Please click the link to watch Rev. Cynthia’s video recording of this sermon.
Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed is one of those rare among us, a born and raised Unitarian Universalist. As an African American Unitarian Universalist minister with those family roots within our tradition, it makes sense that he has been drawn to researching and writing about the history of African Americans within our movement.
Early on in his book, Darkening the Doorways: Black Trailblazers and Missed Opportunities in Unitarian Universalism, he writes, “…the life stories and achievements of the African Americans you will discover on these pages are remarkable. That they chose our faith traditions as their religious home should fill us with pride; that they suffered the indignities that they did, at the hands of our spiritual ancestors, will fill us with shame. What I learned as I divined and despaired over the fate of these black trailblazers is that there will be other opportunities. New (people) will come forward. African Americans will be drawn to liberal religion as they were in the past. Our challenge today is to develop a culturally inclusive vision that is grand and hopeful enough to inspire, and a way of being that is open and welcoming to all races and cultures: Asian, Native American, Hispanic and those with roots in Africa. As we build in the present for the future we dream of, the only reliable foundation is one that honestly acknowledges, grieves, and celebrates the past; otherwise we will remain captive to beliefs and behaviors that have not served liberal religion well.”
Look to the past as we move into the future.
Because I will be sharing many passages from the book that include quotes from times when language was different, please be aware that this sermon will include some outdated language on race.
One of the earliest chapters of Darkening the Doorways is titled “A Cold Shoulder for William Jackson.” The chapter begins, “On Thursday, October 11, 1860, a key incident of Unitarian history occurred in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The American Unitarian Association (AUA) was holding its annual autumnal convention there, discussing among other topics how the AUA might spread the good news about Unitarianism to more people. On the last morning of the three-day convention, African American minister William Jackson stood and addressed the convention. What Jackson said was unprecedented; and the way the AUA responded prefigured the course of race relations for the next century.”
At the end of the chapter we are told that “William Potter publicly supported William Jackson, and Potter asked that a collection be taken…. White William Potter stood up in front of the AUA and voiced his support for black William Jackson. Jackson testified to his conversion to Unitarianism, to the use of reason in religion, to the universality of Jesus. But it was Potter who told the AUA that they should contribute money to William Jackson and the first African American Unitarian church.
“The rest of the white delegates at the autumnal convention, however,” says Morrison-Reed, “could not find it in themselves to voice their support for Jackson. Historian Douglas Stange described the historic moment in this widely quoted passage, ‘The Unitarians took a collection… and Mr. Jackson was sent on his way. No discussion, no welcome, no expression of praise and satisfaction was uttered that the Unitarian gospel had reached the ‘colored.’ In truth, the antislavery forces had lost the battle, perhaps because many of them had never begun to wage it.’”
Morrison-Reed talks about Unitarians response to the Fugitive Slave Law in the middle of the chapter on William Jackson.
Morrison-Reed writes, “The Fugitive Slave Law was part of the Compromise of 1850, an ultimately futile attempt to maintain national unity. Unitarian legislators argued on all sides—pro, con, and evasive—as the bill made its way into law. Joseph Grinnell, the U.S. representative from New Bedford from 1843 to 1850 and a lifelong member of the New Bedford Unitarian church, was conspicuously absent during the vote on the law—he didn’t want to vote against it because he owned a cotton mill and depended on good relations with the southern states for a supply of cheap cotton. Unitarian Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, was one of the law’s most vociferous opponents. John C. Calhoun, vice president of the United States and a founder of All Souls Church, Unitarian in Washington, DC staunchly defended slavery and states’ rights. He literally rose from his deathbed to hear his friend Daniel Webster’s address to the Senate. Webster, another senator and Unitarian, delivered a speech titled ‘Liberty and Union, One and Inseparable, Now and Forever,’ defending the rights of southern states to pursue fugitive slaves into the free states. And when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, President Millard Fillmore, another Unitarian, signed it into law, hoping it would stave off war.”
But why is all of this on the Fugitive Slave Act in a chapter on Rev. William Jackson? Because after it was passed, the first fugitive slave arrested under the law was William Taylor in Philadelphia. William Jackson led a group of men to rescue Taylor.
Years later, Jackson told the story: “…I felt myself nerved with moral and physical courage to do my duty and save a brother man from perpetual and cruel bondage. Hence, as the leader of a band of brave men, we went forth and rescued the prisoner from the clutches of the Marshal. We arrayed him in the attire of a woman and successfully landed him in a few hours on the shores of Canada, where he found shelter and friends in the city of Toronto. As the leader of the rescuing party, I was duly arrested and incarcerated in the city jail… Though it had been indicated by the officer at the time of my arrest that I should try to get bail, I surrendered myself up at once and made no effort in that direction, for I regarded it as no disgrace to be arrested and imprisoned under this infamous and inhuman law….”
