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Maura Williams, Clover Earl, and Angela Wilcox, Racial Justice Ministry Team  Maura Williams: What’s the role of a ministry team in a faith community with a strongly voiced commitment to racial justice? How do we advance justice, wholeness, and equity, or dismantle dominant culture, as stated in our congregational Ends? Where should we start?
After reflecting on these questions, gathering input from stakeholders, and discerning an authentic path forward, the Racial and Restorative Justice Team has been reimagined as the new Racial Justice Ministry Team (RJMT). We are back with refreshed commitment to our work. Statement of Purpose: Justice can be defined as love made public. We focus on how to dismantle white dominant culture by expanding our individual and congregational capacity to center relationship and love as foundational to our work in the world. We see this as the first step before the hard work needed to achieve racial justice. The RJMT brings the double helix to life, integrating spiritual and antiracism practices within and among, so we can step into courageous action in the beyond. Our initial efforts this spring follow two pathways.
Angela Wilcox: Jodi Pfarr facilitated a training about identity and awareness at my school several years ago, and the impact was immediate: her model helped us understand the way our identity changes the way we do our work, without the shame that can sometimes put people on the defensive. The simplicity of this model, along with her humor and gifted storytelling, makes her the most effective trainer on this topic I’ve worked with. I’m excited to experience how Jodi can help prepare us for our work beyond the walls of Unity, equipped with tools to help us better understand our own identity and approach commitment to our community with greater intention. Clover Earl: Since resigning from the Board of Trustees last year, I have been in search of a place here at Unity Church to call home, and recently joined the RJMT. In my five years on the board, we had myriad conversations about dismantling white supremacy culture in support of our aspirational multicultural end. We used Tema Okun’s characteristics of White Supremacy Culture to challenge ourselves to take note of how we, as individuals, were showing up and behaving in our monthly board meetings. Turning the spotlight on or own behavior is both uncomfortable and courageous work. In the weeks since January 20, our world has turned inside out and upside down. Chaos rules the day. It seems urgent that we as a congregation continue the identity work begun with Team Dynamics and challenge ourselves to deepen our understanding of how to connect across difference. It is my experience that doing this work in community, with the support of those qualified to guide us, like Jodi Pfarr, is well worth the investment in time. We would be delighted to see you at the workshops this spring! Notes:
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Rebecca Gonzalez-Campoy, Beloved Community Communications Team I believe stories change hearts and minds, and we are in such civic and social conflict that we need stories that help create conditions of possibility for social healing…. When we lead with our heart, we learn that our mind and body more closely align with putting thought into action. In short, faith without works is dead. Faith, being that thing that animates our heart, our internal narrative of how we make sense in this vast world, is compelled by the questions of what and how: What do we do? How do we do it? These two questions—what do we do and how do we do it?—are central to the conversation surrounding reparations to Indigenous communities and nations for treaties broken and land stolen. Several years ago when members of Unity Church-Unitarian began a conversation with Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs (Mohican) of Healing Minnesota Stories about efforts to restore and maintain Indigenous language, culture, and land, the idea of “land back” remained elusive, something we would figure out years from now. However, today reparations can take on many forms well beyond the singular view of returning the land on which Unity sits to a Dakota community and leasing it from them. Before any final solution to American history can occur, reconciliation must be effected between the spiritual owner of the land—American Indians—and the political owner of the land—American Whites.” The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and its Repair Network are spearheading efforts to pass a surtax on Minnesota real estate sales to support Indian programs run by Indian people. The proposal is called the Indian Recovery Act or IRA. Here is an overview of the plan to be introduced during Minnesota’s 2025 legislative session:
This proposal is the culmination of work by Dakota and Ojibwe tribal councils and their allies. Originally intended to be introduced during the 2024 Minnesota legislative session, the parties involved determined the original bill needed some tweaking, and would fare better during a non-election year. The delay gives us extra time to help build support for the IRA. For additional information, contact the Repair Network’s Legislative Team at [email protected] or call 612-440-4526. They are looking for volunteers to speak at churches and other faith communities, write letters of support, testify before legislative committees (when the time comes), and other tasks that will move the IRA forward. As Che-Espinoza, one of my pillars of spiritual foundation, writes: Heart work demands attention to one’s own complexity and the narrative that we live with, day in and day out…The mind is a valuable tool for our becoming activist theologians, but the heart and the ability to (em)body our feelings generate the most robust action and help tie together thinking with action. The heart of becoming is in finding the plumb line of one’s own story. That’s the heart of activist theology.  Shelley Butler, Beloved Community Communications Team No Question That Reparations Are Owed After coming into the Parish Hall for Wellspring Wednesday on January 31, 2024, and saying hey to a few people, I took a spot at the front in one of the only seats left for the panel discussion, “The Process of Politics and Reparations in Saint Paul,” sponsored by the Unity Racial and Restorative Justice Team. Unity member Russel Balenger spoke about being a descendent of enslaved people, and about growing up in Rondo before being displaced. In a brief film, we heard Bridgett Floyd, sister of George Floyd, speak about the enslaved ancestors who managed to acquire several hundred acres of farmland in the South after emancipation only to have it stolen from them. Our country and our state of Minnesota were built on stolen land and free labor. Reparations are not an abstract idea relating to people over 100 years ago. The action is personal to Russel and Bridgett and every descendent of an enslaved family member. And it is about the continuing legacy of slavery: trauma, lost generational wealth, health care issues, housing discrimination, disproportional imprisonment, the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood, and more. We learned that Minnesota has the third-largest racial wealth gap in the country. It should be personal to all of us. Jane Prince has worked on reparations for years and is now fresh off the City Council and a Unity Church member. She said, “Reparations [are] a federal debt.” The work in St. Paul is a start, as are the 116 other proposals to do with reparations that have passed around the country.  Reparative Work by the St. Paul City Council To bring us up to date, Trahern Crews, a Black Lives Matter Minnesota leader and one of the conveners of St Paul’s Reparations Advisory Committee, walked us through the years of study and work completed by himself, Balenger, Prince, and many others that led to successful reparations work in St. Paul.  Highlights include:
Independent of the City Council, Mayor Melvin Carter established the Rondo Inheritance Fund to help displaced Rondo families purchase housing. And while information on the Inheritance Fund is on the city website under “City Council Reparations Efforts,” it is not related to the commission. Due to a large number of applicants, the city is no longer taking applications for this fund. What You Can Do Right Now The history so far is important, but to hear direct-experience testimony is to witness the pain and hopefully, to become allies in the work of reparations. Thus, the call to immediate action. Here’s what you can do:
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Beloved Community ResourcesUnity Justice Database
Team Dynamics House of Intersectionality Anti-Racism Resources in the Unity Libraries Collection Creative Writers of Color in Unity Libraries The History of Race Relations and Unity Church, 1850-2005 Archives
March 2025
Beloved Community Staff TeamThe Beloved Community Staff Team (BCST) strengthens and coordinates Unity’s antiracism and multicultural work, and provides opportunities for congregants and the church to grow into greater intercultural competency. We help the congregation ground itself in the understanding of antiracism and multiculturalism as a core part of faith formation. We support Unity’s efforts to expand our collective capacity to imagine and build the Beloved Community. Here, we share the stories of this journey — the struggles, the questions, and the collaborations — both at Unity and in the wider world.
The current members of the Beloved Community Staff Team include Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, Rev. KP Hong, Rev. Lara Cowtan, Drew Danielson, Laura Park, Lia Rivamonte and Angela Wilcox. |
