| | | | | | A Renewed Challenge in the Age of COVID-19 --
Building a More Just and Equitable Society We are in a challenging and difficult time as the COVID-19 crisis has changed our lives and our advocacy. Our hope is that you and your family and friends are staying safe and healthy, and finding ways to support those on the frontline of this pandemic crisis, for the needs of our communities, neighbors, and those who are at the margins.
Let’s agree -- even while COVID-19 dominates the news, now is not the time to retreat from the fight against climate change, economic insecurity, injustice to immigrants, and voter suppression.
Some are exploiting the crisis to weaken environmental safeguards, push back against efforts to make voting easier and safer, and allow health and economic disparities that threaten huge swaths of Americans, especially the most vulnerable and disenfranchised people. These stark inequities demand action by UUSJ in opposition as the pandemic itself dramatizes and exacerbates these growing injustices. Read more ... | | | | | | | | | UUSJ’s Advocacy Corps Shows Flexibility During Pandemic UUSJ’s Capitol Hill Advocacy Corps is finding new ways to do its work during the COVID-19 pandemic. For everyone’s safety, the Advocacy Corps has suspended its monthly visits to offices of members of Congress. Congress is currently closed to the public. But thanks to an enthusiastic group of Advocacy Corps volunteers and 20 Write Here! Write Now! (WHWN) partner congregations across the nation, the letter-writing continues. The May WHWN nationwide letter-writing campaign issue urges UUs to “Tell your Senators to Act Now Against Dangerous Greenhouse ‘Super Pollutant’ HFCs by supporting the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act (AIM), S.2754.” This is part of UUSJ’s collaboration with UU Ministry for Earth and celebration of Earth Day (April 22). UUs can write letters -- based on UUSJ’s WHWN Handout --and submit them to UUSJ by May 14. WHWN letters will be sent to key environment staff in each senator’s office, via email or other means, along with the UUSJ cover letter. Whenever possible, telephone calls that include constituents will be scheduled to discuss the issue in detail. Join us Friday, May 8 at 3pmET - Register Here for a Zoom letter-writing event where we will learn more about the issue and write our letters together. For information: Advocacy@uusj.org.
| | | | Enthused Advocacy Corps and Partners Continue Their Work Virtually To avoid losing momentum, we are holding issue briefings via Zoom video conferences with Advocacy Corps volunteers. We are also finding ways to adapt our Advocacy Program during the pandemic. In mid-April, 23 Advocacy Corps and team members attended an issue briefing and discussed ways to work around the challenges to direct advocacy. A second follow-up meeting later that month had more than 16 members participated in co-creating the future of our advocacy program. In March, more than 23 people from 20 WHWN partner congregations came together via Zoom to brainstorm on ways to conduct virtual letter-writing campaigns. Advocacy at a Distance During the pandemic, UUSJ continues to advocate on social justice issues in addition to the work of the Capitol Hill Advocacy Corps. Urging virtual advocacy during social distancing, our recent work includes: - Action Alert: Tell EPA to withdraw its dangerous "secret science" regulatory rollback to undermine the use of critical scientific research. (Regulatory comments due May 18). See the story below in Environmental and Climate Justice section.
- Action Alert: Tell Congress to Protect Our Right to Vote. Write your Representative and Senator to tell them they need to provide $4 billion to fund safe elections.
- Partnering to mobilize voters with the Reeb Project for Voting Rights and UU the Vote. UUSJ is also working to prepare UUs to stand as allies with impacted communities.
- Providing comments on critical public health issues such as the National Environmental Policy Act.
- Writing letters to Maryland and Virginia Senators (example of letter) on COVID-19 and ICE detainees.
- Drafting written testimony for the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, working with the Washington Interreligious Staff Community on ecology and energy. The following groups signed on to the letter: UUSJ, UUMFE, UUA, UUSC, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Church World Service, Interfaith Power and Light, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, and Maryknoll Office for Global Concern.
