To our BLUU Beloveds and to our Black kindred across the diaspora:
Beautiful Black people on this day, remember the evergreen and always relevant words of Toni Morrison from her novel “Beloved” about loving ourselves. If you can, in ways big and small, find ways to love on yourself, your children — all your living family both chosen and otherwise. Nap and rest, if you can — and if you can’t rest, pause and take a deep breath whenever and wherever you can. If that doesn’t feel right go scream into a pillow or up to the heavens. The point is to feel, to care for and to love on yourself in kind ways to yourself — however that looks for you.
Know that whatever else we are a part of, we are part of a legacy of love. Despite the trauma, despite the challenge, we can always choose to come back to love.
Toni Morrison wrote:
In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver — love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.
The conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of Geroge Floyd was important. The settlement George Floyd’s family was awarded was important. Minneapolis City Councillors pledging to defund the police and the people’s petition to change the city charter to allow for the full divestment from policing are important.
We cannot pretend that these things don’t matter. They do. And the fight for justice must continue because the systems that created the conditions for George Floyd’s murder remain fundamentally unchanged.
We must continue to work to create a system of public safety so deeply honoring of each and every person’s inherent worth and dignity that the possibility of murder by the police no longer exists.
This is especially necessary work for the liberation of Black and Indigenous people in particular, who have been disproportionately impacted by state and police violence.
The system of policing that holds police officers as super human, above the law and above consequences, must come to an end. We know that true justice doesn’t come from incarceration. True liberation won’t come without completely transforming our understanding of policing and public safety.
We can honor George Floyd’s memory best by not forgetting the immensity of what we felt last year and by continuing to give to Black organizations fighting for abolition. (If you aren’t ready to call yourself an abolitionist quite yet, you can pick up a book and start reading. There are many to choose from. I suggest Mariame Kaba’s “We Do This ’Til We Free Us”.)
Whatever you do, don’t go back to complacency or frozen inaction because “you don’t know what to do”.
Be brave, find your courage to confront your own oppressive beliefs and start the unraveling. When we become unraveled, we can choose with intention, purpose and love how we re-ravel — how we rebuild our corner of the world.
There are thousands and more paths to liberation. Get started on one if you haven’t, continue on yours if you have, and know that we can and must create a more loving world. The other options are there, but they are destroying us and the world around us. Each day we can choose a new, different, and more loving way. From that path we will understand more clearly what a just world can be. And the best news is, we can go about making it.
Rev. Mykal Slack, BLUU’s Community Minister for Worship & Spiritual Care, sings at the Harper-Jordan Symposium in 2019.
When a group of Black UUs first met in Cleveland at the Movement for Black Lives Convening in 2015, what would become BLUU was just a dream. BLUU’s co-founders wanted to support Black people with both a desire for spiritual community and a heart for collective liberation. BLUU’s founders had no way of knowing that this dream would blossom into an organization creating virtual worship experiences for Black people, sustaining regular programming for children and youth, and organizing to fundamentally change material conditions for Black people impacted by systemic anti-Blackness.
Because our work fulfills significant needs in our community, we’ve been doing this work at a rapid pace without any substantial pause in our work since BLUU’s founding.
Our leadership team, the Organizing Collective Board, have decided it’s time for us to take that collective pause this year. BLUU turns six this July, and we have so much to celebrate about that six years. We must also do some reflection — about what we’ve learned, where we’ve succeeded, and where there’s an opportunity for us to change and evolve.
On July 1, 2021, we will be slowing down or pausing most BLUU programming so we can reflect on our work this past six years and focus on organizational strategy for the future.
To our Black UU family and all those who hold us close, it’s important to us that you know that we are not dissolving BLUU. We are not folding, and we are not stopping this vitally important ministry we have been called to bring forth into this broken world. We have always taken the future of BLUU seriously — even as we’ve wrestled with what it means to be both a spiritual community and an organizing force for Black and collective liberation in the world. We have always been about building with intention, forethought and purpose. BLUU has been called to urgently address the injustices impacting Black people, and we’ve been able to answer that call.
