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The Selma Awakening: How the Civil Rights Movement Tested and Changed Unitarian Universalism
The foremost scholar of African-American Unitarian Universalist history presents this long-awaited analysis of the denomination's civil rights activism in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Selma represented a turning point for Unitarian Universalists. In answering Martin Luther King Jr.'s call to action, they shifted from passing earnest resolutions about racial justice to putting their lives on the line for the cause. Morrison-Reed traces the long history of race relations among the Unitarians and the Universalists leading up to 1965, exploring events and practices of the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. He reveals the disparity between their espoused values on race and their values in practice. And yet, in 1965 their activism in Selma—involving hundreds of ministers and the violent deaths of Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo—at last put them in authentic relationship with their proclaimed beliefs. With rigorous scholarship and unflinching frankness, The Selma Awakening provides a new way of understanding Unitarian Universalist engagement with race and offers an indispensable new resource for anyone interested in UU history.
Retired from Unitarian Universalist parish ministry, Mark Morrison-Reed is an affiliated faculty member at Meadville Lombard Theological School and the coordinator of the Sankofa Archive there. He is the author or editor of several other books from Skinner House Books.
Retired from Unitarian Universalist parish ministry, Mark Morrison-Reed is an affiliated faculty member at Meadville Lombard Theological School and the coordinator of the Sankofa Archive there. He is the author or editor of several other books from Skinner House Books.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 23, 2014
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July 14, 2018
Mark Morrison-Reed, the foremost Unitarian Universalist historian of the moment, wrote this detailed history of the participation of about one-quarter of our clergy, in addition to many lay members, in the March for racial justice in Selma, in 1965. One minister and one laywoman were killed by local white thugs. He describes it as an uplifting moment--life-changing and spiritual-understanding-changing for many--in the history of our faith.
He also gives a thorough critique of lack of true commitment to racial justice before, and to a disturbing extent after, Selma. One of the most challenging criticisms to me was the tendency of the White UUs to confuse integration with assimilation. I must plead guilty to that charge. In the 70s, our Black membership turned against integration and asked for substantial funds to develop programs (churches?) that they could lead themselves. The rift (between those who supported them and those who opposed, as well as between Black and White) was wrenching, but was slowly overcome.
Sometimes the detail threatened to overwhelm the story, but at least for this reader to whom many of the names are familiar, and a few of the actors are or have been friends, it didn't.
Rev. Dr. Morrison-Reed is an African-American from the US who served a UU church for many years as co-minister with his wife Donna in Toronto.
He also gives a thorough critique of lack of true commitment to racial justice before, and to a disturbing extent after, Selma. One of the most challenging criticisms to me was the tendency of the White UUs to confuse integration with assimilation. I must plead guilty to that charge. In the 70s, our Black membership turned against integration and asked for substantial funds to develop programs (churches?) that they could lead themselves. The rift (between those who supported them and those who opposed, as well as between Black and White) was wrenching, but was slowly overcome.
Sometimes the detail threatened to overwhelm the story, but at least for this reader to whom many of the names are familiar, and a few of the actors are or have been friends, it didn't.
Rev. Dr. Morrison-Reed is an African-American from the US who served a UU church for many years as co-minister with his wife Donna in Toronto.
March 25, 2015
It's difficult to rave about a book when I come away from it disagreeing with the author's conclusion. He makes an excellent case for how a segment of UU clergy and would-be clergy were transformed by participating in Selma/Montgomery events of 1965. But I feel there is a different book waiting to be written: How did the THOUSANDS of UUs--ordinary UUs, not just clergy--feel after participating in the 1963 March on Washington? Morrison-Reed himself documents how difficult it was for the clergy of Selma to return to their churches and try to communicate the energy and commitment they experienced to the members in the pews, and he puts his finger right on the fact that today's UU church remains almost all-white, so it's hard to see how the events of 1965 changed the church as a whole.
January 18, 2015
Quotable:
We, who talk about brotherhood, must revise our policies and our practices to make brotherhood a reality in our parishes. Indeed, the denomination would have to do more than revise its policies to achieve these high aspirations; it would need to change its practices and behavior.
When brotherhood is limited, real self-hood is hard to attain, perhaps impossible. For man is a social being; the denial of brotherhood is a limitation upon the self. A man’s uniqueness must be recognized by his friends. The liberal church accepts this challenge: It preaches and practices, if imperfectly, both fellowship and individualism. It recognizes modern man’s dual need – the need to be in the fullest sense a person and the need to be a brother, to find vital human fellowship across all boundries.
How did the children raised with these programs [Universalism and Unitarianism] in the 1940’s and 50’s become the change agents of the 1960s and 70s?... Raised to question the status quo, they saw what their elders did not; the hypocrisy of affirming racial justice and then doing so little about it in their own lives.