| | | | ZOOM Virtual Letter-Writing Campaign Join us Friday, May 8 at 3pmET - Register Here.  | | | Finding Ways to Get Congregants to Take Action Some congregations are finding creative ways to continue their Write Here! Write Now! letter-writing despite the inability to meet face-to-face. At the Accotink (VA) UU Church, John Peterson is using Zoom technology for a class he teaches on the congregation’s study issue for the year -- environmental justice. At the end of one class, he demonstrated via Zoom how to write letters on the Write Here! Write Now! issue of the month. Some 24 class members pledged to write their senators. | | | | Special Working Group Reviewing Ways to Maintain UUSJ Advocacy Program UUSJ has also convened an ad hoc working group comprised of Board members, chaired by Serena Lowe of All Souls Church, Unitarian, to review current advocacy program policy and oversight and consider resources needed for the future, as Advocacy lead volunteer Lavona Grow steps back. Lavona, who created the Advocacy Corps, has managed the program for more than three years. The UUSJ Board will review the working group’s recommendation at its June 13 annual Board meeting. | | | | | | | | UUSJ Hires An Organizer to Mobilize Voters During 2020 UUSJ has joined forces and pooled resources with the Reeb Project for Voting Rights to hire Kelsey Cowger as an organizer through November 2020. Kelsey will connect the joint project with the broader UU the Vote initiative. This partnership is an exciting opportunity to broaden UUSJ’s impact by expanding our voter mobilization programs, which have a strong record of success and collaboration in past elections. UUSJ received an anonymous angel donation to make this project possible. Kelsey will help UUs act as allies with impacted communities and sharpen our impact in mobilizing voters. Stay tuned for details about a webinar with Kelsey to learn more about the project. Questions? info@uusj.org. | | | | Meet Kelsey Cowger Kelsey serves on the board of Charlottesville (VA) Unitarian Church. She joins us from her most recent position as the Regional Organizing Director with the Tom Steyer presidential campaign. "I'm thrilled to be able to do this work,” Kelsey says. “We're in the middle of such an important historical moment right now, and helping people exercise their right to vote when so many forces are aligning to prevent that is more important than ever." Read more ... | | | | A Special ‘Thank you’ Recent environmental Action Alerts and the Earth Month issue advocacy backgrounders on the environment and climate change have benefited greatly from the knowledge and skills of David Shilton, UU Church of Arlington. Also very helpful in this domain are members of the environmental “salon,” Jack Leibowitz, River Road; Larry Underwood, Bull Run; John Peterson, Accotink; Beth Offenbacker, Arlington, and new member Thomas Spangler; River Road, as well as David Shilton. Thank you for your guidance! | | |  UUSJ Board Meeting June 13 UUSJ’s annual Board meeting, scheduled for June 13, will take place via Zoom due to the pandemic. Board members will be kept up-to-date on the final schedule and agenda. Watch for an announcement in the June edition of eNews. All UUSJ members are welcome to attend and participate. For more information, email info@uusj.org. | | | | UUSJ Needs Your Talent! UUSJ has several openings for volunteers on committees and in leadership positions, including a Board Treasurer. We need people willing to serve in these vital roles! If you are interested -- or know someone who might be -- please contact the UUSJ Nominating Committee chair, Sean McCarthy. | | | | | | | Unitarian Universalist News | | UUSJ Director Tapped for UUA Poor People's Campaign Leadership UUSJ Executive Director Pablo DeJesus has been appointed by UUA President Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray to the UUA Poor People’s Campaign Leadership Council. The Council is co-chaired by Rev. Abhi Janamachi of Cedar Lane UU Church (Bethesda) and Rev. Beth Johnson of Palomar UU Fellowship, Vista, CA. The other Council member from our area is Rev. Amy Williams Clark of Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalists, Finksburg, MD. They join three ministers from across the country to complete the Leadership Council. At the Council’s first meeting last month, members discussed how to involve UUs in the current work of the campaign of organizing during the pandemic. The June 20, 2020 Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington will be held virtually. The M.O.R.E. (Mobilize, Organize, Register & Educate) Bus Tours leading up to the event have been converted to Digital Mass Meetings. The next one is May 28 at 8:30pmET. Join the Facebook Live Event. UUs are being encouraged to invite family, friends, and colleagues and to organize watch parties. The events will be live-streamed from the Poor People’s Campaign Facebook page. For details see the UUA post. | | | | | | | | | Covid-19 and the Issues Immigrants Face The UUSJ Immigration UUSJ Immigration Task Group is monitoring how immigrants are being affected by the pandemic as well as federal and local responses. Those held in detention are particularly at risk, given close quarters and poor hygiene conditions. After learning that some detainees in the Farmville, VA Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center had gone on hunger strikes, we sent letters to Virginia and Maryland U.S. senators asking them to pressure the Department of Homeland Security/ICE to release detainees who are not a danger to the public.  