Rev. Ruth MacKenzie, Minister Emerita of First Universalist Church of Minneapolis and member of Unity Church–Unitarian

I’ve had two truly transformative experiences in my life. One was my learning and work with my family of origin and how the traumas of my upbringing had shaped my life in surprising ways. In my late twenties, my family and I began a process of listening and truth telling. It wasn’t easy but it transformed me and my family into something more whole. We all grew up. The other seismic experience has been my learning and work with racial justice beginning at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis in 2011 and continuing today. I guess I might describe it as “growing up as a white person.”

Early in my ministry at First Universalist, Revs. Justin Schroeder and Jen Crow worked with Heather Hackman and Black members of our congregation to train one tenth of the congregation in basic understandings of racism, white supremacy, and integrating racial justice into the very fabric of our congregation. We wanted to create a sea change in who we were and how we did things.

The trainings were intense, uncomfortable to say the least, absolutely necessary, and life changing. At the same time, a number of killings of Black men by police officers took place in Minneapolis and Saint Paul: Jamar Clark, Philando Castille, Daunte Wright, and George Floyd. The Black Lives Matter movement was building power, and many of us were compelled to leave the church pew and move into the streets.

I found myself doing things I’d never done before. I sat with young Black men outside the fourth precinct police station and listened to their stories as night descended at the BLM occupation. I lay down on the asphalt of 35W in protest. We gathered musicians, and faith leaders in several vigils to mourn the dead of the Black community. Our church doors were flung open to all kinds of groups working for racial justice, providing meeting space, sanctuary housing, and more. Unity Church was in the thick of it as well, and many collaborations and partnerships emerged and still do. I started to understand at a base level that faith and racial justice were essential to one another. Faith keeps my racial justice work tender, humble and courageous. Racial justice keeps my faith relevant, true and tethered to the real world.

There were plenty of times I was scared, plenty of times I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, plenty of times I made hurtful mistakes, plenty of times I felt overwhelmed and still do. There is no way to do this work and not feel off balance, jostled, unsettled. I cannot do the work of racial justice without prayer, without listening circles, without a faith community that lifts up the compelling truth of our interconnection with all people, that our liberation is bound up together. I cannot live a life tethered to God and Gai of many names, the worthiness and dignity of every human being without a powerful connection to racial justice. I can’t divorce my spiritual life from the real world reality of how race, racism and white supremacy deeply shapes all our lives with profound detriment to Black and brown folk. Just as in my family, I ache for a world that is more whole.

I’ve rejoined the Unity faith community having retired from full time ministry and I’ve been privileged to join the Racial Justice Team of Unity Church, continuing to grow and learn and transform. Last spring I attended the Interconnected Roots of Oppression series created by the Beloved Community Staff Team and was so moved and awakened once again. The Racial Justice Team will build on that series this coming October with a series called From Guilt to Activation: Owning Our Racism. I hope you’ll join us in this transformative work of spirit and antiracist multicultural practice.

Moving from Guilt to Activation: Owning Our Racism
Four Wednesdays: October 14, 21, 28 and November 11 
7:10-8:30 p.m. | Ames Chapel
Topics include: The Masks We Wear, The Necessity of Discomfort, Expanding Our Heart Center
Unity’s Racial Justice Team will follow last year’s Beloved Community Staff Team exploration of The Interconnected Roots of Oppression and expand on Unity’s Double Helix model with a series of Wellspring Wednesday experiences. Interconnected Roots taught us how racial capitalism informs political, economic and social systems. Moving from Guilt to Activation: Owning Our Racism will help us recognize and reckon with somatic dimensions of our white racist heritage. Circle conversations will be used to share insights that potentially “break us open and allow us to be transformed.” Follow-up programming on activation will be offered in early 2027. Please attend two fall sessions in preparation for spring sessions. 

Over six weeks this winter, Unity’s Executive Team and Beloved Community Staff Team, with assistance from the Racial Justice Team, hosted a series of evenings during which the congregation was invited to learn more about the meanings of Foundations of Racial Capitalism; Land, Ownership, and Housing Justice; Borders, Policing, and the Politics of Belonging; Finance, Debt, and the Cost of Inequality; Universal Care and the Struggle for Collective Well Being; and Fossil Capitalism and Imagining New Futures. All of this was set in the context of racial capitalism, illustrated with real-life stories presented by members of our extended community. Attendees were asked to reflect on their own experiences or their observations of these relationships in the community, to more clearly understand how oppression is interconnected and deeply rooted in our society. The series was very well and consistently attended. People saw the necessity for action beyond discussion. The context of the winter ICE surge more dramatically highlighted the urgency.

Meanwhile, the Indigenous Justice Community Outreach Team, along with the Act for the Earth and Racial Justice Community Outreach Teams, were moving along a different, but interconnected path, exploring the possibility of bringing Indigenous scholar and speaker Mark Charles to present for a day at Unity Church. Writing in his blog on Memorial Day 2019, Charles named Memorial Day as the most difficult National Holiday for him as a Native person. According to the U.S. Army Center of Military History website, he pointed out, “[o]ver 12% of the total 3,515 Medals of Honor awarded were given to soldiers who fought against the indigenous peoples of this land!”

Charles continues, “George Erasmus, a wise leader from the Dene Nation, in a press release titled ‘From Truth to Reconciliation Transforming the Legacy of Residential Schools’ wrote ‘Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.’”

Mark Charles concludes that, because white people and people of color, including but not limited to Indigenous people and African Americans, do not share a common memory, this country has a very limited sense of community. That is why it is so urgent that we learn, we understand, where our Indigenous neighbors come from, so we can begin to have a glimpse of their common memories. The memories of our African American neighbors, the descendants of people who were enslaved, are different from those who are Indigenous and whose forbears were here before white people arrived. 
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The Indigenous Justice Team has walked a different path to bring teachings to us because they have different, but equally important lessons for us. The image I see is the trails leading to the convergence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, the B’dote, the sacred place from which all life springs, according to many of the Indigenous people who made this place their home long before colonization. The strands of stories come together at that point, and the interconnection of histories, of oppressions, of memories, helps to build a larger, Beloved Community. We hope to see you at the Mark Charles event on June 27.

Mark R. Charles at Unity Church
Saturday, June 27 | 9:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. | Parish Hall and Zoom 
Please register by June 20.