[our problem]

         It is not my wish to make anyone uncomfortable, but I want to ask you to look around our congregation this morning. What do you see? Or rather, what do you not see?

         Today we celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. As we well know, Dr. King gave his life in service of a dream – a dream of an America in which people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. That is a dream which I believe everyone here shares. This church is committed to a belief in the worth and dignity of every person. And yet, there is something not quite right going on.

         We celebrate the birth of Dr. King in this hallowed space, in an assembly appallingly lacking in color. We focus on Dr. King’s accomplishments in Montgomery, and Birmingham, and Selma; in Alabama, and Georgia, and Mississippi. We tend to be proud of our support of what he believed in, but we are careful not to look around with our eyes open because we experience a profound sense of dis-ease when we do, because we have at hand evidence that the work is not done. Much has been accomplished, but there remains much to do, and it is not easy work.

         This sermon is not about guilt, but about realism. It is very “in” to talk about institutional racism and to suggest that perhaps the reason why we are so lacking in color in this congregation is that we are racists and don’t acknowledge it. What I know is that every time we have engaged in exercises to explore ways in which we would like our church to change, invariably greater racial diversity in this congregation comes out at the top of the list. We are not the church we would like to be. Change begins with acknowledgment of the present reality, but it does not end there.

         This morning I propose to look at where we’ve been to see what clues we can find about how we got where we are.

[a tradition of racial justice?]

         We know, of course, that Unitarians and Universalists have always been committed to racial justice. Think about the hundreds and Unitarian and Universalist ministers who signed anti-slavery petitions in the 1840's! Think about Samuel May, and William Ellery Channing, and Theodore Parker, who believed and worked for abolition. We conveniently forget that Channing, the great Unitarian leader, gave up his pulpit when he insisted on memorializing the abolitionist Charles Follen, in direct disobedience to the orders of the Standing Committee - the Board, of his church. Many Unitarians benefitted from the economics of slavery. Daniel Webster worked hard for the Fugitive Slave law, which saw members of Theodore Parker’s congregation taken off in chains. Even Parker, however, doubted the intellectual equality of African Americans.

         Unitarians and Universalists were active in the founding and support of the NAACP, but that really means SOME Unitarians and Universalists.

         My friend Mark Morrison-Reed, who was a pulpit guest here some years ago, is the author of the 1984 book, Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, in which he traced the shameful history of Unitarians and Universalists in terms of integrating our ministry. He focused particularly on the experiences of Egbert Ethelred Brown and Lewis McGee.

[Egbert Ethelred Brown]

         Brown, a native of Jamaica, remembered one Easter when, as a choirboy in the Episcopal Church, he suddenly concluded that arithmetic of the trinity – 3 in 1, made no sense to him. By coincidence, that afternoon, visiting his uncle, he came upon Channing’s famous sermon on Unitarianism and was converted. He stopped attending church for several years. Then, after a personal crisis, he decided to become a Unitarian minister. He was accepted at Meadville Theological school and after many trials and tribulations, arrived there in 1910. There was no thought that Brown would be able to serve a white congregation, but that he might carry Unitarianism back to Jamaica. Brown tried that, and then gave up on selling Unitarianism in that culture and decided to come to Harlem, during the Black Renaissance there, and start a Unitarian Church. The reality is that the leaders of the American Unitarian Association never knew what to do with Egbert Ethelred Brown and treated him very condescendingly – one might even say shabbily. At one point he was considered such an embarrassment, his ministerial fellowship (that is, recognition) was withdrawn. He was able to get it back. Brown was not without his own problems, but the sad story that Mark details makes it clear that racism on the part of the Unitarian leaders played no small role in his inability to succeed.

[Jeff Campbell]

         This sermon began as the result of another story. I was asked by the president of my alma mater, St. Lawrence University, to serve on a committee that is looking at the celebration of the University’s 150^th anniversary. It was founded first to be a Universalist seminary, and the President believes that there should be some Universalist component to the celebration.

