Guest speaker addresses First Parish from pulpit at Black Lives Matter service

Why We Display a Black Lives Matter Banner

As Unitarian Universalists, we believe in every person’s inherent right to have equal access to a dignified existence. We recognize that the devaluing of black lives is a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, systems that were in place for hundred of years in this country. Today, black people continue to be at risk from systems that devalue or endanger them: mass incarceration, economic inequality, housing discrimination, unequal educational opportunity, and lack of legal accountability for violence born of racial bias.

We join other Unitarian Universalist churches across the country in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. We display a banner in the front of our church as a demonstration of our intention to strive for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. Our goal as a faith is a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; we believe that rising in support of black lives is essential to pursuing that goal.