We are now called into a moment of evaluation and reflection so that we may be able to learn from our earliest beginnings and fashion a future that is even better. We are living most deeply in this moment into our principles of thriving and experimentation. Thriving requires and necessitates moments of reflection, especially after periods of intense productivity. Experimentation also requires us to look back on our work and think carefully about things we want to carry into the future and things we want to put to rest, with our gratitude for the lessons they’ve taught us.
“The BLUU leadership team is being wise to take a pause at this point,” said Rev. Bill Sinkford, former UUA president and BLUU Advisory Team member. “New organizations, especially those with a record of such great success, often need a space for leadership to breathe, dropping back a bit from the urgency of delivering week after week, in order to clarify the way forward. The Financial Advisory Team (a working group within the Advisory Team) is entirely supportive of this decision.”
We want to move forward and continue building in a way that is more sustainable for the people moving the work of the organization — the staff, the OCB and our dedicated volunteers. We can’t continue our work at the current level and complete an entire restructuring effort. It is in this spirit of building a bright and bold future, where we can continue working to be the best we can be, that we endeavor to pause some of our outward programming so that we may focus inward for a bit. We pledge to give updates as we make progress, and to bring you all along with us on the journey. As part of this restructuring process, we will be imagining ways to communicate even more effectively with our Beloveds. For now, make sure you’re subscribed to our email list where we share the most important BLUU news monthly. It is the best way to stay in the loop with BLUU!
During this time, we will focus on BLUU’s organizational structure, restructuring to build clear lines of power and authority, while maintaining the intention and spirit of collaborative governance. While we’ve been having preliminary discussions about this work for years, this is the first time we’re intentionally slowing down programming to focus on restructure work.
We want our BLUU community to know what this pause means for the upcoming year. Here are some ways this pause will impact our ongoing work:
Worship:
Every year, BLUU takes a break from worship in July, and we will take this July offfrom worship as usual. Starting in August, BLUU will have virtual worship once a month on the first Thursday of the month at 9 p.m. Eastern until further notice. (Those who regularly attend worship are used to having worship twice a month.)
BLUUBerry and Berry Youth:
The BLUUBerry and Berry Youth Saturday jams will continue on Saturdays through June 19. After June 19, BLUUBerry and Berry Youth programming will be on hold until 2022. A relaunch date for our youth ministry will be announced at a later date.
Havens and Harbors:
Existing BLUU Havens will continue to build opportunities for local connection, and we will still be accepting Havens applications.
BLUU Harbor applications are on hold because we need the time and capacity it will take to hold the extensiveness of the Harbor application process, and we don’t have that capacity right now.
Community Care:
Our BLUU community will still receive Daily Affirmations and receive as-needed pastoral care. We will also continue to send email updates on an as-needed basis, including monthly reminders about worship.
BLUU at General Assembly:
We are excited to offer a week of BLUU programming during the week of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly. Come worship with us, take a writing workshop, meet Black seminarians, or learn about our housing initiative or Havens and Harbors communities. Registration for BLUU GA programming is free and open now. Our workshops about the Havens and Harbors and Housing Initiative are open to all. All other programming is Black sacred space.
This chart shows the ways BLUU community spaces will be impacted by the upcoming organizational pause. For an audio version of this chart, visit bit.ly/BLUUPauseAudio
Although we are pressing pause on much of our programming for this restructure work, we are still moving forward into a bright and bold BLUU future. Here are some additional updates about BLUU’s infrastructure and ongoing work we want you to know as we head into this programming pause:
Our endowment is holding steady:
A bright future requires capital! And it is towards this end that we share with you that our endowment grew last year by about $855,000 dollars. We are proud to have established the BLUU Endowment within the UU Common Endowment Fund. BLUU currently holds $4.5 million in our endowment. This is a good position for us to be in financially. We’re hopeful that on the other end of our structuring process, we’ll be able to have more regular financial updates for our community. Transparency has always been a value of BLUU. Please sign up for leadership updates to find out when you can apply to be on the Financial Transparency Group.
BLUU Housing Initiative:
We launched The BLUU Northside Cooperative Housing Initiative in 2019 to help build permanently affordable housing for Black and Indigenous families in North Minneapolis. Through a hybrid land trust and cooperative housing model, we’ll be constructing about 30 new townhomes for families to live in and build long-term wealth. We’re excited to be partnering with the City of Lakes Community Land Trust and Urban Homeworks and for forthcoming partnerships with two other organizations to be able to make this plan a reality. In January of 2021 we applied for financing assistance from the City of Minneapolis to be able to build on one of our sites. We are still awaiting the decision of that assistance, but if we receive it, it is likely that we could break ground this year. Stay tuned to BlackLivesUU.org for our most recent updates about this project.
