When I think about our 7th principle of Unitarian Universalism, the “interdependent web of existence of which we are a part,” I envision the way a small touch on one strand of a spider web makes the whole web shake.  

Last month, with our partners at the American Friends Service Committee, we shook the web across the country with actions focused on corporate funders of Atlanta’s Cop City, like Bank of America and Home Depot. Thank you to those of you who wrote one of the over 7,000 letters to CEOs and showed up from Oakland to Atlanta! You can still sign the letter to CEOs urging them to stop funding increased militarization of police.

As we continue to organize against the Cop City being built in Atlanta, we know that other expensive and militarized police training facilities are proposed in 47 states from Maryland to California. This week, another proposed cop city was stalled after organizing led by Freedom Inc. succeeded in winning a city council vote in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Together, we keep shaking our part of the web that is, indeed, interconnected. 

Celebrate Good News! 

Unitarian Universalist Joan Gregory has been one of many in the Salt Lake City area organizing for Victor’s release for the past 11 months. Victor is an Indigenous land defender who has spent much of his adult life caring for the water, for the land, and for his elders. On March 5, 2023, Victor was arrested at the South River Music Festival near the site in Atlanta of a proposed Cop City which is under construction and where hundreds of acres of forest have already been destroyed. Victor was unloading camping equipment from his truck with his dog inside when heavily armed police charged at him from the woods, violently assaulted him, and hauled him to jail. After spending 3 months incarcerated at DeKalb County Jail without bail set or being indicted, he was transferred to a remote ICE facility, where he spent 8 months. In September, he learned he was one of 61 people indicted in the highly repressive RICO case that’s attempting to criminalize any and all efforts to Stop Cop City.  We join Victor’s home community in the Salt Lake City area in celebrating his release.  For more information and an opportunity to show your support go to: http://tinyurl.com/VictorIsFree.

As Nicole Pressley wrote recently, “Our work to Stop Cop City dismantles the false ideal of safety. This false ideal is destroying forests, intensifying violence against communities of color, and silencing the electorate. As people of faith, we cannot affirm the worth and dignity of all while privileging the well-being of a chosen few. We are not fully human when we separate ourselves from the humanity of others.”

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When one side of the web is hurting, it rattles the whole web of existence.  

May we continue to honor these connections across the whole web of existence. 

May we each do our part to stop the pain and injustice. 

May we envision a world of community care and abundant love.

May we recommit ourselves to mutuality, abundance, and community.

In faith and persistence,

Rev. Cathy Rion Starr
Side With Love Leadership Development Specialist

Available Now - Skill Up: Community Safety & Security

Unitarian Universalists are called to grapple with the question, “what is safety?” Black liberation organizers say “We Keep Us Safe" as a way to proclaim that true safety comes from relationship, community, and structures of care and mutuality outside of state structures of violence and control. How do we build our political and theological commitment to keeping each other safe in the face of state and interpersonal violence? 

In this Skill Up led by Nora Rasman and India Harris, we defined safety and security grounded in abolitionist practice, discussed our spiritual mandate towards building sanctuary, and concretely outlined what we can honestly offer to ourselves and each other.

Watch the recording and view resources from the webinar.

UU Stop Cop City Monthly Action Huddle

March 21 at 11am PT / 2pm ET  (Please note the date change this month!)

Our huddle this month will focus on writing letters to those imprisoned for protesting Cop City in Atlanta. Writing letters to folks locked up is a ministry, a political act, and a great way to invite new folks into decriminalization work. As always, we’ll also review what’s happening and what you can do with Stop Cop City more broadly. Join us to get activated or to jump back in. This meeting usually happens on the second Thursday of the month at 11am PT / 12pm MT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET.

Register to join us!

30 Days of Love - Bonus Days

In case you missed it, view our final gifts from our Bonus Days of 30 Days of Love! During the last days of 30 Days of Love, we explored the theme of “liberatory intersections.”

Safety. Re-Imagining. Possibility. Resilience. These themes have been the backbone of this year’s 30 Days of Love, with each offering extending to us the opportunity to hone our ability to pause, listen, and receive even as the world around us continues its frenetic hum. We hope that these weekly gifts from our siblings in faith have invited you to breathe deeply, feeling – even if just for a moment – a sense of connection with kindred spirits who share a soul-deep yearning for justice and wholeness.

At the most basic level, spiritual practice is spending regular, intentional time turning away from despair and fear and toward connection and commitment. At Side With Love, we believe that this kind of spiritual practice is what makes sustained organizing for justice possible: without making space in our lives to purposefully strengthen the musculature of imagination and hope, the soul of our movements atrophies and the dream of liberation becomes an empty fantasy.

Click here to read the full reflection by UUA Vice President for Programs & Ministry Rev. Ashley Horan.
Our final offerings: a blessing by Rev. Verdis LeVar Robinson, a musical blessing by Rev. Erin Walter, a Time for All Ages by CB Beal, a body practice by Rev. Maria Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa, and a prayer by Rev. Kim Wildszewski.

Uplifting Sacred Possibility

Imagine a world where everybody - every body - was treated as truly sacred. Every body, whatever shape, size, expression, ability - was revered as one of the infinite expressions of the Divine.  A reflection of God.  An opportunity to celebrate the holy diversity that makes up our humanity.  

When we witness our shared humanity we are called to care, to defend, protect, and affirm OUR very existence and our inherent worth. In this world, every body is cared for.  Everybody has the ability to make the decisions they need to be safe and whole in their being.  Every body has access to the resources they need to thrive.  Everybody - every body - is held in a truly liberating love.