Good intentions were irrelevant if not backed up by statements and actions beyond the fellowship walls. Fellowships’ resistance to making such public proclamations hindered their becoming more racially diverse.
It may therefore come to pass, as in the ancient East, that a minority, having known sorrow and become acquainted with grief, will transform the larger world, recalling to the larger society its own ancient ideals, and saving that which could not save itself.
When, in 1955, Greta W. Crosby approached Frederick May Eliot to express her desire to abandon her career in law for ministry, he told her, “It’s as hard to be a woman in the Unitarian ministry as to be a Negro.”
In truth, most African Americans had heard of neither Universalism nor Unitarianism. The revulsion UUs felt toward evangelism, reinforced by an unwillingness to persistently and unequivocally proclaim that people of all colors were welcome, guaranteed it would continue that way. How often were the few African Americans who were drawn by the message of liberal religion to enter a congregation welcomed with insidious slights and jaundiced assumptions? How many were told, as three black visitors were in Louisville in 1959, that “they were welcome ‘but’ that they would make some [people] uncomfortable”?
More than 177 Unitarian Universalist ministers and seminarians journeyed to Selma or Montgomery. Understanding why they went requires assessing the influence of their seminary professors. Much as Dharma is transmitted from teacher to student in Buddhism, students of UU ministry seem to have internalized the lessons of their mentors, generating a response to the call to Selma that was nearly instinctual.
Charles Blackburn had just arrived in Alabama as the first minister called by the UU Fellowship of Huntsville. A Southerner raised in northern Florida, Blackburn’s route to activism had begun six years earlier, when he heard King speak at Howard University. Soon thereafter, in the wake of the bomb threat to the Arlington Unitarian Church, he wrote to the Washington Post, “We Americans seem always to need the blast of a bomb to lift us out of our apathy, and perhaps this incident and the many others so fresh in our minds will start a chain reaction of new thinking; a moral break-through of which we as a people are infinitely capable if we desire and will it.”
Later, in a private meeting, Malcolm X assured Coretta Scott King, “I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking that I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.”
Any life that is given or taken in the cause of equality… is equal to every other life thus lost. Any man who suffers from man’s inhumanity to man is my brother. When will we learn this? - Roger Greeley
“And if he should die,
Take his body, and cut it into little stars.
He will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in live with night”
-William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet
The Second World War had a catalytic effect on race relations. The Allies framed the war as an epic battle between the forces of freedom and the despotism of the Axis, a struggle to make the world safe for democracy, and in its aftermath they had no way to retreat from their own propaganda.
Inspired by the civil rights movement, women moved to liberate themselves. Yet, in a way that is typical of those who have been victimized, middle-class Euro-American women became enthralled by their own suffering and could not see beyond their own needs. White sisters simply didn't get it. That is to say, Euro-American women did not acknowledge that, despite their second-class status, they benefited from white privilege and they, too, participated in maintaining system is racism.
Women, homosexuals, and ore oppressed groups could not help but intuit the implications of the civil rights movement. People were awakening to human liberation. Black Power, feminism, and the gay rights movement would all assert themselves before the end of the decade.
When projects like Selma ended, whites went back to their "comfortable communities," while blacks returned to troubled ones in which they owned no significant businesses; instead, they were "exploited by chain stores [which] sell inferior products at higher prices." If they tried to move to the white suburbs, they were refused loans.
Many who were sympathetic to the cause remained trapped within their own perspectives, unable, on their own to crush their false assumptions about African Americans and integration, about emotion, community, and God. Without a transformative experience, there was no emotional or existential wreckage upon which they could build an inner transformation and do as James Bevel urged those who had flocked to Selma to do: "Retire into your closet and rethink your entire philosophy of life. No less is necessary.
We, who talk about brotherhood, must revise our policies and our practices to make brotherhood a reality in our parishes. Indeed, the denomination would have to do more than revise its policies to achieve these high aspirations; it would need to change its practices and behavior.
When brotherhood is limited, real self-hood is hard to attain, perhaps impossible. For man is a social being; the denial of brotherhood is a limitation upon the self. A man’s uniqueness must be recognized by his friends. The liberal church accepts this challenge: It preaches and practices, if imperfectly, both fellowship and individualism. It recognizes modern man’s dual need – the need to be in the fullest sense a person and the need to be a brother, to find vital human fellowship across all boundries.
How did the children raised with these programs [Universalism and Unitarianism] in the 1940’s and 50’s become the change agents of the 1960s and 70s?... Raised to question the status quo, they saw what their elders did not; the hypocrisy of affirming racial justice and then doing so little about it in their own lives.
Good intentions were irrelevant if not backed up by statements and actions beyond the fellowship walls. Fellowships’ resistance to making such public proclamations hindered their becoming more racially diverse.
