About Us – Social Justice

Our purpose is to foster, support and coordinate the ongoing education of adult members of our congregation and larger community relative to our Principles of Faith; encourage the community to affect the political process on issues of social conscience, and to serve as a congregational catalyst for implementing the Resolutions as approved at annual UUA General Assembly. We also support the efforts of independent church groups having an educational or social justice component.

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Past Events

Daring Democracy Series

Death Café

  • The UUSR sponsors one or two Death Cafés throughout the year. Email to sign up for our weekly eBlast to get up-to-date information. Click HERE for more information or visit this site for more information about Death Cafés.

Book Discussion Group

  • In the past we have read:
    • The Third Reconstruction (William Barber)
    • Being Mortal (Atul Gwande)
    • Americanah (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
    • The Sixth Extinction (Elizabeth Kolbert)
    • Orphan Train (Christina Baker Kline)
    • When Things Fall Apart (Pema Chodron)
    • Redeployment (Phil Klay)
    • My Promised Land (Ari Shavit)
    • Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Annie Dilliard)

Democracy Discussion Group

  • Our Democracy Discussion Group has read and discussed several articles about democracy.

Race Discussion Group

  • Our Race Discussion Group met for two years and several members of that group are working on the Cape Ann Slavery website.

Reflections on the Women’s March

“Globalization Runs Into Sovereignty – The Times They Are A’Changing” (Sept. 29, 2016)

The Adult Education Committee sponsored an informed and informative presentation by Warren Salinger. Warren’s background in foreign affairs runs both deep and broad: following a degree in political science from Goddard College, he worked as Director of Development for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, gaining overseas experience in Central American and in Africa.

He was the founding executive director of The Greeley Foundation for Peace and Justice, working with former United States President Jimmy Carter to set up the Carter Center’s International Network, a position that entailed more than 60 trips to the Soviet Union and Russia. Warren was present in Moscow for the entire week of the August 1991 coup that toppled communism. For 13 years he has been a lecturer for Holland America cruise line, presenting a “World Affairs Seminar”.

Warren shared the following thoughts concerning his upcoming talk: “A long time ago, Bob Dylan wrote a hit song, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’; and boy, are they ever. On June 24, 2016, the day after the UK’s historic BREXIT vote, 57 countries met in Bejing for the first meeting of Asia’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), founded two years ago. The Obama administration tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to persuade our ‘allies’ to stay away from investing in this bank: to a country, they refused to listen.

At that first meeting of the new bank, they approved funding for four infrastructure improvement projects in Asia, leading to the growth of the new Eurasian Axis and to the project actively supported by China and its president, Xi Jinping, One Belt, Sea Route . . . One Road, Land Route (OBOR), bringing the old Silk Road into modernity. To me this is dynamic proof that America’s and the West’s hegemony over the rest of the world, which we had wielded for more than 500 years, is over. Over.”

“Welcome to Iran”(March 13, 2016)

An informal conversation with Monica Munson about the journey she and her daughter, Olivia, took by themselves through Iran, Jan. 11 to Jan. 25, 2016. Monica says about the trip: “Welcome to Iran” is what we constantly heard, and indeed that was how we felt. Olivia and I went from Tehran to Shiraz visiting a total of 5 cities, 3 villages, a desert, and of course, Persepolis. On this 12-day journey we traveled by bus, taxi, and got rides from newly made friends as well as flying to and from Iran from Istanbul. And we walked, a lot! Every single day we received random gifts from total strangers. We were enchanted with all the beautiful sites and got overwhelmed by random acts of kindness. And we managed not to get hit crossing the streets of Tehran. It was a fun and certainly memorable trip!