Unfortunately, we know that the world as it is today does not treat every body as sacred.  Dominant ideas of safety have created inflated police budgets that rob our children of books and our communities of healthcare.  Living outside prescriptive gender binaries can mean losing a job or your life.  Our society isolates disabled people from community and care by denying access to housing, healthcare, and public space.  But ideas alone aren't what is killing us. It is the allegiance to a values system that moves people to violent and deadly action – against their neighbors, their country, and sometimes their own children.  Our society’s dependence on these immoral forces has moved us so far away from our shared humanity - brutalizing sacred bodies in a vicious cycle of exploitation, violence, and death - so that we no longer regard one another as threads woven together in a Divine tapestry.

These attacks on our bodies are attacks on our existence.  They are neither isolated nor unrelated.  We know this because there is a unified strategy and single solution.  Devalue and criminalize our identities and institutionalize our people.  We know the tactics and the institutions - prisons, jails, conversion therapy, conservatorship, detention, surveillance.  These are the many tentacles of the carceral state that are strangling so many of our Beloveds. 

The nature of the attacks on our sacred bodies means that those of us who live at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities face this violence on all aspects of our being.  Within the carceral state - which already disproportionately targets black and brown communities - 40% of the state prison population are people with disabilities. The number is even higher for incarcerated youth.  In just this first month of 2024, at least 322 bills targeted the transgender people, many in states where we have already witnessed the criminalization of reproductive health care.  And among individuals specifically seeking abortions, 1 in 5 must travel out of state for care.  That barrier creates unsurmountable burdens for individuals without the financial, social, or physical means to travel.  As we dream of a world where everybody thrives, we find ourselves fighting to create a world where every body can at least survive.

And yet, it is within this fight where we can remind ourselves that another world is possible, but only if we commit to creating it together.  In the midst of what is, there are glimmers of what could be.  There are holy moments of possibility that we must lean into during these desperate times.  From the quiet moments of self-determination and action, to the power of thousands showing up for collective liberation, there is hope in all of those moments that connect us. 

Our connection isn’t just sacred, it is powerful.  Some of these moments look like gathering together to protest anti-trans laws at the capitol; holding vigils to honor the community members whom we have lost; teaching our youth what rights they have over their own bodies; and growing mutual aid networks that strengthen each others’ access to essential resources and care.  In those moments, where we show up together, our momentum is realized and the loneliness is lessened. 

Changing the world has always happened when the few become the many.  When we each find our common humanity in the strength of our values, we all find new ways to love the hell out of this world! 

Knowing that God lives in the margins, on the edge of all possibility, we are called to engage in the world as it is, grounded in our values and in an all-encompassing LOVE, to turn it into what it could be.  This week we hope you will take time to think about how to build the world of infinite possibility that we dream of, where our bodies, however they are, are expressions of all that is good and sacred in this world.  

Rev. Amanda Schuber, Disability Justice Associate
Rev. Jami Yandle, Trans Support Specialist
Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, Congregational Organizer

See all the resources offered for Week Three of 30 Days of Love 2024

On Jan. 15-21, demand corporations stay out of policing our communities and end their involvement in Cop City!

The Atlanta Police Foundation is trying to use millions of tax dollars and millions in corporate contributions to build one of the largest militarized police training facilities in the country in Atlanta. Corporations, which are not accountable to the public, are funding Cop City and the Atlanta Police Foundation.

Home Depot and UPS are among 21 corporations involved in sponsoring, financing, insuring, and building the facility. We are taking action to tell them to get out of policing in our communities. Please join with your community this week of Jan. 15 -21 to demand that these corporations end their involvement with Cop City.

Take action now: tell CEOs to stop funding Cop City and militarized policing!

The construction of Cop City would destroy much of the city's largest urban forest, warming nearby majority Black neighborhoods by as much as 10 degrees. Similar projects are being considered in other cities.  

Private sector corporations—which are not accountable to the public—are funding the Atlanta Police Foundation as well as other private police foundation projects.  

Send a message to their CEOs today! And urge them to stay out of policing our communities.

Please use this map to find an event near you! If you're in the area, we invite you to join the events below:

• Thursday, January 18 @ 12-1pm MT in Denver: Stop Cop City Denver Letter Delivery and Action

• Saturday, January 20 @ 11am-12:30pm PT in Emeryville: Protest Home Depot's Support of Cop City

• Monday, January 22 @ 10:30am-3:00pm ET in Atlanta: All Out for City Council Meeting

Welcome to the first week of 30 Days of Love! This year’s theme is “Imagining an Interdependent Future.” With each new year, we move into an intentional holy time of spiritual nourishment, contemplation, and embodiment. A new year can carry with it the weight and grief of the former while inviting us into possibility and prophecy of the new. We enter 2024 witnessing unconscionable suffering and injustice at a scale that calls us all to deeply reimagine a future where we all thrive. The only way through this moment is together, bound by a commitment to our shared humanity and interdependence. 30 Days of Love offers a place to steady and stretch as we faithfully journey toward wholeness and collective liberation. Together, let us imagine our interdependent future and order our work along this path. 

In the first week, we explore the theme of “safety” and how it shows up in our world and our decriminalization work. Click here to read the full reflection from Side With Love Field & Programs Director Nicole Pressley.

This week’s offerings: a Time For All Ages by Rev. Mylo Way; a Body Practice from Jess Hunt; a prayer by Rev. Cecilia Kingman; a blessing from Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen; and a Grounding Practice for Safety by Lora Powell-Haney.

P.S. Ready to take action? Sign our letter urging CEOs to stop funding Cop City and militarized policing and share it with three friends!

