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Justice Matters

It is an entirely human yearning to want to get a fresh start. We reinforce the tradition when we prepare our children (if we are able) for the new school year with new clothes, notebooks, and backpacks. The New Year’s tradition celebrates both the ending and the beginning of marked time. We imagine a relatively clean slate, perhaps augmented with new resolutions. This is all to the good; we need to restart somewhere.

Turning the page on the New Year, however, does not negate the theme – the narrative – of the book. We are the same now, as we were moments ago in 2019. The challenges to our state, our republic, and our form of democracy meet us on this side of the calendar. As we look back and then ahead, we are eager to see a positive curve to the long arc of the moral universe bending toward justice. No fair peeking ahead to see how the continuing narrative of 2020 comes out.

Be assured but not comforted that the arc is a positive one, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, quoting our Theodore Parker. Our journey toward justice will never end. Each stride we take moves us forward together.

Keep Reading ...

Forward Together News & Events

UU Forward Together Gathering at HKonJ

If you're coming to the HKonJ Moral March on Raleigh and don't have to catch a bus or leave immediately after the rally on Fayetteville Street (which should end around 1:00 pm), please join UUs (and others) for food, singing, worship, sharing, and networking from 1:00 - 2:30 pm at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center, 109 South Wilmington St., Raleigh, NC 27601 (just one block east of the HKonJ rally).

Click the button below to register!

Where Do We Go From Here?
Forward Together Vision 2020 On-Line Survey

Help UU Forward Together determine what's been working well, what hasn't worked, and what we should do during the coming year to give life the shape of justice by

• supporting the social justice work of UUs and UU congregations in North Carolina,
• building relationships and partnerships with other statewide social justice organizations, and
• promoting our UU values in the public square through education, witness, protest, resistance, advocacy, lobbying, and action. 

We need your feedback and suggestions.

Please take six minutes (or less) to complete UU Forward Together's on-line 2020 Vision Survey!

Forward Together Annual Report 2018 - 19

Read UU Forward Together's second annual report (October 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019) to learn more about the work we've done together during the past year to "give life the shape of justice" by supporting the social justice work of UUs and UU congregations in North Carolina, establishing relationships and partnerships with other social justice organizations, and promoting UU values in the public square through education, organizing, witness, protest, advocacy, lobbying, and action.

Thank You for Your Financial Support!

Thank you to everyone who gave life the shape of justice in 2019 by making a financial donation to UU Forward Together.

In 2019, UU Forward Together received almost $24,900 in contributions (ranging from $10 to $10,000) from almost 100 individuals and more than $7,565 in contributions (ranging from ($125 to $2,500) from 14 UU congregations.

Because UU Forward Together is a tax-exempt 501c3 nonprofit organization, most contributions (other than purchases of t-shirts, food, etc.) to UU Forward Together may be claimed as an itemized deduction from taxable income on a donor's federal or North Carolina income tax return.

Thank you notes and financial contribution summaries will be sent before January 31, 2020 to all individual donors who made tax-deductible contributions to UU Forward Together during 2019.

And it's not too late or too early to make or renew your commitment of financial support for UU Forward Together! 

Giving Life the Shape of Justice

"UU the Vote" Campaign Launches January 12, 2020

"UU the Vote" is the UUA's campaign to encourage UUs and UU congregations all across the United States to get involved in voter registration and get out the vote activities during 2020. 

The stakes couldn’t be higher in the 2020 elections. All our values, our work for justice, the communities we love and the beloved community we seek to create are under attack. Our religious community must speak with moral courage and act with prophetic clarity and determination in the 2020 electoral cycle. Our UU values of interdependence, democracy, and the inherent worth and dignity of all people are direct antidotes to the fear, bigotry, and inequity that define our world. In this political moment, UUs are called to join forces with all people who want to organize our communities and our nation.

The UUA's national UUtheVote Team will be hosting a nation-wide Zoom call on Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 4:00 pm (EST) to officially launch UU the Vote and encourages UU congregations and North Carolina UUs to participate in groups at their congregations, at house parties, and on-line together.

Your congregation, your congregation's social justice committee, or a group of social justice activists in your congregation can use this link to sign up to participate in the January 12th call.