It may therefore come to pass, as in the ancient East, that a minority, having known sorrow and become acquainted with grief, will transform the larger world, recalling to the larger society its own ancient ideals, and saving that which could not save itself.
When, in 1955, Greta W. Crosby approached Frederick May Eliot to express her desire to abandon her career in law for ministry, he told her, “It’s as hard to be a woman in the Unitarian ministry as to be a Negro.”
In truth, most African Americans had heard of neither Universalism nor Unitarianism. The revulsion UUs felt toward evangelism, reinforced by an unwillingness to persistently and unequivocally proclaim that people of all colors were welcome, guaranteed it would continue that way. How often were the few African Americans who were drawn by the message of liberal religion to enter a congregation welcomed with insidious slights and jaundiced assumptions? How many were told, as three black visitors were in Louisville in 1959, that “they were welcome ‘but’ that they would make some [people] uncomfortable”?
More than 177 Unitarian Universalist ministers and seminarians journeyed to Selma or Montgomery. Understanding why they went requires assessing the influence of their seminary professors. Much as Dharma is transmitted from teacher to student in Buddhism, students of UU ministry seem to have internalized the lessons of their mentors, generating a response to the call to Selma that was nearly instinctual.
Charles Blackburn had just arrived in Alabama as the first minister called by the UU Fellowship of Huntsville. A Southerner raised in northern Florida, Blackburn’s route to activism had begun six years earlier, when he heard King speak at Howard University. Soon thereafter, in the wake of the bomb threat to the Arlington Unitarian Church, he wrote to the Washington Post, “We Americans seem always to need the blast of a bomb to lift us out of our apathy, and perhaps this incident and the many others so fresh in our minds will start a chain reaction of new thinking; a moral break-through of which we as a people are infinitely capable if we desire and will it.”
Later, in a private meeting, Malcolm X assured Coretta Scott King, “I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking that I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.”
Any life that is given or taken in the cause of equality… is equal to every other life thus lost. Any man who suffers from man’s inhumanity to man is my brother. When will we learn this? - Roger Greeley
“And if he should die,
Take his body, and cut it into little stars.
He will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in live with night”
-William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet
The Second World War had a catalytic effect on race relations. The Allies framed the war as an epic battle between the forces of freedom and the despotism of the Axis, a struggle to make the world safe for democracy, and in its aftermath they had no way to retreat from their own propaganda.
Inspired by the civil rights movement, women moved to liberate themselves. Yet, in a way that is typical of those who have been victimized, middle-class Euro-American women became enthralled by their own suffering and could not see beyond their own needs. White sisters simply didn't get it. That is to say, Euro-American women did not acknowledge that, despite their second-class status, they benefited from white privilege and they, too, participated in maintaining system is racism.
Women, homosexuals, and ore oppressed groups could not help but intuit the implications of the civil rights movement. People were awakening to human liberation. Black Power, feminism, and the gay rights movement would all assert themselves before the end of the decade.
When projects like Selma ended, whites went back to their "comfortable communities," while blacks returned to troubled ones in which they owned no significant businesses; instead, they were "exploited by chain stores [which] sell inferior products at higher prices." If they tried to move to the white suburbs, they were refused loans.
Many who were sympathetic to the cause remained trapped within their own perspectives, unable, on their own to crush their false assumptions about African Americans and integration, about emotion, community, and God. Without a transformative experience, there was no emotional or existential wreckage upon which they could build an inner transformation and do as James Bevel urged those who had flocked to Selma to do: "Retire into your closet and rethink your entire philosophy of life. No less is necessary.
August 19, 2019
Hard Facts of History, Relevant to Today
As with all of Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed’s books, if you want to understand how Unitarian Universalism got where it is, he has thoroughly researched answers and offers a call to how we can transform ourselves emotionally and spiritually with that knowledge.
As with all of Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed’s books, if you want to understand how Unitarian Universalism got where it is, he has thoroughly researched answers and offers a call to how we can transform ourselves emotionally and spiritually with that knowledge.
June 3, 2015
Good look at UU history, though it doesn't cover the schism. Upsetting in that our early record wasn't so good. Good background on Selma, which made it more understandable to one who had little exposure to those issues back then.