On January 11, Side With Love joined our partners at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and American Friends Service Committee to learn about the history of police foundations and the threat they pose to democracy. We took a close look at the funding behind APF—and explored how people can organize to stop them through collective corporate divestment. You can watch the recording here.

Across the country, for-profit corporations are funding private police foundations. With this dark money, these police foundations pour millions of dollars into militarized policing that harms Black and Brown communities.

That includes the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), which is seeking to build Cop City. APF's funders include big corporate names like Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and Cox Enterprises. It's also the largest police foundation in the U.S., despite Atlanta only having the country's 39th largest population.

Resources from the webinar:

• View the webinar notes

• Join the Stop Cop City! Corporate Week of Action (January 15-21)

• View the companies and foundations funding Cop City

We hope you'll continue to be part of the movement to stop Cop City. Take action now! Tell CEOs: stop funding Cop City and militarized policing!

Welcome to the first week of 30 Days of Love! This year’s theme is “ Imagining an Interdependent Future.” With each new year, we move into an intentional holy time of spiritual nourishment, contemplation, and embodiment. A new year can carry with it the weight and grief of the former while inviting us into possibility and prophecy of the new. We enter 2024 witnessing unconscionable suffering and injustice at a scale that calls us all to deeply reimagine a future where we all thrive. The only way through this moment is together, bound by a commitment to our shared humanity and interdependence. 30 Days of Love offers a place to steady and stretch as we faithfully journey toward wholeness and collective liberation. Together, let us imagine our interdependent future and order our work along this path. 

In the first week, we explore the theme of “safety” and how it shows up in our world and our decriminalization work.

In “Letters from a Birmingham Jail,” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words and context offer us an important lesson. First, that we need each other to survive. Second,  we learn that when you challenge a usurped power held by the state, criminalization is a routine tactic to repress a people rising up to be free. 

Today, we are experiencing a contest for power: accountable collective governance for all or power organized and held by the few. This contest is not new.

To me, it is clear that a new world is emerging. As the Civil Rights movement helped usher in a new day, we are witnessing the mass mobilization and subsequent violent repression that are hallmarks of political and social transformation.

But as we are reminded in this letter, before criminalization becomes a political tactic of disconnection and domination, it is first a spiritual acquiescence to dehumanization and disposability. We deny a moral mandate of mutuality in search of the protection of power over others.

As our nation struggles to realize the promise of liberty and justice for all, it also reckons with the ways it has used oppression to construct an idea of safety that relies on the comforts of those in power. We have witnessed this in battles around integration, access to medical care for trans people, book bans, and more. This country has erased people from history, from legal recognition, and from the public square in order to secure power in a world demanding change.

The struggle for collective liberation must not be mistaken for a threat to safety.  Today, we know the consequences are too great.

History teaches us what happens when we build a world around an exclusionary idea of safety. Our government carves borders, erects armies, surveils, polices, and imprisons the threat. And with each action towards this end, we make enemies of each other. We devote our resources, our labors, our art, and our children to mutual destruction. No one in this kind of world is safe. 

Decriminalization is a political and spiritual project. Our work to Stop Cop City dismantles the false ideal of safety. This false ideal is destroying forests, intensifying violence against communities of color, and silencing the electorate.  As people of faith, we cannot affirm the worth and dignity of all while privileging the well-being of a chosen few. We are not fully human when we separate ourselves from the humanity of others.

Decriminalization is a process of healing and (re)connection. A just and abundant concept of safety requires all of us. It proclaims a future where care and safety are abundant because our relationships are cultivated through mutuality, not domination. We act, showing up with and for communities to win campaigns and to grow a network of love, compassion and care. This is the work of community building. This is how we keep us safe.

 In faith and solidarity,

Nicole Pressley, Field & Programs Director, Side With Love

This week’s offerings: a Time For All Ages by Mylo Way; a Body Practice from Jess Hunt; a prayer by Rev. Cecilia Kingman; a blessing from Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen; and a Grounding Practice for Safety by Lora Powell-Haney.

On December 6, Side With Love joined the American Friends Service Committee for a webinar to hear from the organizers, activists, and other professionals accomplishing the transformational work of abolition - from combatting exploitative fines and fees to decarcerating architecture.

With the construction of Atlanta's Cop City looming overhead and the demands of the 2020 uprisings as of yet unrealized, a world beyond policing and incarceration can seem unreachable. But while still an unmet ideal, the foundation for an abolitionist world is being built by those who remain dedicated to dismantling and replacing an entrenched system which promises safety while producing the opposite. In the face of state repression and Draconian policies upholding the myth of safety, the work of abolition is actualizing it.

Below are resources from the webinar:

• Watch the webinar recording on YouTube

• View the webinar notes

• Take action: tell CEOs to stop funding Cop City and militarized policing

We hope you'll continue to be a part of this webinar series exploring the issues at the heart of the movement to stop Cop City! Please register for the next event:

• Session Three: Police Foundations and Policing on January 11 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET. Register to join us!

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and Love Resists teamed up earlier this month to host the first webinar (in a series of three) to educate people about the “Cop City” project underway in Atlanta and equip them to stop this destructive plan (and similar schemes elsewhere in the U.S.).

We invite you to:

• watch the webinar recording

• use the Q and A and webinar notes as a resource

• take action to tell CEOs to stop funding Cop City and militarized policing! 

As one of our speakers said, we choose relentless optimism in the face of this struggle! Confronting the sponsoring companies about their harm to our community is the first step leading up a corporate divestment campaign AFSC will lanch in January 2024. Please stay in touch for opportunities to take further action to Stop Cop City!

Please attend our second webinar in this series, addressing abolition, on December 6th.

