Racial Justice

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville is committed to racial justice. In words of The Rev. Martin Luther King, JR., our Fellowship seeks a community and a nation where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

MLK Day Parade

UUFG members participate in the Gainesville MLK Day Parade which begins at Bo Diddley Plaza every year. Our Fellowship has taken part in rallies in downtown Gainesville to address racism and support Black Lives Matter.

Pineridge After School Program

Over the past 20+ years, UUFG has provided countless after school enrichment activities and projects for the elementary age kids at the Pineridge Community Center. We’ve also provided regular fresh fruit snacks, and funding and labor for special building repair and landscaping projects.

Currently one tutor (thanks, Robin Moyle!) works with students there through the PEAK Literacy Great Leaps program.

Banned Book Read Out Event

Book banning in our schools denies our children the right to access books with characters that look and act like them. It is a form of censorship for everyone. In response, on April 21^st 2024, UUFG Social Justice hosted a “Banned Book Read Out” bringing together authors, librarians, educators, and members of the NAACP to read their favorite banned books aloud in front of Gainesville City Hall. Speakers included best-selling author Lauren Groff, UF Professor Dr Paul Ortiz, and Civil Rights Pioneer Dan Harmeling. Our mistress of ceremonies was Zoharah Simmons. There were musical interludes performed by Kali Blount and acapella women’s group Resonance between readings. Banned books were given away by the event sponsors: UUFG, The Lynx bookstore, NAACP, Porters Quarters, Veterans for Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Gainesville Quakers. Hawah Ezell from WCJB said the Banned Book Read Out “…turned the front lawn of city hall into a battlefield of literary justice.”

Social Justice used a UUFG Foundation grant to purchase banned books and create a banned books library for the Fellowship. We had enough books to give away banned African American history books to our tutoring partners, Pineridge After School Program and Porter’s Quarters Freedom School. We also donated LGBTQ books to the Gainesville Pride Center and anti-war books to attendees of the annual Veterans for Peace Winter Solstice concert which is held at UUFG each December. The Religious Education children’s program at UUFG also received banned books to add to their library, and banned children’s books from that collection were read during our services throughout the year.

Freedom School Gainesville

UUFG Social Justice participated in a Freedom School Saturday morning program during the 2024 school year. The school was dedicated to teaching African American history and culture at a time when that curriculum had been banned in the public schools in Florida.

The school sessions were held in the historic Porter’s Quarters community center. The school offered classes in African American History, Science, Food and Nutrition, Civics, Financial Literacy, Storytelling, Chess, and Spanish.

Two Social Justice members, Zoharah Simmons and Mary Bahr, were instructors and helped organize the school. Zoharah directed one of the original Freedom Schools in Mississippi during the 1960s and helped the group incorporate Freedom School principles into the way the School was run and into its curriculum. UUFG provided financial support to buy school supplies and helped provide lunches for the students and teachers.

Critical Race Theory Presentation by Paul Ortiz

In February, 2024, UUFG invited University of Florida Professor Paul Ortiz to provide information about the origins and purposes of critical race theory. By his permission, we include here a slide show of the sources that he discussed and recommended to learn more about this important topic.