Meanwhile, many of the Dreamers -- immigrants who came to this country as children -- -- are among the frontline healthcare workers. In addition to greater health risks, they are facing the possibility of deportation if the Supreme Court upholds the President’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program offered immigrants who came to the United States before age16 the chance to obtain a work permit and a way to avoid deportation. UUSJ has joined Dreamers in advocating for non-deportation. More than 200,000 immigrants with DACA status are frontline responders in the pandemic (29,000 are in health care systems). Contact Charlotte Jones-Carroll, Immigration Justice Task Group. | | | | | | | Environmental and Climate Justice | | UUSJ Urges Public Comments on Use of Scientific Research by EPA The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed limiting the use of critical scientific research to inform public policy. Action Alert: Tell EPA to withdraw its dangerous "secret science" regulatory rollback to undermine the use of critical scientific research. If adopted, this proposal would keep EPA from considering landmark public health studies simply because some of the underlying data is confidential in order to protect patient privacy. Regulatory Comments due May 18. | | | | Reflections on Earth Month | | | | "Climate Justice should be the great unifier.” Paula Cole Jones is the Interim Congregational Life Staff of the UUA Central East Region. She is the editor and author of numerous UU publications, including Justice on Earth: People of Faith & Conscious Working at the Intersection of Race, Class, And Environment In September 2019, UUSJ collaborated with UU’s for a Just Economic Community, UU Ministry for Earth, and other UU service organizations in the “Advancing Economic and Climate Justice as a Moral Issue, Building a Movement for a “Green New Deal" conference. Paula Cole Jones was one of the speakers, watch the video here. | | | | Be Inspired by Jane Goodall in Just Six Minutes During last month’s 50th anniversary of Earth Day, there were many powerful and compelling emails and videos urging people to take individual and collective action to save the planet and to donate to groups leading this important work. We hope you were able to take action, not just for the day, but for a lifetime. Among the inspiring and heart-breaking videos, is this six-minute Mother Earth essay by Jane Goodall, who argues that we “can only achieve our human potential if we have harmony between head and heart.” I hope it inspires you to take whatever action you can every day of the year. | | | | | | | | | Poor People's Campaign Update Economic inequity before Covid-19:
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, National Co-Director of the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) observes in an article for The Nation, Inequality and Poverty Were Destroying America well before Covid-19, “Here’s the simple truth of 21st century America: All of us live in a time and in an economic system that values our lives relative to our ability to produce profits for the rich or in the context of the wealth we possess. Our wellness is measured by our efficiency and—a particular lesson in the age of the coronavirus—our sickness, when considered at all, is seen as an indication of individual limitations or moral failures, rather than as a symptom of a sick society.” PPC is taking its rallies online:
In light of Covid-19. The next Digital Mass Meeting is May 28, followed by the June 20 nationwide Mass Rally, originally scheduled to take place in Washington, DC. Use this special UU RSVP link - to show UUs will be present on-line June 20 and that we support this Moral Fusion Movement. Join the movement now, prepare to mobilize voters, and hold elected leaders accountable for a justice-centered American ethos. | | | | | | | | |  Learn “How We Thrive”
with UU the Vote
May 12, 7pmET
What does it mean to practice our UU Principles during a pandemic? What are we doing to guarantee free and fair elections in states targeted by voter suppression activists? How is UU the Vote rising to the challenges of COVID-19, while creating a movement towards UU values in the 2020 elections? Join LIVE for a special “How We Thrive” update from UU the Vote. This event will feature musicians from across the country, a message from UUA President Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray, and opportunities to get involved in making an impact in 2020! Register here. Tell your Federal Elected Officials to Support the Right to Vote Send a note or call your federal representatives to secure our right to vote from home if necessary in the 2020 election. Please click on this UUSJ Action Alert link to tell Congress to protect our right to vote. | | | | What’s your congregation doing to mobilize voters for the 2020 elections? The UU Church of Arlington (UUCA) Virginia is partnering with the NAACP and the nonpartisan Reclaim Our Vote project to reach out to eligible voters of color in North Carolina who have been removed from voter registration rolls. So far, volunteers have sent out some 700 postcards and are preparing another 500. UUCA’s 8th Principle group, which won an award at UUSJ’s biennial Social Justice Awards Gala last October, is part of the effort. For details, contact Suzan Chastain How has your congregation adapted its UU the Vote campaign in this time of physical distancing? We want to hear from you! Email your information to UUSJ’s Administrative Assistant, Paulette DeMers. | | | | | | | | Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (UUSJ)
7750 16th St NW, | Washington, District of Columbia 20012
202-600-9132 | info@uusj.org | | | | | | | |