         Back at the beginning of December, the committee had a conference call, in the course of which we began discussing Jeff Campbell. Jeff, who grew up a Universalist in Nashua, New Hampshire, graduated from the University and theological school in 1935. They had tried to discourage him from attending, but there was no basis on which to refuse him admission, even though he was warned his career opportunities would certainly be severely limited.

         In an article in the Christian Leader, the Universalist magazine, in 1940, Jeff wrote:

          By the time I was twelve years of age, the paradox between intention and action of Universalism was shaking [the Nasuha] church. From time to time I have been the innocent cause of shaking it ever since. Self-satisfied, middle class people that they were, they had nevertheless been attracted by a faith which preached the Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of Man. That message struck sufficiently deep for them to realize that they could not preach or accept that belief while excluding the only youngster of mixed parentage (in the Anglo-African sense) in the neighborhood. With each stage in my development, the paradox grew sharper. Should I take a role in this or that pageant? What would a conference say if I were to represent the church? Should I be asked to teach a class? Would it be safe to hold box socials where anyone’s daughter might . . .

          Time and again I have seen the committees of that church sit down to each minor struggle. I have seen members of that church harden at a concession they could not bring themselves to make, and because they had to admit defeat of a principle which had begun to remake their lives, grow bitter and unlovely.

          Surprisingly often, I have seen others achieve a real triumph over their bourgeois fear of doing something “of which the community couldn’t be expected to approve.” Each time such a victory was won I have seen those people grow with a new understanding of life, just because they had come closer to being what they actually wanted to be but hadn’t had the faith that they could. And all through those early days I skipped about that vestry while such a struggle was in process knowing perfectly well what a scrap I was creating and impishly chuckling at it, for I had all the mischievousness of the average youngster albeit circumstances channeled it in unaccustomed paths.

[Universalist racism]

           Jeff’s article was mentioned on the conference call by a member of the UUA staff who was representing the association in the discussion. I had met Jeff when I was a young minister, and asked if the staff member would send me Jeff’s article. Then I asked for the articles to which Jeff’s was a response.

         Back in March of 1939, the editor of the Christian Leader commented on the controversy over the Marian Anderson concert which the DAR had refused to permit in Constitution Hall in Washington. An alternative site of the auditorium of a white high school in Washington had been offered, “with the priviso that the permission not be taken as a precedent for colored meetings generally in school buildings for whites.” The sponsors of the concert refused to go along with that priviso, which is why Marian Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial.

         The editor’s comment was:

The colored people get a raw deal many times. We are heartsick often over the injustices they suffer. We are on their side for equal rights, but not for identical facilities. When, however, they let passion run away with judgment, we have to stand for righteous judgment.

Jeff, who was in Europe at the time, thought about responding to that editorial, but did not. Then, in August of the same year, the editor again addressed race. IN this case it was about a white student contemplating ministry who married [and I quote] “a colored girl of good character and education who is a sister of a colored man already an ordained minister but not in a pastorate.”

         The editor commented:

If our advice had been sought we should have said to the young man, “If you want to join the colored race and work for people who are underprivileged and often treated unjustly, go ahead. But if you expect to stay in the white race and labor there, do not think of it for a moment.”

We can give such advice without the slightest feeling that we are false to our ideals of human brotherhood, because we believe mixed marriages are racially unwise and morally wrong.. . .

It would be right [to withhold a Universalist pulpit from a man who has contracted a marriage of this kind] because the man cannot do the work. It would be right, as it would be right not to call a man who could not read, or could not enunciate, or have met with an accident that imposed a handicap not to be overcome. There is no moral law which ordains the setting of people into jobs for which they are not fitted and in which they are bound to fail.

         The editor also went on to comment about the brother of the bride:

If a young colored man desires to enter a white theological school to get an education and has as his ideal the service of his race, we believe that he should be given every opportunity. If, however, he despises his race, wants to have nothing to do with it, insists that he intends to join the white race, serve white churches, marry a white girl, we should tell him to go elsewhere.