To stay connected with our speakers and their efforts to combat environmental justice and environmental racism:  

• Join Dr. Jacqueline Echols and the South River Watershed Alliance in contacting the regional and national EPA to remove priority language from the Dekalb consent decree, and support SRWA’s legal fund to help Stop the Swap of public park land to a private developer. Connect with them on Instagram @southriverforest @southriverga 

• Follow founding editor of the Atlanta Community Press Collective, Sam Barnes on Twitter/X and support ACPC’s work

• Follow Commissioner Ted Terry on Twitter/X for ways to support his appeal of Dekalb County’s land disturbance permit issued to the Atlanta Police Foundation

• Get involved with organizer Neil Sardana and Georgia Conservation Voters efforts to Stop Cop City and help combat the environmental racism of Georgia’s Public Service Commission

Yesterday, our community rallied around the 61 people who were arraigned in the RICO case targeting Stop Cop City organizers. Like the domestic terrorism charges levied at protesters earlier this year, these are inflated charges meant to quash democratic protest and free speech. Members of our Unitarian Universalist community were among people arraigned as well as those rallying to their defense. The violent and repressive tactics used against community members and activists to support this unpopular and anti-democratic police training facility demonstrate what is at stake. Violent and anti-democratic processes do not lead to peaceful or just outcomes. 

As UUs, we condemn the criminalization of protest. We build power for justice through collectivism and deepen our relationships and capacity for liberation through social solidarity. We're grateful to be part of a movement that won't cede ground to fascism, increased militarization of law enforcement, and destruction of our green spaces.

This weekend, activists are traveling to Atlanta to take direct action to stop Cop City. While Side With Love is not a partner in this action, we join in solidarity with our faith and community partners and remain committed to this campaign. Here are four things you can do to join in solidarity:

1. Support activists facing RICO and terrorism charges. Donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.  

2. Learn more about the Cop City plan and the movement to stop it via the Not Just Cop City” webinar series , presented in collaboration with the American Friends Service Committee

   • Session 1: Tuesday, November 14 8-9pm ET, 7 CT, 6 MT, 5 PT: The Environment - Sign Up Now

   • UU Debrief Thursday, November 16th, 2-3pm ET - Sign Up Now

   • Session 2: December 6, 8-9pm ET: Abolition

   • Session 3: January 11, 8-9pm ET: Police Foundations & Policing

3. Join Stop Cop City Rapid Response Text Alerts to be on call for urgent actions. Sign up to receive rapid response text alerts here.

4. Organize a Share the Plate for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund

From preserving a forest, building safe communities and making sure communities have the choice about their lives and futures. Join us for the stop cop city political education series to learn more about the fight to stop cop city. With our partners American Friends Service Committee and UUSC, we will learn about this issue and the people led movement to stop cop city. Together we will dig deeply into the history of this plan, interrogate the interests of its corporate backers, and reflect on our values and the moral call to democracy and justice. 

The fight to stop cop city is not just about the people of Atlanta. With similar projects sweeping cities across the nation (like in Baltimore, San Francisco, and Colorado Springs), this is our collective work. Understanding what is happening in Atlanta equipped us to understand the battles for justice and democracy in all the places we call home. 

Let us join together to resist fascism and the erosion of our democratic rights. Sign up today to learn more and join other Unitarian Universalists taking action.

Last time we wrote you, Revs. Dave Dunn and Jeff Jones were in jail after stopping construction at Cop City in Atlanta with their bodies.

We are happy to share that all 5 who were arrested were released from jail with misdemeanor charges.   

Additionally, Rev. Christina Branum-Martin, Rev. Misha Sanders, and other UUs joined others to deliver over 116,000 petition signatures collected by the Cop City Vote Coalition in support of letting Atlantans decide if they want Cop City at all.

The City of Atlanta is trying a legal appeal to avoid verifying signatures, a decision that Senator Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams both criticized as deeply anti-democratic.

We're grateful to be part of a movement that won't cede ground to fascism, increased militarization of our public safety, and destruction of our green spaces.

As Unitarian Universalists, we hold deeply to the truth that there is no one singular right way to live and love. We see this flourishing in the work to Stop Cop City: some folks put their bodies in front of construction equipment while others tediously match thousands of referendum signatures one by one while others bring food and care for babies.

Our call to collective liberation includes all this and more – we root deeply in spiritual practice for strength and courage, we send cards and food and song as our prayers, we summon the courage to show up and out of our comfort zones again and again, and we also rest in the dark peace of night when we need it.  

 However you're able, we've a way for you to join this call:

• Sign up for rapid response text alerts to be notified of urgent actions

• Join our weekly huddle for updates on the landscape and evolving needs

• Explore our six-lesson small group discussion guide to explore the connection between our faith and the calls to defund policing and law enforcement

• Learn how you can support those who are arrested for resisting injustice

Yesterday morning, two Unitarian Universalist ministers, Rev. Dave Dunn and Rev. Jeff Jones, joined a non-violent direct action to protest the escalating anti-democratic actions of the Georgia Attorney General and the Atlanta City Council. Over the past year, these two tax-funded institutions have waged an ongoing campaign of disinformation, intimidation, and criminalization to repress the grassroots movement to Stop Cop City.

Revs. Dunn and Jones, along with three additional community leaders, were arrested yesterday after halting construction on the site. Side With Love and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee honor the courageous moral witness of these leaders and remain committed to showing up in solidarity with them and the movement to Stop Cop City. To support those who have been arrested, please click here to donate to the bail fund.

Join us to take action and support our local leaders by signing up for rapid response action alerts!