New Website:
We enlisted the help of The Black Tech Guy to help us with a website project that was delayed during 2020. The Black Tech Guy partnered with our Communications Director, Marchaé Grair, to get us to the finish line with that project. The website will launch this summer. We hope you’ll enjoy the streamlined information and improved accessibility of this new website when it launches!
Forthcoming publications:
Committed to the healing and spiritual growth of our people, and to a Unitarian Universalism that centers Blackness, we are thrilled to be under contract with Skinner House Books to publish a book of meditations, poems, songs, and reflections by Black folks in our movement. We’re in the process of finalizing the list of contributors with the hope that it will be published and ready for distribution by the end of 2021! A second work, an edited volume for the Voices series, has been approved for publication in the near future. We are grateful for the dedication of OCB members Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin and Rev. Mykal Slack who are serving as co-editors for both of these projects.
Team Sankofa:
During this time of rebuilding and restructuring, the OCB and Team Sankofa are exploring ways to dream together about the possibilities for change-making and engaging in supported and sustainable base building organizing trajectories. We are grateful to Team Sankofa for the dedication, commitment and hard work in the BLUU community and we are excited about what is yet to come.
BLUU Box:
Publication of the BLUU Box is currently on hold. If you have a question about an existing subscription, please contact info@BlackLivesUU.org.
We are taking time to engage in this critical strategic work because we want BLUU to exist for a long time. We’re excited to come back from this pause with clarity about our work together and a renewed dream about what BLUU will be in the years to come.
If you have questions about this time of pausing and planning, please feel free to contact us. Please send us an email at blacklivesofuu@gmail.com.
If you’re wondering how to help people who are being hit by Hurricane Ida, we’re here to help!
It can be hard to know who and what organizations to donate to because you obviously want financial resources to get to where it can be most useful. For those purposes, we’ve reached out to a few New Orleans community members that members of the BLUU OCB have long standing relationships with and asked which organizations or groups would they recommend contributing to. These are trusted sources that are distributing money on the ground currently or will be in the coming months. The recovery from Hurricane Ida is going to be a very long one.
BLUU will be continuing to vett and add to this list of groups and organizations.
A few notes about the listed groups and organizations:
*If you are able to and want to donate to mutual aid funds, these are a powerful way to quickly get money into the hands of individuals and families who need support immediately. They often don’t have arduous or complicated application and disbursement processes. These are also not tax-deductible donations.
*If you are wanting to support an organization, we will list a few options that are tax-deductible donations.
Please choose the organizations and groups that speak to you and your heart. We’ll be sharing these groups through posts on social media in the days ahead and hopefully giving a little bit of context or info for each one. Please share and invite others to support in this time of need.
Also please be aware that most organizations are being run right now by staffers or volunteers who have left the city. The city has no power and water is on a boil warning. So their websites may not reflect what has happened however their longstanding methods by which to donate are functioning and they will get the money. For many orgs you can follow on Instagram or elsewhere to be able to get updates.
BLUU has started an individual fund for students at George Washington Carver High School. Through a contact at the school we’ll be distributing funds raised to individual students through PayPal and Cash App. You can give to this specific effort by clicking here.
The House of Tulip is co-founded and led by trans folks and offers support services for trans and gender nonconforming communities, including some mutual aid. Please follow them on Instagram at @houseoftulipno and they have listed other ways to give (the usernames must be exact, sadly some people are trying to scam people by imitating and coming up with usernames that are close — but these are the correct ones AND if you want to be certain you can always give through their website):
CashApp: $HouseOfTulip
Venmo: @HouseofTulip
Paypal: Paypal.me/HouseOfTulip
Broad Community Connections is a community-led and community-based organization that is working on the revitalization of a historically Black neighborhood. They are gearing up to support those in need in the wake of Hurricane Ida. Including support of businesses.
The United Houma Nation There are many small and rural tribal nations that have been hit hard by the hurricane and will need support. Some tribal nations are offering mutual aid disbursements.