[Jeff’s response]

         This time Jeff decided he had to respond because the “young colored woman” in question was his sister, he had officiated at her wedding, and he was obviously the “young colored man” in question. In a very measured, dispassionate response, Jeff referred back to the committee that had, with some misgivings, voted to approve him for ordination.

         They wanted their church to be the kind of institution which could united its theory with its practice. Inwardly they knew that it was not, nor within the limits of their imagination, could they see it becoming such. They feared lest that central weakness be demonstrated to the world. Through no connivance of my own, I happened to be a walking demonstration of that weakness. Failure to ordain me would have been an even more flagrant confession of the same failure. . . .

         Jeff went on to the reference to himself:

          One line from the column says, “If a young colored man desires to enter a white theological school . . . and has as his ideal the service of his race . . . “ For the sake of bringing out a point, I will play guinea pig and assume that I might be the chap in question. Looking first between the lines I see that the writer has jumped to one of two conclusions, either that race is a matter of the preponderant biological inheritance in a man, or that the subject is biologically “pure.” Neither of these assumptions happens to be true., My actual inheritance is a ration of 11/16ths to five, the preponderance being on the Saxon side. Were I to assume the racial theory of the editor, I would immediately proclaim myself a Saxon and proceed to act accordingly. This I shall never do.

           Here comes the best part!

         I find an even greater source of disturbance in the terrific race consciousness the writer betrays. He is so much more conscious of my biological construction than I am myself. I shall always remember the editor as a very kindly gentleman who once went out of his way to enable me to attend a summer session at Union Theological School, where I gained many of the ideas reflected in this paper. It never occurred to me to query or even become conscious of the racial characteristics of his grandparents. Had I even given the matter thought, I should doubtless have felt a vague satisfaction that a fortuitous combination of genes, cells, conditionings and integrated experiences had produced a personality I felt the better for having known. I feel that race consciousness even more than race prejudice will provide an insuperable barrier against the Kingdom of Heaven which is a Universal Brotherhood.

[Jeff’s conclusion]

         Jeff’s paper concludes:

In a society such as ours, churches must create little oases in which persons from the widest possible variety of racial and cultural backgrounds can know each other as persons. Thence the consciousness of an all-pervading unit must filter out into the shop, the dance hall, and the home.

          In my own case, I feel that the church and its institutions have gone further than dozens of good men would have believed it possible for them to go. For that reason, I cannot submerge and do the comfortable thing which would morally weaken the spiritual stand which the Universalist Church must make, or forfeit its reason for existence.

         Jeff Campbell was a very talented minister with great presence, who, because of his 5/16 black inheritance, never had the opportunity to engage in full time ministry in Universalist or Unitarian churches.

[we have made progress]

         Jeff Campbell said: In a society such as ours, churches must create little oases in which persons from the widest possible variety of racial and cultural backgrounds can know each other as persons.

         That is a worthy goal which we have yet to achieve. We have certainly made progress since 1940. The kinds of obstacles that Egbert Ethelrod Brown and Jeff Campbell encountered no longer exist – or if they do, they are effectively hidden.

         When Mark Morrison-Reed wrote his book, he could find evidence of only 23 African-Americans who had ever been ordained to the Unitarian Universalist ministry. In 2000, the organization of UU Ministers of color had more than 50 members – although we must acknowledge that some of them are not serving in full time parish ministries.

         During the Civil Rights era of the 60's, when many of our ministers marched with Martin Luther King, many of our churches, including this one, saw significant growth in black membership. And then we saw it shrink again – for a couple of reasons.

[causes of the shrinkage]

         The primary cause, I believe, was the rise of Black consciousness which called upon successful African Americans, of the kind who had been attending Unitarian Universalist churches, to make their presence felt in the Black community, which meant the churches. They were told they were needed to serve as models to young people, as visible symbols of success.

