First Parish Bedford UU

Wilderness Journey: The Struggle for Black
Empowerment and Racial Justice within the UUA
a film by Ron Cordes

"Wilderness Journey" provides an oral history of the first-hand participants in the Black Empowerment Controversy within the UUA of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The film was produced by Ron Cordes, a member of First Parish in Bedford, and includes the oral history witness of the Rev. Jack Mendelsohn and Rev. John Gibbons along with dozens of other first-hand participants in the events of those tumultuous years.

Saturday Feb 27th @ 7:00 PM

First Parish in Bedford Unitarian Universalist
75 The Great Road ~ Bedford MA

Your $2.00 Donation ($5.00 per family) will be gratefully accepted at the door.
Runtime - 85 minutes ~ Open to the General public

Sponsored by the First Parish Peace & Justice Group

The period from 1967 to 1970 was a controversial time in the history of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Racial tensions threatened to tear apart the association. Following the march on Selma, in which many UU ministers participated, and the racial violence in Newark and Detroit in the summer of 1967, the Unitarian Universalist Commission on Religion and Race convened an emergency conference on the Unitarian Universalist Response to the Black Rebellion. This conference was held in New York in October, 1967.

The chief event of the conference was the formation of the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus (BUUC), which was an attempt on the part of the black participants in the conference to set their own priorities and goals. This Caucus led to the formation of the Black Affairs Council (BAC), which served as a coordinating agency for UU efforts in the fields of race relations and black empowerment. FULLBAC (Full Recognition and Funding of the Black Affairs Council) was a white support group formed in 1968 which supported the full funding of the Black Affairs Council.

Some Unitarian Universalists felt that the direction of the Black Affairs Council was too separatist, and a group called Black and White Action (BAWA) was formed in 1968 to provide a channel for the efforts of some Unitarian Universalists to achieve racial justice through more integrated means.

A two-year fight ensued between the General Assembly and the UUA Board of Trustees over funding BAC, culminating in a walk-out of the 1970 General Assembly in Boston, led in part by Bedford’s Minister Emeritus Jack Mendelssohn.