For more specific mutual aid giving opportunities please visit the following links displayed below from the Instagram account @mutualaiddisasterrelief
If you want to volunteer remotely, need assistance, or send supplies to Louisiana:
Please donate and help. The power is out across many areas of Louisiana. And people need help. You can also visit https://www.disasterassistance.gov/for federal government assistance. On this site, you can look up a city and state or zip code to see if the area is currently declared a disaster due to flooding, wild fires, and hurricanes and apply for assistance.
Natasha Walker joins Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) as the Developmental Board Chair of BLUU’s Organizing Collective Board of Directors. She will focus on OCB recruitment, project management, and training during the strategizing for and implementation of BLUU’s restructure process.
St. Paul, Minnesota —
(L-R): The BLUU Organizing Collective Board welcomes Natasha Walker as its new Developmental Board Chair. Natasha is pictured with her children.
After a competitive search, BLUU is excited to welcome Natasha Walker as its new Developmental Board Chair.
“We took our time and were very intentional about finding the right person to help lead BLUU onward in our journey,” said Executive Director Lena K. Gardner.
The Organizing Collective Board of Directors (OCB) is a working board that serves as the governing body of BLUU. Natasha will lead project management for the OCB, support OCB skill development, and serve as the OCB’s primary liaison betwen BLUU and community members and partners.
“I’m excited at the prospect of amplifying the impact and continuing the strong legacy of the BLUU Collective,” Natasha said. “I believe you can’t complain if you’re not in the fight, trying to make things better. We all have something to contribute to building a new way. Get engaged, share your voice, and creative solutions will appear.”
Natasha brings key experience as a Black Unitarian Universalist and project manager. She attends services at Unity Temple (Oak Park) and the First Unitarian Church of Chicago (Hyde Park). Natasha is also a Project Manager at Google, with deep expertise in efficiency, process improvement, and organizational design. Prior to Google, she worked at Disney, McKinsey & Company, Pepperidge Farm, and General Motors. She is also active on the Board of Free Spirit Media, an organization focused on helping underrepresented youth in Chicago tell their stories.
“We feel honored and thrilled that Natasha brings not only high-level project management and leadership skills and experience, but also a deep understanding of BLUU, connection to our BLUUBerries programming and attended the historic Convening in 2017 which truly birthed our community,” Lena said. “We couldn’t have dreamed of a better candidate and are thrilled to be bringing her aboard!”
About BLUU:
Formed in the wake of several conversations among Black UUs at the July 2015 Movement for Black Lives Convening in Cleveland, OH, Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism is committed to expanding the power and capacity of Black UUs within Unitarian Universalism; providing support, information, and resources for Black Unitarian Universalists; and justice-making and liberation for Black people through our faith.
Sixty-three people responded to the survey and gave us in-depth feedback about their experiences with and hopes for BLUU. Those who responded represented many ages, sexual orientations, regions, and genders.
While we released this survey last year, we still believe these survey results can teach us about the current state of what our community needs. We took a programmatic pause shortly after the survey was released to do organizational restructure work. (Most of BLUU’s programming is still on hiatus.)
Here is a summary of our survey results and how they impact our current restructure process.
Why does our community need BLUU?
Based on survey results, there are three main reasons Black folks are a part of BLUU’s community. BLUU community members are seeking community, worship, and connection to social justice/activism.
It is important to BLUU community members that BLUU offers Black sacred space, or space specifically for and centering the voices of Black people. People who had an interest in BLUU social justice/activism had a particular interest in making Unitarian Universalism more inclusive.
More than 50% of respondents reported that they had no unmet needs from BLUU. For those who would like additional offerings from BLUU, the requests spanned across three main categories: Spirituality, Localization, and Additional Programming.
What is BLUU doing well?
People enjoy how we gather. BLUU virtual worship continues to be a meaningful resource of spiritual sustenance for our community. Our community lives in many regions, so many of our community members would value having worship available to watch later if they can’t make a live, virtual service.
“There has been this beautiful sense of community and love in every service I’ve been able to attend,” one survey respondent said. “I have attended a number of faith communities over the years and this has been the only one that felt real.”
