Social Justice on Social Media

Here are just a few examples of ways that UUs are using social media to spread love and fight injustice in the world:

Members of the UPLIFT Collective, a group of Unitarian Universalists, are uplifting trans, nonbinary, and other LGBTQIA+ people with social media messages of love and solidarity under the hashtag #UPLIFTcollective.

UU seminarian Meghan Garvey, at the TikTok account ChaliceTok, posted one such widely shared message of gratitude and affection, which begins, “Hey, I love your pronouns. I love your name. I love that you tell me what is helpful and what is hurtful. I love that I’ve been given a map to know how to love you as you want to be loved and not be limited to my own imagination.”

Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford, lead minister of Live Oak UU Congregation in Austin, Texas, spoke out against book banning at a Texas school board meeting in a video shared via TikTok. Wearing her clergy collar, she described an offensive, violent book in the library—which turned out to be the Bible, making her point that book banning is wrong. Actor Jamie Lee Curtis—and many others—shared the post on her own social media, saying, “If you only watch one video today.......please, PLEASE watch this. And then repost, forward and share it as widely as you possibly can.”

And Beacon Press, which has a storied history in opposing censorship, including publishing the Pentagon Papers, shared a statement on Instagram and Twitter about the current wave of book banning, noting, “Banning access to books and literacy has long been used as a tool in the white supremacist war against marginalized communities . . .” Beacon Press is also donating copies of its banned books to schools in more than forty states and offering free e-books.