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The Rev. Mary H. Reaman, minister at Tree of Life Community: A Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Dayton, Ohio, is organizing a busload of people to go to the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. She hopes that this is just the beginning of a movement toward greater activism by all progressives. (Dayton Daily News – 1.15.17)
The social action committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York, has sponsored two busses to take locals to Washington, D.C., for the Women’s March. Church member Carole Pynchon said many people who had to be turned away once the busses sold out are carpooling and caravanning to travel down. “It has been an amazing cooperative effort pulling this together,” said Pynchon. (North Country Now – 1.18.17)
Members of First Parish in Concord, Massachusetts, wore their hand-knitted pink pussy hats to church last weekend to have them blessed in preparation for the march. The hats are from a wildly popular grassroots campaign to help women reclaim their power in the Trump era, and thousands of marchers will be wearing them this weekend. (Boston Globe – 1.16.17)
More coverage:
"Georgians plan sizable contingent in Women’s March on Washington" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution – 1.18.17)
"Area Hoosiers head to Washington for inauguration, women's march" (WSBT – 1.17.17)
Learn more about UUs participating in women's marches across the country and how you can get involved.
MLK commemorations highlight UU commitment to justice
Dan McKanan, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was interviewed on the origins of a popular saying often attributed to Martin Luther King Jr., that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The phrase is actually borrowed from abolitionist and Unitarian preacher Theodore Parker. But McKanan notes, “Martin Luther King was one of the best at taking borrowed material and making it better.” (WGBH.org – 1.16.17)
The Community Church in Boston, Massachusetts, celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday by remembering a letter King once wrote to the congregation, praising them for their work for peace and justice and urging them to stay vigilant in the fight for civil rights. In the ceremony, that message continued to resonate for church members. (Boston Globe – 1.16.17)
More coverage:
"Essay: Remembering the Selma March, the ‘grandest hour of the civil rights movement’" (East Village Magazine – 1.16.17)
'Still Prophetic': Local clergy to stage reading of 'Birmingham City Jail’ (Worcester Telegram – 1.16.17)