Another survey respondent said, “It really aligns with my current beliefs and where I am in life and it leaves room and supports growth. I love that it centers Black voices and our Black experiences in all its various forms. I do not have to dismiss my religious upbringings to grow in my spirituality and adopt new practices.”
While worship is a core part of BLUU’s offerings, our community wants us to expand our programming so folks can also gather in other ways.
BLUU Convenings and the Harper-Jordan Symposium were powerful experiences for people to embrace the liberating power of Unitarian Universalism through a Black-centered experience. Although we’ve understandably not been gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic, people miss our in-person gatherings.
What are BLUU’s opportunities for growth?
The survey makes it clear that we have work to do to make sure our community members know how to engage with us and know how to give us feedback. People in our community expressed not knowing how to get involved with BLUU and feeling frustrated they can’t get a response to their questions about our work or our programming. Folks also said they experience a lack of engagement with their ideas when they share them with BLUU leadership.
Others named positive interactions with individual leaders in BLUU that keep them engaged with BLUU despite dissatisfaction with overall community engagement.
“All these experiences, but especially the website content and application questions, put me under the impression that I am not welcome… like BLUU is a restrictive and exclusive club,” one survey respondent said. “And that is absolutely bizarre because everyone is so nice via Zoom and email. l decided to just be content participating in the online worship gatherings for as long they are offered.”
Community members also shared confusion about BLUU’s mission and vision. People were confused about both our organizational structure and what it means to be a BLUU member, or “BLUU Beloved.”
What’s next?
We have been working with AORTA, a movement-based organizational change organization, to do a deep dive into our organizational culture and how that culture contributes to some of the opportunities for growth named in our survey. We know that how we work and communicate together impacts how we show up for the wider BLUU community.
Our new Developmental Board Chair, Natasha Walker, is doing an organizational diagnostic. This will help us consider what structural changes need to be made so that our work is clearer internally and therefore easier to explain and engage people in more broadly.
After our organizational pause is complete, we will have a new structure and refined mission for our organization that we can share with our community. This clarity of our structure will create the container for expanded capacity, which will help us expand our programming.
After our structure and workflows are clear, we will design and implement a communications strategy that prioritizes community engagement. This includes finishing work on a simplified, streamlined website that includes password-protected recordings of worship for Black folks.
We plan to engage our community members soon in our restructure conversations. There is no BLUU without community! We’re taking time to be discerning about the containers we create for community engagement and will share opportunities to connect with the Organizing Collective Board soon.
Thank You to Everyone Who Responded to Our Survey
We are so grateful to everyone who filled out the survey. We don’t take you for granted–the survey wasn’t short and the questions asked respondents to be vulnerable.
We are learning from your feedback and integrating it into our restructure work. Thank you for your continued support and trust in us.
Hilary Otey joins Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) as the Development and Administrative Coordinator. She will focus on supporting BLUU’s fundraising efforts, specifically connecting BLUU with UU congregations committed to ongoing financial support.
Hilary Otey is BLUU’s newest team member.
Hilary Otey brings years of leadership experience and administrative coordination to her new role as BLUU’s Development and Administrative Coordinator. Before joining BLUU, she worked in organizations focusing on affordable and transitional housing, food justice, and economic development.
“I’m grateful I’ve had a wide variety of work experiences and opportunities to learn,” Hilary said.
Hilary will use her experience in justice-oriented work to support BLUU building fundraising and administrative infrastructure.
“I enjoy collaborating to build innovative approaches to mission-driven work,” Hilary said. “I’m excited to join BLUU to support the team in manifesting our shared values and strengthening BLUU’s capacity. I’m eager to learn and appreciate the opportunity to work with such a dedicated group.”
Hilary lives in St. Paul, Minnesota where BLUU headquarters is located. She will work closely with BLUU’s Executive Director, Lena K. Gardner, to process donations and other communications that come to BLUU’s office. Hilary will also work to build relationships with congregations who want to help sustain BLUU with pass-the-plate donations, multi-year giving commitments, and other forms of ongoing support.
“We’re grateful to have Hilary joining our team part time,” said Lena. “She is experienced, thorough, and committed, and we’re looking forward to continuing to build BLUU together.”
When she is not spending time with her three children, she is crafting, doing home repair projects, and playing dodgeball. Hilary also loves to learn and is currently learning American Sign Language (ASL).
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