To turn from the Unitarians to the Universalists, Morrison-Reed tells us, “When John Murray founded the first Universalist meeting house in America, historian Russell Miller states, ‘…among the eighty-five signatories of the Charter of the Compact of the Gloucester Society in 1785 [was] Gloster Dalton, an African brought to America as a slave.’…In 1801, Amy Scott, a black woman, was one of the incorporators of the First Universalist Society organized in Philadelphia. In the 1830s, Nathan Johnson, a prominent African American citizen of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and conductor on the Underground Railroad, became a member of its Universalist church when John Murray Spears, an abolitionist, was its minister.
“In 1784 the Universalist Benjamin Rush, who was among the first to call for the abolition of slavery, helped to organize and later served as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery…. Elhanan Winchester, an early Universalist itinerant preacher, who spent considerable time preaching to slaves, found the institution wholly inconsistent with a belief in ‘one great family.’ …Nonetheless, there were Universalist ministers, state conventions, and journals in the South that defended slavery. The editor of the Evangelical Universalist wrote in 1839, ‘We do not admit slavery to be an evil, but the greatest blessing that ever happened to the Negro race.’”
Ugh!
“Following the Civil War, only a few African Americans were drawn to Universalism, the missionary efforts being slight. The exception is significant. The Universalist mission in Virginia’s Tidewater region spanned nearly one hundred years.
“Joseph Jordan, the first African American to be ordained as a minister by the Universalist denomination, founded the First Universalist Church of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1887, and led an ever-expanding educational effort for African American children in Norfolk and vicinity. The mission and schools born of his vision and efforts served thousands of children and families in eastern Virginia until 1984.”
Moving on to another chapter of Darkening the Doorway, we are made aware of how much harm one person with a wide platform can do. This chapter begins not with that person, John van Schaick, but with some of those he reacted against and who responded to him.
“Jeffrey Worthington Campbell and his sister Marguerite, children of a white mother and an African American father, were raised Universalist in Nashua, New Hampshire. Jeffrey graduated from St. Lawrence University (founded by the Universalists) in 1933 and from St. Lawrence’s Canton Theological School in 1935. During his six years there, he was the only black student on campus. He served as student minister in Winthrop, New York, was ordained to the Universalist ministry in 1935, and received fellowship from the Unitarians in 1938. …in 1939, unable to find a congregation to serve, he left America to study in London. It was while there that he wrote the stunning autobiographical essay ‘Personality Not Pigmentation,’ published in the February 24, 1940, issue of the Christian Leader, the Universalist denominational publication… Marguerite Campbell had followed her brother to St. Lawrence University, and upon her graduation in 1939, married her white classmate, Francis Davis. They had been high school sweethearts in Nashua and now he was studying at Canton for the Universalist ministry. Jeffrey Campbell officiated at the wedding ceremony.”
Even before John van Schaick sets his sights on the Campbells and Davis, his racist views were apparent. John van Schaick became editor of the Christian Leader, the Universalist denominational publication in 1922. Before he took over, the African American mission in Tidewater Virginia was featured prominently and speaking tours to raise money in the north for the program were covered. Once van Schaick took over as editor, news of the mission was featured far less often and relegated to snippets in the back pages.
“The March 25, 1939, issue of the Leader carries a van Shaick editorial supporting the District of Columbia Board of Education’s decision to bar Marian Anderson from performing at the whites-only Central High School—a venue Anderson and her representatives had turned to after being barred from Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
“The August 12, 1939, issue of the Leader carries van Schaick’s editorial, ‘Idealism and Realism in Mixed Marriages,’ condemning the marriage of Marguerite Campbell and Francis Davis.
“He wrote, ‘We believe that mixed marriages are racially unwise and morally wrong.’
“In addition to being morally wrong,” he said, “a mixed marriage disqualifies a minister from ever serving a Universalist church.
“Not content just to attack the Campbell-Davis marriage or undermine Davis’s ability to serve a Universalist church, van Schaick also attacks Jeffrey Campbell in the editorial, though not by name.
“Letters pro and con flowed into the Leader until van Schaick stopped publishing them in October of 1939. Jeffrey Campbell’s essay, ‘Personality Not Pigmentation,’ was published in the February 24, 1940 issue, but van Schaick preceded it with his own editorial, entitled ‘Mr. Campbell’s Article’ (though Campbell was ordained and held dual fellowship, van Schaick did not give him the honorific Reverend). Van Schaick’s contempt for Campbell and his views permeates the editorial.…”
Morrison Reed writes, “One of the achievements of Campbell’s essay is that he responds to the personal attacks on his parents, his sister and brother-in-law, and his call to the ministry with an appeal to Universalism to live up to its oft-stated ideals.”
Toward the end of the book Darkening the Doorways, Morrison-Reed has a section of essays titled “The Empowerment Saga,” dealing with the race struggles of the 1960s in the denomination.
What has become known in the denomination as the “Black Empowerment Controversy” began in 1967.