         There was also a problem with our movement’s response to the Black Power movement. It was a mess. One segment of our African American membership nationally decided that it was time to challenge white paternalism, and they formed a Black Caucus which demanded a million dollars in reparations from our Association, and the right to spend that money with no strings attached.

         There were others who insisted that it was the ultimate in paternalism to give in to white guilt and hand over money to people of color in a way that it would never be handed over to any white group.

         Ultimately, some people from both factions walked away from our churches in disgust, convinced that we were racists either because we gave so much money or gave so little money, to the cause of Black empowerment.

[the challenge today]

         We still do not know how to deal with the gap between that ideal of churches [as] little oases in which persons from the widest possible variety of racial and cultural backgrounds can know each other as persons, and the reality of our token African American membership, except in a few major cities like Washington, New York, Los Angeles and possibly Chicago.

         Our Association has been engaged in a process they have called “Journey Toward Wholeness” which we declined to jump into because it centered around so much of the self study which we had just completed in our conflict resolution process, and because, frankly, I have been skeptical that it was going to be successful in achieving its goals. It is debatable, but I see limited evidence of great numbers of African Americans having flocked to our churches as a result of the process.

         Thandeka has been an outspoken critic of the “Journey Toward Wholeness.” She believes it is misdirected. She sees the problem as being much more one of class than of race. Her critics are right, however, when they point out our limited attraction to African Americans who meet the socio-economic demographics of typical Unitarian Universalists.

         Thandeka points to the vast numbers of people who it seems ought to be interested in us, who are not, and suggests that the problem is that too many of our churches function as closed clubs, making strangers of all colors feel unwelcome.

         There is a sense in which Thandeka and the Journey Toward Wholeness supporters are together – they see a need for the retooling of our Unitarian Universalist way of being. They agree we are too rational, too dry, too sterile. They believe we need “more spirituality,” although there is little consensus about what that means.

[three paths]

         Mark Morrison-Reed, in his book, suggests that there are three paths we might take.

         •                 Moved by feelings of anticipation, Unitarian Universalists can proclaim a community that is open to all, and tow hich blacks are invited –as is everyone– not only as individuals, but also for the special contribution they make.

         •                 A second course of action is to do nothing at all. Given the predominating influence of classs in shaping the religious message and the reality of institutional inertia, this is perhaps the mosty likely scenario. Into our ranks wills lowly enter blacks whose experiences and values are not discernably different from those of other Unitarian Universalists.

         •                 A third option for Unitarian Universalists may be to try to change who we are, not by pursuing blacks for the sake of our image, not by waiting until the forces of cultural amalgamation bring us more people like ourselves, buut by appreciating who we are and what we have already accomplished, while striving to move beyond our present limits. We can change because it benefits us. Religious liberals can refuse to be pinned down by the sensibilities of class and instead strive to shape, articulate, and live a religion that takes us beyond the three vaunted principles of freedom, reason, and tolerance toward a more spiritual orientation.   

         As I said, there is very little consensus about what that “more spiritual orientation” actually means. There is some evidence in some of our churches that it means a new style which makes long time members feel no longer at home. In the attempt to become more things to more people, some may be left behind, needing to create new churches that are devoted to the principles of freedom, reason and tolerance.

[what to do?]

         I believe it is important for us to ask the question why it is that this church, and most Unitarian Universalist churches, are so appallingly lacking in color. What is there we could do to reach out more effectively to broaden our base, for our sake, and for the sake of people of color whose religious needs may be congruent with ours? It is a question which we must ask, even if the answers do not come readily to our lips.

         In the meantime, I believe it is imperative that we also ask ourselves, “If we were to come here as visitors, as people exploring for a new religious home, would we feel welcome? Are we doing everything we can to make all those who visit know that this is not a closed club that is content with the status quo? That may not be sufficient, but it is a place to start.