it will continue to challenge us for years to come but we can be to a certain degree proud of this institution this place we were sitting for its efforts over its entire 140 year history to improve race relations in this country that story briefly share this with you begins with bell case la fallot bell case la fallot was married to robert fighting bob la fallot in 1881 with the unitarian minister henry simons first minister of the society presiding subsequently bell la fallot became one of our unitarian pioneers here in madison but she was also a popular journalist and a sought after speaker throughout the country she was a fierce vocal opponent of jim crow laws and segregation and miss la fallot spoke out on this topic early and often in remarks that were delivered at the annual meeting of the new york city chapter of the nc double a in nc double ap in 1913 she said the race issue like the suffering question must be freely and seriously discussed in private conversations in the public press and from the pulpit you're welcome mrs la fallot some 30 years after that speech was delivered the congregation's then minister kenneth patin publicly tendered his resignation from the white race to underscore his distress with racial inequality after world war two in the early 1960s the reverend max gabler urged members of this congregation to fight against housing segregation by welcoming african-american families into their neighborhoods a plea that was almost universally ignored by the local real estate industry in closing i don't want to ignore the progress that we have clearly made as a society but as we know progress can never be charted on a single ascending line like a stock market graph it turns up and down there are peaks and valleys but unlike the stock market we cannot simply sit back and wait until the bear again becomes the bull because two visions of america's future are vying for dominance in today's world and those of us who do believe in racial healing and racial reconciliation we must ensure that the proper vision prevails may it be so and today we are sharing our offering with as your program indicates dane county's oldest established civil rights organizations the the urban league of greater madison they're doing wonderful work in our community to heal the racial divide so we invite you to be generous in your gifts further each week as a community of memory and of hope and to this time and place we bring our whole and sometimes our broken cells we carry with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past seeking here a place where they might be received and celebrated and shared today we announced a couple of losses carol miller long time member of this congregation meetinghouse guide member of our finance committees an avid supporter of our annual pledge campaign carol passed away this past week after suffering from dementia for the past several years we do not have information about a pending memorial service but we'll share that information when it becomes available and then mary rendell formerly mary weathers but weather wax she wants to let the congregation know that both of her parents died in 2016 her dad died in june at the age of 95 years 11 months and her mother in december at the age of 96 years and eight months they both she said had long good lives and the family will gather on their wedding anniversary april third to celebrate their lives so if you can offer your condolences to mary i'm sure that she would appreciate it in addition to those two sorrows just mentioned we would acknowledge any unarticulated joys and sorrows that remain among us and we hold those with equal concern in our hearts let us sit silently for just a moment or two in the spirit of empathy and hope and so by virtue of our brief time together this morning may our burdens be lightened and our joys expanded invite you now to turn to our closing hymn number 1018 and the teal hymnals and please be seated for the benediction and the exciting postlude our closing words come from the great african-american baritone paul robeson but before i share his words i would like to note that after the service if you've grabbed a cup of coffee and you'd like to have some further conversation around the issue i've discussed this morning eric severson will facilitate that discussion over there on my left uh in the front of the auditorium so bring your coffee if you'd like to kind of continue on share some perspectives and some experiences and eric would be uh very much looking forward to your presence so paul robeson we shall take our voices wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of despair and fear our weapons are peaceful for it's only by peace that peace can be attained but the song of freedom must prevail blessed be and amen