1967

- our members Form “Black Unitarians for Radical Reform” -

In August 1967 a group made up of Black members of our church and other local UUs, began meeting to discuss the unique problems they faced as Black religious liberals in a religion that was, and had been, majority white.    These meetings were initially only open to Black members and were focused issues of race within the broader Unitarian Universalist church.

Jules Ramey, a member of our church, initiated the meeting and described exactly what happened on the Sunday which spurred him into action in a speech delivered in 1968:

In notes made the same month he started meetings among Black members of our church, Ramey expressed his frustration with being a Black Unitarian Universalist through poetic verse:

…and I’ve watched the best minds of Black people trapped in Unitarian conclaves

actually enjoying the music of Mozart and Mahler

leaning on the words of e.e. cummings & T.S. Elliot

filling their minds with the thoughts of Shaw & Russel

dare to believe all of this had something to do with them…for heaven sakes

don’t you TOO be found guilty of being in that bag of white liberals putting Black people on the defensive-diverting-distracting them from what they KNOW they must do and will do…

with or without yours or anyone else’s consent

* * *

Ramey and others hosted further discussions among Black Unitarian Universalists in the late summer of 1967. Those meetings eventually resulted in the formation of a group called the Black Unitarians for Radical Reform, or BURR.  BURR was co-led by Ramey, from our church, and Louis Gothard of Throop Church in Pasadena. 

In reflecting on the formation of BURR a year later, Ramey describes exactly why it was necessary to engage in self-determination among Black UUs:

What is important is that this was initiated by Blacks, independent of and not as a reaction to something white people were doing.  That make the notion valid, because it is an act of self determination.  And that’s really what the Black revolution is all about.  Plus a few other little goodies.  Like self respect and self defense.

BURR eventually invited Fritchman to one of its meetings.  In his autobiography, Fritchman describes receiving a “warm reception” from the group but adds that it was “not an easy session.”  Fritchman continues, “I was asked sharp and sometimes critical questions. At long last, they were leveling with a white minister, with courtesy, not in anger, but in a ‘speak bitterness’ meeting, about experiences that had bothered them and which they had not brought to me lest they might injure the work of our church, an institution they knew desperately needed as a catalyst in the community.”  Fritchman described the meeting as “one of the most productive conversations I had ever had in my ministry.” 

Rev. Roy Ockert, who became the associate minister at our church in September 1967, also worked closely with BURR and helped raise funds for members of BURR to attend the national Emergency Conference on the Unitarian Universalist Response to the Black Rebellion in October of that year.

While BURR received the support of our church, it also held its own fundraisers.

In late 1967, non-Black members of our church who wanted to support the efforts of BURR formed “SOBURR” or Supporters of BURR.  They issued the following Statement of Purpose: 

Learn More -> 1967: The Emergency Conference on the Unitarian Universalist Response to the Black Rebellion

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