“During the summer of 1967, there were seventy-five major riots in cities across the United States, resulting in eighty-three deaths. That October, in an effort to be proactive, the UUA Commission on Race and Religion convened the Emergency Conference on the UU Response to the Black Rebellion, at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City… thirty-four African Americans… withdrew from the Emergency Conference agenda to form a black caucus…. When (the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus) rejoined the conference after meeting separately, they presented a list of non-negotiable demands. One of these was the establishment of a Black Affairs Council (BAC), whose membership would be chosen by (the caucus) and would be funded by the UUA for four years at $250,000 a year. After a heated debate, the conference endorsed the demands unamended and forwarded them to the UUA Board of Trustees. The other plan that emerged from the caucus was to hold a National Conference of Black UUs on February 23-25, 1968. That first-ever gathering was held in Chicago and drew 207 of the approximately 600 African American UUs.
“A divided UUA Board had declined to fund the Black Affairs Council (BAC). Instead, the board invited it to apply for affiliate status within the UUA while also creating the UU Fund for Racial Justice. The fund, with a budget of $300,000 per year, would be administered by a reconstituted Commission on Race and Religion that was later renamed Commission for Action on Race.
“In May 1968, a group of Afro- and Euro-Americans calling itself the Black and White Alternative, later changed to Black and White Action (BAWA), organized in New York City. It sought support for blacks and whites working together to eliminate racism.
“In June, the UUA General Assembly (GA) met in Cleveland…. In the business meeting, the BAC funding proposal was placed on the agenda, and in an atmosphere of extraordinary emotional tension, the proponents of BAWA (Black and White Action) and BAC (Black Affairs Council) competed and struggled for the support of the delegates. On the third day of the assembly, the delegates voted 836 to 327 to fund the BAC at $250,000 a year for four years. The delegates also voted to give $50,000 to BAWA, over the protest of the BAC….
“At the 1969 GA (the next year) in Boston, the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC) commandeered the microphones and demanded that the agenda as planned be rescinded by vote of the delegates and replaced by a new one that put the BAC funding first. After an unusually bitter debate, assembly delegates refused to accept this change. In response, many BUUC members left. Subsequently, those who supported them also left and regrouped at the nearby Arlington Street Church. A denominational schism seemed possible, but mediation was successful, and delegates came together again….
Soon after this GA the UUA realized the extent of the denomination’s fiscal problems and the total UUA budget was cut by one million dollars: “In 1970, the BUUC voted to disaffiliate from the UUA and launch its own funding campaign selling BAC bonds.”
Morrison-Reed features essays from several of those involved giving various perspectives.
That is pretty much the end of Morrison-Reed’s timeline in the book, but I cannot leave this history without mentioning the hiring controversy of 2017. An article by Christopher L. Walton in our denominational magazine UU World stated, “On Monday, March 27, Elaine McArdle reported on the controversy that erupted since March 17 about hiring practices in the Unitarian Universalist Association, which critics say reflect and perpetuate white supremacy and a bias toward ordained, usually male religious professionals. Four days later, on March 30, I reported that UUA President Peter Morales announced he was resigning effective April 1, and that the Leadership Council vowed to conduct a comprehensive review of hiring practices,” (from Updates to presidential resignation and controversy over hiring practices | UU World Magazine).
In an article in UU World in April 2017, Eileen McArdle wrote, “UUA President Peter Morales resigned on April 1, three months before the end of his tenure, in the face of a controversy over UUA hiring practices, which critics say systematically favor white UU ministers. The Rev. Harlan Limpert, chief operating officer, and the Rev. Scott Tayler, director of Congregational Life, announced they would also step down.
“In an announcement released at 11 p.m. Monday, (April 10) the board said it had appointed the Rev. Sofía Betancourt, the Rev. William G. Sinkford, and Leon Spencer to serve as co-presidents,” (from Three co-presidents to lead UUA until General Assembly 2017 | UU World Magazine). The three interim co-presidents were all people of color.
In response to this controversy, a group of UU religious educators prepared a Teach-In on White Supremacy. The East Shore Unitarian Church in the state of Washington wrote this in their publicity in May 2017, advertising the planned teach-in: “What has emerged from this controversy is a desire to understand what it means to live in a society that lifts up one group as more valued than any other. A group of religious educators gathered to talk about how to create a structured opportunity for our congregations to expand the dialogue and their learning in this area. The result was the call for the UU White Supremacy Teach-In. The words ‘White Supremacy’ have caused unease, discomfort and in some cases, outright anger almost exclusively from white people. Those of us who support the Teach-In have been accused of calling UUs ‘white supremacists.’ While I can empathize with the confusion, the religious educators who have been working on this are asking that people take the time to listen to what is being asked and not engage from a place of defensiveness. No one called Unitarian Universalists ‘white supremacists,’ what has been lifted up is the ways in which the system of ‘White Supremacy’ has created the conditions that now exist in our denomination and country. The purpose of the Teach-In, is just that, an opportunity for folks to teach and for folks to learn about the water in which we all swim, the water of white supremacy,” (from UU Teach-in about White Supremacy – East Shore Unitarian Church, Bellevue WA).
This Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday weekend is a good time to consider our Unitarian Universalist mixed history dealing with issues of race. Remember our Time for All Ages story of the Sankofa bird. In the story, the Sankofa told the child, “Each mistake and each success has taught you something. By reflecting on them, you can make better choices.”
We look back to prepare ourselves for the future.
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