I was most impressed by the author's addressing two disturbing elements of the earlier coverage of events. There were three martyrs, not one. I had never heard of Jimmie Lee Jackson until a few weeks before reading the book, in an article on Selma. Although President Johnson referenced the death of Rev. James Reeb (the death of a godly man) in his speech on the submission of the Civil Rights Acts, Mr. Jackson was also a man of God, a deacon in his church, killed by an Alabama police officer while defending his family. Considering the number of people we now know were lynched in the US, and the 1963 bombing deaths of 4 little girls in a church, it's appalling that it took the death of a white minister to get the Act passed. I was shocked to learn that there was very little coverage of Viola Liuzzo, because I'd always known about her, though not that she was a UU; I guess I was struck by her story because there were so few women mentioned in the stories about those days. I did know about the sexism in the civil rights movement. (Also homophobia; Bayard Rustin was an important figure not allowed the visibility he deserved, because he was gay.) The author attributed the lack of coverage of Mrs. Liuzzo's martyrdom to sexism; and he's probably right.
I was most impressed by the author's addressing two disturbing elements of the earlier coverage of events. There were three martyrs, not one. I had never heard of Jimmie Lee Jackson until a few weeks before reading the book, in an article on Selma. Although President Johnson referenced the death of Rev. James Reeb (the death of a godly man) in his speech on the submission of the Civil Rights Acts, Mr. Jackson was also a man of God, a deacon in his church, killed by an Alabama police officer while defending his family. Considering the number of people we now know were lynched in the US, and the 1963 bombing deaths of 4 little girls in a church, it's appalling that it took the death of a white minister to get the Act passed. I was shocked to learn that there was very little coverage of Viola Liuzzo, because I'd always known about her, though not that she was a UU; I guess I was struck by her story because there were so few women mentioned in the stories about those days. I did know about the sexism in the civil rights movement. (Also homophobia; Bayard Rustin was an important figure not allowed the visibility he deserved, because he was gay.) The author attributed the lack of coverage of Mrs. Liuzzo's martyrdom to sexism; and he's probably right.
January 4, 2015
How do we explain and understand the relationship between individuals and our communities? The Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed takes the time to list all of the names of all of the seminarians and UU ministers who were involved during historic events in Mississippi and Alabama in critical years of the civil rights movement. His thesis, which I find persuasive, is that a critical number of future leaders of the denomination had their lives and ministries transformed by experiences during that time.
I love Unitarian Universalists in general and many specific Unitarian Universalist faith siblings. We can sometimes be faulted for an abundance of mental energy and lots of words without specific actions. As the author documents, the response to the crisis in Selma challenged faith leaders and changed the denomination.
A reader does not have to be a Unitarian Universalist to enjoy this book. All the UU's who read it will learn and sometimes feel the discomfort of honest self critical reflection.
In my view, this book is balanced, fair, compassionate and tells the truth.
I love Unitarian Universalists in general and many specific Unitarian Universalist faith siblings. We can sometimes be faulted for an abundance of mental energy and lots of words without specific actions. As the author documents, the response to the crisis in Selma challenged faith leaders and changed the denomination.
A reader does not have to be a Unitarian Universalist to enjoy this book. All the UU's who read it will learn and sometimes feel the discomfort of honest self critical reflection.
In my view, this book is balanced, fair, compassionate and tells the truth.
October 22, 2014
I wish I could give this book ten stars. I know I will be returning to it again and again for quotations and inspiration. This book is *essential reading* for Unitarian Universalists and all who care about peace and justice, and about authentically living our faith and our values. Deep bow and gratitude to the author. "It is not possible, nor necessary, to know the outcome of our actions; therefore we act in faith. Faith asks not that we succeed, but that we try. We try because we yearn to live out our values. Conscience urges us on, for we have dreamed of a better, more just tomorrow. We care; therefore, we act. In acting, we risk having our hearts broken a thousand times; therefore, we are sustained by hope."
February 7, 2015
The book starts with some background on the UU religion's history regarding race. This might be a little dry to some but was very revealing to me. The disconnect between intentions and actions was amazing. Those who may think the background vague should hold on because the stories quickly become compelling. The way that people pulled together and literally put everything on the line is inspiring and perhaps a little depressing because it is so hard to imagine that sort of commitment being so widespread today. I strongly recommend this book and next month when I walk across the Pettus bridge to honor these men and women on the 50th anniversary, I know I will feel the presence of the men and women described in this book.
February 21, 2015
Even though it's slightly pedantic (as books like this are likely to be), I gave it four stars because I lived through these times and the history is VERLY familiar to me. Yet Mark's book goes into much more detail than I ever knew. Read in conjunction with seeing the movie "Selma" TWICE, and anticipating reading Gordon Gibson's book on the same topic, I am re-living a very important time in my country's history and my own. I strongly recommend this book to Unitarian Universalists who care about the civil rights movement; it would be of less interest to readers who are not familiar with Unitarian Universalism and some of our 20th century heroes and martyrs.
April 27, 2015
Very good for those working for Racial Justice who are coming from a Liberal Religious perspective or to deepen understanding on the impact on some of the allies of the Civil Rights core workers in the deep South. The book is valuable for UU denominational religious education and guidance.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews