Founders or Followers?
Wed, May 14
|First Church in Boston
Deconstructing Mythologies of Unitarian Anti-Racism, Lecture 3 by Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed
Time & Location
May 14, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
About the event
Lecture 3: Founders or Followers?
Deconstructing Mythologies of Unitarian Anti-Racism
by Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed
Join us in person or online for this third lecture in the 2025 Minns Lecture Series. Since merger Unitarian Universalism has struggled with constructing a white anti-racist identity. Recent scholarship centering black lives and revealing the depths of white supremacy culture has challenged the usual pre-merger historical narrative, which centered heroic Unitarian abolitionists and 20th century political leaders. The three Minns Lectures for 2025 seek to demythologize this common narrative.
The series begins with the significant Unitarian presence at the Port Royal, S.C., “rehearsal for reconstruction” during and after the Civil War. Moving to the turn of the century, the second lecture will show how Unitarians remained comfortably situated in their privileged caste, supporting industrial education to "uplift the race" while remaining silent as Reconstruction crumbled and the Lost Cause movement resurrected the dominance of…