Racial Justice Advocates

Racial Justice Advocates

For centuries, the legacy and enduring reality of racism has wrought devastation on communities of color. In this country, the consequences of racism have been acute since the mid-17th century. While focused especially on the injustices of race, RJA recognizes the interconnectedness of various forms of injustice along lines of race, gender, ethnicity, age, and gender identity across multiple categories. Access to health care and housing, treatment of refugees and immigrants, decisions about incarceration, and various indirect forms of violence are affected, often negatively, by these factors. We seek to understand and to address the ways these and other categories are shaped by the structures of injustice.

MEMBERS OF THE RACIAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES. Janet Boynton, Alice DeNormandie, Liz Elliott, Mary Gaylord, Ken Hurd, Joan Kimball, Mary Helen Lorenz (Founding Chair), Laura Protzman, and Barbara Slayter

It is the hope and responsibility of faith communities to speak to these issues with clarity and relevance and to promote action that will bring about a more equitable and just society. With these overarching values in mind, the RJA revisited its vision statement in September 2024 and revised it to include five objectives:

  • LEARN: To facilitate educational and challenging conversations about racism and its impacts and provide resources for individual and communal learning.
  • INSPIRE: To encourage the members of the Congregation in intergenerational conversation and action, within families and in groups
  • ENGAGE: To engage with communities of color in ways that build relationships promoting understanding and empathy leading to a more just society
  • PARTNER: To partner with organizations that are doing antiracist work and to provide concrete support for these efforts.
  • ACT: To organize direct actions (both individual and collective) that promote justice and the dismantling of racist policies and institutions in our society. 

Our work for the upcoming church year will be guided by three themes:

  • Deepening democracy in our multiracial, multicultural society:   RJA members are mindful of the religious freedom, civil rights, and related responsibilities afforded in our democratic system of government.  We support deeply American values – due process of law, constitutional governance, democracy, and the American vision of justice for all.
  • Strengthening justice for immigrants:    RJA members seek opportunities to educate ourselves on issues surrounding the currently fraught topic of immigration, to advocate for humane policies and treatment at both the state and national levels, and to provide support in the form of material goods and services as well as advocacy for fair treatment.
  • Supporting human rights:   We wish to become better informed about issues of peace, justice, and human dignity here in our own community, our country, and elsewhere, seizing opportunities to understand more fully the forces at play in complex situations and to become more compassionate toward the suffering of others.

The Racial Justice Advocates organized and/or hosted a

  • Trip to the Auschwitz Exhibit: “Not Long Ago. Not Far Away” in Boston
  • Film Screening: “Origin” depicting Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Isabel Wilkerson, as she researched her 2020 book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontent” 
  • Visit to the UUUM Meetinghouse for discussion and tour of the church and environs with Thomas Plant and Mary Margaret Earle. (Bus provided)
  • Screening of documentary about Marian Anderson: “The Whole World in Her Hands”
  • Preparation and delivery of Thanksgiving food bags for Solutions at Work
  • Speaker, Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian environmental scientist, affiliated with Bethlehem University to speak on climate change in developing countries, war torn and occupied regions
  • Support team for the FPL METCO Gala including evening program and Gala to celebrate the Wednesday Scholars’ Program
  • Zoom meeting with UUUM, “Black Veterans in the Revolution and Beyond”
  • Video and short talk to the FPL young students to honor Dr. Martin Luther King
  • Screening of “Til Kingdom Come” a documentary on Christian Zionism
  • Forum with Thomas Plant, historian and UUUM Board member speaking on “Roxbury’s African Community and its role in the American Revolution
  • Trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see the exhibit, “Witnessing Humanity” of esteemed artist, John Wilson (1922-2015) from Roxbury, whose vision of life in America over sixty years captures persistent realities of disenfranchisement, racial prejudice and social injustice. Bus was provided.

The Racial Justice Journey

The origins of our FPL Racial Justice Journey, 2020 to the present

Environmental Justice

Exploring ways in which Environmental Justice is Racial Justice

Immigration Justice

Identifying ways to understand immigration issues and to support the immigrant community

Resources.

RJA Book List.

Our book list is an evolving collection of resources recommended by various RJA members and friends. See some of our highlighted books below and CLICK HERE to download the latest annotated list.

No Justice in the Shadows

This provocative account of our immigration system’s long, racist history reveals how it has become the brutal machine that upends the lives of millions of immigrants today.

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza

Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition.

The New Jim Crow

Alexander challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

Jesus and the Disinherited

Read the work that inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. and helped shape the civil rights movement.

RJA Film List.

Throughout our Racial Justice Journey we have viewed a number of films. CLICK HERE to download a list of some of our recommended documentaries and feature films.