From City Hall to the Attorney General’s office, Republicans, Democrats, and corporate interests have colluded to intimidate activists, silence voters, and repress a movement of people who are simply asking to have a voice in the future of their community. Last month, the Atlanta City Council announced that they would use the “exact match” system to verify the more than 100,000 petition signatures from communities asking for a referendum vote on Cop City. Courts continually ruled that signature verification methods like “exact match” are subjective and discriminatory, with many Georgia voting rights organizations and elected officials condemning its proposed use in the 2018 Georgia election. In late 2018, a U.S. district judge ruled that the system is a “severe burden” for voters.

On Tuesday, 61 Stop Cop City environmental defenders and organizers were indicted in Georgia on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges, part of a federal law aimed at punishing criminal enterprises.

Among the list of charges, the indictment explicitly cites “mutual aid, collectivism, and social solidarity” as presumably dangerous ideas that were being promoted by the activists. Make no mistake, this is political repression.

The campaign to Stop Cop City is not about one single issue but about resisting the systems designed to make us all less free in the United States and around the globe.

Commit to joining the movement to Stop Cop City! Join our weekly Action Hour on Thursdays at 3 p.m. EDT.

Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed the criminalization of voting, protests, abortion, and trans and gender-expansive bodies. We’ve witnessed book bans and the rejection of facts and history in American public schools. Doctors, teachers, librarians, and poll workers are being threatened with violence and losing their jobs. As Unitarian Universalists, we not only condemn these actions, but we support people and communities through mutual aid. We build power for justice through collectivism and deepen our relationships and capacity for liberation through social solidarity. These practices are the expression of the core principles we uphold as covenantal faith. The care for our communities is central to a democracy that is truly for the people and by the people. It is what we do when we love one another, in public and in community.

In faith & solidarity,
Side With Love & UUSC: Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

For the past few weeks, Side With Love has been organizing UUs and other supporters in the Cop City Vote referendum campaign. This effort would allow Atlanta voters to decide if the City of Atlanta can lease 381 of forested land for a $90 million police training complex backed by corporate interests that will cost over $30 million in tax dollars.  

It feels good to be working on such a deeply meaningful campaign. Here in Southwest Atlanta, the Cop City Vote referendum campaign operates from the American Friends Service Committee office. The walls are covered with posters from past campaigns emblazoned with powerful messages that proclaim the dignity of workers, the right to housing, and the end to war. Also on this wall is a wood turtle with a painting of Tortuguita, the climate activist killed by police on January 18th of this year in the Weelaunee forest. Tortuguita was protesting the harm and environmental degradation caused by the planned development of this vast, militarized law enforcement training compound.  

In this room, each poster, each weathered clipboard, and boxes of t-shirts are quiet reminders of the life, love, and legacy that make this space powerful.

In this space, we are surrounded by a legacy of activism, community building, and radical hope that makes justice movements unstoppable. In this space, we seek to create collective care, mutual support, non-carceral solutions to conflict and harm, and cooperative economics. In this space, we answer the call of our ancestors and defend the future of our descendants.  

Neighbors drop by after work to sign the petition. Canvassers funnel in and out with clipboards and “LetAtlantaDecide" t-shirts to talk to voters in torrential downpours and intense summer heat. Artists, fathers, data managers, youth, trainers, grandmothers, community organizers, and faith leaders all huddle in different corners of the office, strategizing on how we will protect democracy. We talk about what $30 million dollars could do for this community and the communities surrounding the Weelaunee forests that do not include giving money to the private Atlanta Police Foundation.  

This community is an embodiment of resilience. They’ve been on the front lines of resisting gentrification, housing displacement through eminent domain, and police violence. It is the home of beautiful cultural events in Adair Park, local businesses, historic churches, and public art memorializing community members, proclaiming Black Lives Matter, and demanding to #StopCopCity. 

Supporting the campaign reminds me that politics are not only what you do at the voting booth or even who holds elected office. We exercise our political power when strangers share experiences of using public transit, or how they unionized their workplaces. It’s neighbors showing photos of their children talking about their hopes for their schools.  It’s walking in to be greeted with a warm and familiar welcome, and leaving hearing “Thank you, sis.” This campaign is a fight to defend the forests, to take back power and let voters decide, and to resist growing investment and militarization of the police. And the reason this city has erupted with activity to collect 70,000 signatures is simply a love that is rooted and cultivated in the legacy of struggles for justice won and lost on southern soil. 

Unitarian Universalists are showing up in beautiful and creative ways. We are knocking on doors and talking to folks at supermarkets and parks. Volunteers enjoy fresh fruit provided by High Street Congregation in Macon, while climate activists connect with our Northwest UU Congregation to print zines for a mobilization this weekend. Our Side With Love staff, Rev. Cathy Rion Starr and Racheal Myslivy are building systems to help Atlanta voters fix errors in their petition signatures and joined a team of 20 UUs as we canvassed at the Day of Action on August 5th. It is an immense honor to co-lead and collaborate in this work.   

We have 4 more days to get on the November ballot, but the relationships we've built and the commitment we have made will continue beyond this campaign. The love we have for one another is felt in our commitment to show up and preserve our collective well-being.        

I know there are many struggles our fellow UUs are fighting right now. This referendum campaign, like the Floridians Protecting Freedom campaign and Ohioans’ rejection of Issue 1 is a struggle to return power to the people. It is not just about a single issue, but the expression of love and care for our communities. I ask that you take a moment to witness the transformational love that is moving through your communities, your work for justice, and your hearts. Thank you for your love and support of Side With Love.