Women's March on Raleigh

North Carolina General Assembly Reconvenes

Por la Vida: Solidarity with Women in Honduras
UU College of Social Justice 

Join UUs from all across the US for a journey of accompaniment and solidarity in Honduras with UUCSJ's partner, Foro de Mujeres Por la Vida, March 5 - 11, 2020.

We particularly invite feminists, immigrant rights organizers and religious leaders.

Click here for more information.

Register by January 6, 2020.

Tell Senators Tillis & Burr to Vote For Gun Safety!

S. 2843 — the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019 (VAWA) — contains life-saving gun safety provisions that will keep firearms away from dangerous domestic abusers and provide law enforcement with important tools to intervene when domestic abusers are trying to illegally obtain firearms.

This bill is the companion to the House-passed bipartisan VAWA Reauthorization Act, and would close the boyfriend loophole and the stalker loophole. 

The VAWA bill that Republican Senators have put forward (S.2920) includes none of these gun violence prevention measures.

Tell Senators Tillis & Burr to vote for gun safety and protect victims of domestic abuse.

Help Democracy NC Protect Voting Rights

North Carolina's March, 2020 primary election may or may not (see the breaking news report above) be the first in years requiring voters to show a photo ID (registered voters who don't have a photo ID can cast a "provisional" ballot but will have to jump through additional legal "hoops" for their votes to be counted). 

Because the new voter ID requirement will cause lots of confusion (unless the federal court's stay remains in effect), Democracy NC is recruiting and training front line volunteers to

• monitor “high-risk” polling places on Election Day (March 3) and/or the last Saturday of Early Voting (February 29), 
• help voters who need assistance, and
• document problems that occur at polls.

Click here to sign up to be a Vote Protector! 

Take Action to Support Immigrant Families with Temporary Protected Status

Hundreds of thousands of immigrant community members are facing deportation from their homes and separation from their loved ones due to the pending termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

For decades, TPS has provided safety for more than 400,000 people from countries facing war, natural disasters, and other deadly conditions. Now, the Trump administration is exposing these individuals to being sent to countries they left decades ago, and to being removed from their children, hundreds of thousands of whom are U.S. citizens.

Regardless of what the administration or the courts do next, there is only one long-term solution for TPS holders. The Senate must take up and pass legislation that has already been approved in the House, which would create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants with TPS and similar statuses, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED).

You and others in your congregation and community can learn more about this issue and what you can do by watching a short documentary video ("Last Dream") and hosting a learning and action circle using UUSC's discussion guide. 

Poor People's Campaign Moral March on Washington 

The national Poor People's Campaign will conclude its year-long "We Must Do MORE (Mobilizing, Organizing, Registering, Educating)" campaign with a rally at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on June 20, 2020.

Stay tuned for more details.

UUA Common Read

The UUA Common Read for 2020 is An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Beacon Press, 2015). 

We hope that you and others in your congregation will order the book from the UUA bookstore, download the UUA's discussion guide, and organize a discussion of the book in your congregation or community.

Congregations Making Justice

The UU Fellowship of Hendersonville will be hosting a You Can Vote volunteer training session on January 4th as well as a watch party on January 12th for the UUA's "UU the Vote" campaign launch.

The Eno River UU Fellowship of Durham will be hosting a You Can Vote volunteer training session on January 22nd. ERUUF's Multicultural Film Series for January will offer a screening and discussion of "When They See Us."

The UU Fellowship of Winston-Salem's December Share the Plate offering supported Twin City Harm Reduction Collective.

The UU Congregation of Asheville's Community Plate offering in December supported the Food Equity Initiative. 

The UU Church of Greensboro's Share Half collection in December supported the Triad Health Projects work with people living with HIV and AIDS.

The UU Congregation of Hillsborough's Share the Plate collection in December supported Orange County Justice United. 

Forward Together is the Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry of North Carolina--
an independent, nonpartisan, progressive faith-based social justice advocacy organization that works with Unitarian Universalists, Unitarian Universalist congregations, and other progressive faith-based and secular social justice organizations to "give life the shape of justice" in North Carolina through education, organizing, mobilization, witness, protest, advocacy, grass-roots lobbying, and direct action.