In faith and solidarity,

Nicole Pressley

Field & Programs Director 

Resources 

• CopCityVote.org 

• Movement for Black Lives: Stop Cop City Conversation

• UU Cop City Vote Landing Page  

One of the nation’s most culturally consequential referendums is underway in Atlanta.

Locals, professional UU organizers, other spiritually grounded activists—including your fellow volunteer UUs—and others from around the world are actively leaning into the work, going door-to-door and busy community sites to collect the signatures needed to bring this issue to a vote.

The City of Atlanta will contribute nearly $70 million to the deletion of at least 13,070,000 square feet of the Weelaunee Forest—developing it into a training ground that militarizes and equips police forces with the skills of insufficient care that (ironically) threaten the safety of the officers and (unironically) threaten the security of the community—if we don't collect enough signatures.

You can contribute to this referendum from wherever you reside, when—and how—you feel called. This is what UUs do.

Join us for the Week of Action July 27th - August 5th

• Online Volunteer Recruitment Phone Canvass Sign Up (Online | Thursday, July 27 at 7:00-8:30 PM ET / 6 CT / 5 MT / 4 PT)

• National Online Action for UUs Sign Up (Online | Thursday, August 3 at 7:00-8:00 PM ET / 6 CT / 5 MT / 4 PT)

• Stop Cop City Volunteer Recruitment Phone Canvass Sign Up (Online | Thursday, August 3 at 7:00-8:30PM ET / 6 CT / 5 MT / 4 PT)

• Weekend of Action Canvas to Stop Cop City Sign Up (Atlanta | Saturday, August 5 at 12:00-3:00 PM ET)

#LetAtlantaBreathe: A UU’s contribution to the #StopCopCity & #DefendTheForest movement.

The UU principle of interdependence may sequentially follow those of justice, peace, and dignity, but respecting, “the interdependent web of all existence” may be the bedrock of those other principles. Can you think of it as the unsurfaced molten rock, the magma of the other principles? Interdependence generates heat, heat generates energy, energy that is transferred to our work in human and environmental rights. What energy will you transfer on?

You have breathed the oxygen made by the trees of the Weelaunee Forest and you’ve felt the rain drops made by its water, too, regardless of where you live.

Such is the interdependence of things.

If the forest is disassembled and replaced by a “city” that trains police but is unable to house the many unhoused, if it is forced to relive being kidnapped from Native stewards and plundered for gain, then its energy is being mis-transferred and misused.

This is a moment of justice. As much as it feels like a fight, it is a moment for you to contribute to peace.

The idea of this development sprung from the protests following George Floyd’s murder. The corporate sponsors and police want to protect their interests, property and capital. We must protect and defend our collective interests: clean air, responsible stewardship of the land, safety and care for our neighbors, and a democratic and accountable government. For all of our collective interests, this project is an immediate threat.

We must #LetAtlantaBreathe.

Responding to the call to contribute, no matter where you are.

#StopCopCity & #DefendTheForest is historic, and you belong in its fold. This is what UUs do.

This referendum will be a first in the city’s 186-year history. Referendums are relatively common in other parts of the United States—particularly the west—but Georgia and the majority of southern states don’t have citizen-led processes like these because most states with enslaved people did not want to create the opportunity for people to directly decide on policies.

• Read the 2023 Action of Immediate Witness Stop Cop City

  As Unitarian Universalists, we recognize the momentum of collective action to demand social change, and we call upon the UUA and its member congregations to stop Cop City;

  As Unitarian Universalists, we will take action through self-organized phone zaps, mass email campaigns, personal and institutional divestment from banks funding Cop City construction, and other solidarity actions against investors, funders, and other corporate partners across the U.S. and Canada;

  As Unitarian Universalists, we will support those engaged in direct action to stop Cop City with spiritual and material resources, by writing letters to incarcerated activists and calling for their immediate release from jail, demanding that all charges against them be dropped, and providing spiritual care for protestors and survivors of police violence; and

  As Unitarian Universalists, we will continue to deepen our theological grounding in issues of environmental justice and policing.

• Donate Now

• Sign up form to get involved

To join, sign up for one of our Week of Action educational activities and learn about phone banking and canvassing. If you’re in Atlanta on Saturday, August 5, come collect signatures with us. Who else will you invite?

With the deepest gratitude and in solidarity,

Nicole Pressley
Field & Programs Director for Side With Love

While I wish I had something pretty or pithy to observe about spring in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m mostly thinking about the amount of live programming blossoming right in front of us. Through partnership with congregations, individual UUs, and our UU State Action Networks, we’re all able to “take shifts for the revolution,” as Rev. Ashley Horan says. I see the evidence of that daily in the stories and updates from around the country of UUs and other people of faith and conscience who are fighting for our trans beloved and who are fiercely resisting legislative attacks on climate, decriminalization, and trans children and families. (If you haven’t yet, read the beautiful op-ed by Rev. Sara LaWall from Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, ID about why her faith demands she protect and affirm her trans child.)

This month, we have opportunities for faithful and faith-filled actions for justice and rejuvenation. Please share in your congregation and community. 

In faith and solidarity,

Audra Friend

Digital Communications, Data, and Technology Specialist

Side With Love 

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Wednesday, March 15, 2023 7 -  8:30 PM ET / 6 CT / 5 MT / 4 PT

Connecting with State Action Networks on Climate Advocacy

Online

UU State Action Networks do powerful justice work across the country. How can your congregation engage with your State Action Network on climate justice advocacy and actions? Join Deb Cruz and Rev. Lisa Sampson Garcia to learn more! --- Join the Green Sanctuary Team meetings for shared learning and mutual support with other UUs working on congregational transformation through climate justice on the third Wednesday of the month at 8PM ET. Each meeting includes a short presentation on a climate justice topic, followed by open discussion on pressing needs. Register here.

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Sunday, March 19, 2023 4 - 5:30pm ET / 3 CT / 2 MT / 1 PT 

Skill Up: Evaluation is an Act of Love

Online

In this skill-up, you will practice ways to bring debrief culture and loving feedback to your own context. We need to be able to speak directly and frankly to each other about what we want and need from each other, what we think could be done differently, as well as celebrating our successes. Every time we love one another enough to offer debrief and appreciation, we deepen our relationships and the power of our collective. We can create groups and communities grounded in relationship and trust. Thus, we can meet the justice work of the moment powerfully and nimbly. Register here.

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Wednesday, March 22, 2023 8 -  9:30 PM ET / 7 CT / 6 MT / 5 PT

The Body Politic: Faithful UUs Showing up for Trans Justice

Online

UUs have long been part leaders in powerful multifaith movements fighting for trans and queer rights and liberation. Join UPLIFT Action and Side With Love staff for this webinar, lifting up the faithful work UUs are engaging in right now in the context of the wave of hateful legislation and violence against trans and queer people. We'll hear stories from congregations and State Action Networks on the ground, and point toward ways you and your community can take meaningful action. Register here.

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Thursday, March 23, 2023 7:30 -  8:30 PM ET / 6:30 CT / 5:30 MT / 4:30 PT

Faithful Grounding

Online

Join our Side with Love Fun & Spiritual Nourishment Squad for an hour of spiritual sustenance and grounding with others organizing on the side of love. Come drink in the music, meditation, play, and prayer. We end with a Connection Cafe for those who wish to talk together. Show up as you are, whatever is in your heart, and with your camera on or off as you need. Register here.

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Friday, March 31st at 8pm ET / 7 CT / 6 MT / 5 PT

UUA Trans Day of Visibility Virtual Party for Trans/Nonbinary Families

Online

As legislators pass harmful laws in states all across the country and as people of faith and no-faith fight back, we want to remind transgender/nonbinary families that they are not alone. Register here.

As Unitarian Universalists we believe that every body is sacred. This will be a time of reflection, celebration, and renewal as we prepare for what is and whatever is coming our way.

*NOTE: This space is intentionally multi-generational. It is open to and welcoming of trans/nonbinary elders as well as children, youth, and young adults. Standard UUA online safety measures apply to ensure all people under 18 are able to attend. We're glad to have you here! 

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Saturday, April through Monday, April 3

Intergenerational Spring Seminar: Demilitarization & Abolition: Resist Policing and Empire

Online and in-person, Minneapolis, MN

This year's UU@UN Intergenerational Spring Seminar has the theme of “Demilitarization & Abolition: Resist Policing and Empire,” and takes place both in-person in Minneapolis and online April 1-3.

As an intergenerational event, Youth are especially encouraged to attend!

Militarized policing is a dire problem both in the U.S. and globally, and this year's Seminar aims to help us increase our understanding of abolition and equip ourselves with skills to take action. Our keynote will be given by Andrea Ritchie, co-author of No More Police, and other programming will offer a mix of workshops, worship, and debrief. 

Registration is tiered with a free, no-cost option for those who need it! Learn more and register here.

In this week’s reflection, Side With Love Field and Programs Director Nicole Pressley writes:

Cornell West famously reminds us that justice is what love looks like in public. As Unitarian Universalists, our work for justice is an expression of deep belief that all people are worthy of love and liberation. Today, that work often looks like resisting the criminalization of people’s identities, their bodies, and their communities. 

In recent years, this has looked like Unitarian Universalists supporting people seeking, aiding, and performing abortions in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and Kentucky when abortion has been criminalized. We’ve raised money to bail out Black mothers and Water Protectors. We’ve supported ballot initiatives to decriminalize marijuana in Oregon and Colorado, and paid off fines so returning citizens can vote in Florida. 

As a strategy, decriminalization sets us on course to heal, to be held accountable, and to be fully human with one another. Decriminalization cultivates the conditions for wider and deeper transformation. 

Decriminalization is a crucial response to the horrors of the prison industrial complex – the web of forces including the legal system, policing and law enforcement, and mass incarceration whose main goal is the oppression of many for the benefit of a few. Increasingly, our laws make it a crime to be fully human – to be homeless, to seek and provide healthcare, to ask for asylum or to migrate, to be Black or brown, to honor our children’s evolving genders, to teach the real history of this nation. In the US, the criminal-legal systems collude to diminish the power and autonomy of the body politic, whether by disenfranchising entire communities through mass incarceration and voter suppression, or literally wiping people out of existence through both death sentences  and extra-judicial killing. 

But decriminalization isn’t only about policy wins; it is about the victory of literally being with our people once again.

The theme of our third week of 30 Days of Love explores the intersection of Healing and Decriminalization. We have moving offerings that we hope will educate, inspire, and refuel you as you explore what it means to heal communities and families. We have a prayer from Rev. Jason Lydon, a blessing by Rev. Kierstin Homblette Allen, a body practice from Rev. Sky Williams-Tao, a grounding meditation from Side With Love Fun and Nourishment Squad Member Lora Powell-Haney, as well as a Time for All Ages story by Erica Shadowsong. Find all of these here.

On July 18, Interfaith Immigration Coalition, Side With Love, & the UU Service Committee offered "Heal Not Harm: Restore Asylum Now" webinar and teach-in.

As shared by our speakers who offered their lived experiences, Title 42 is an inhumane and racist policy that violates the inherent worth and dignity of asylum seekers attempting to find safety within the borders of the United States. From blatant anti-blackness, to shackled dehumanization in front of their families, their stories remind us that what is happening is not theoretical but happening every day to real people. And their call to end the atrocities they and others have faced is one we cannot ignore.

As people of faith we must not only listen to and learn from the real people who are impacted by this deadly policy, we must follow their prophetic lead and take action to Restore Asylum NOW!

We know that the fight to end Title 42 & restore humane asylum policies has been a long and difficult one. And as people of faith, we have not only a moral obligation to challenge violently racist border policies, but also a resilient belief that another world is possible if we choose to make it so. Together we can take action, claim our collective power, and bend the moral arc of the universe to the justice & love we know is all of ours to manifest.

Recordings & Resources from the Heal Not Harm Webinar

"Heal Not Harm: Restore Asylum Now!" Webinar Recording

• "End Title 42: First Hand Accounts from Black Immigrants & Advocates on the Frontlines" (Facebook Livestream)

• "Holy Voices from the Border: Restore Asylum Now" (Facebook Livestream)

• "Title 42 Must End Now!" IIC Toolkit

• Send a message to President Biden & your members of Congress

• PCUSA & Disciples Action Hour (July 26 @ 9am PT/12pm ET)

• PCUSA August Recess Toolkit for Meetings with Members of Congress

• August Recess Refugee Advocacy Days with We Are All America

Take Action

Join the interfaith community that is taking action July 18-29 by demanding that our elected leaders end Title 42. You can help restore asylum by taking these three actions:

• Call your elected Members of Congress

Use this "click-to-call" tool to be automatically connected to your elected leaders with a personalizable script explaining why an end to Title 42 is essential.

• Send an email to your Congress & President Biden

Send a personalizable message to your Members of Congress & President Biden explaining how your faith demands an end to Title 42 & the restoration of asylum.

• Post on social media & tag your elected leaders

Use or personalize one of these tweets from the "Title 42 Must End NOW!" Toolkit to let your elected leaders know the only moral choice is to end Title 42.

Last month, we learned about the tragic loss of 53 lives in San Antonio. Migrants were trapped in the back of a truck: parents, children, siblings, human beings who were desperate for an opportunity to find and create a better life for themselves and their loved ones. As the Somali poet Warsan Shire reminds us in her poem “Home,”

“no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles traveled
means something more than journey.”

Leaders on both sides of the aisle continue to use fear, scarcity, and bigotry to shape critical asylum policies. As people of faith, we know another way is not only possible but essential. Not every tragedy caused by injustice makes national news, but each matter because their lives and their communities matter. We know that these deaths could have been prevented if our asylum policies were designed to heal, not harm, seekers of safety & community. We need to tell our leaders that each day that we continue with Title 42 is a moral failure.

Join Love Resists for the interfaith #HealNotHarm Days of Action to restore asylum next week!

Months after most COVID-19 public health restrictions in the US have been lifted, our government is still using the pandemic as justification for refusing, detaining, and expelling asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the CDC’s Title 42 program, almost all asylum-seeking families and individuals are being denied their human and legal right to seek safety. The CDC has already acted to revoke Title 42 because it is not contributing to public health, but a conservative judge has kept it in place through a legal battle. Now, anti-immigrant political leaders want to ensure Title 42 continues to control migration and restrict asylum at the border, and are pushing amendments on Title 42 through Congress.

Join Side with Love, UUSC, & the Interfaith Immigration Coalition for our #HealNotHarm Teach-In on Monday, July 18 at 4pm ET

Many migrants have died from being denied access to asylum at the border where ports of entry have remained closed more than two years ago. Like most efforts historically to control cross-border migration, Title 42 does not deter those seeking safety in the US, but pushes them into more dangerous circumstances while trying to get here. The reality is that the horrific tragedy of 53 lives lost while migrants were trapped in the back of a tractor trailer in San Antonio, TX, is only the most visible tip of the iceberg. Thousands of people stuck in dangerous border cities in Mexico have been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and forced into labor, while others have died from lack of medical care. Black asylum-seekers, especially Haitians, have been disproportionately impacted by Title 42. There is no way of tracking how many others have lost their lives after being forcibly expelled back to dangerous conditions in their countries of origin without screening for whether they feared for their lives if returned.

It is simply untrue that US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) does not have the capacity to process asylum-seekers in a safe and orderly manner at the border. We have seen how it is possible when the political will is there, such as when Ukranians were exempted from Title 42.

The courts are already preventing the end of Title 42, and now Members of Congress are trying to make this deadly policy permanent by attaching amendments to maintain Title 42 into as many bills as they can manage, including critical budget bills. So far, in the House, both the Labor and Health and Human Services and the Homeland Security budget drafts include an extension of Title 42 until 60 days after the pandemic is declared over. Additionally, a desperately needed COVID relief bill is being held up in part due to conflicts about including Title 42. We cannot meet the very real needs of our communities impacted by COVID by denying asylum-seekers their lives and safety!

Will you join me and other people of faith committed to restoring asylum at our #HealNotHarm Teach-in on July 18 at 4pm ET? Together we will learn about the many tactics we can take to bring an end to Title 42 and begin to move towards life-affirming asylum policies in the US. And we’ll prepare to participate in our own UU-sponsored National Call-in Day to demand an end to Title 42 on July 19!

As people of faith, we know that another world is possible, and together, it is ours to create. Bringing an end to Title 42 is one of the many necessary steps towards creating a world that no longer inflicts deadly harm, but offers liberatory healing and welcome to all.

In faith & justice,

Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, Congregational Justice Organizer