A racial justice task force at Coastal Virginia Unitarian Universalists in Virginia Beach has expanded its work over the past year and will host events over the holidays to celebrate diverse communities.
The congregation has long had social justice as part of its mission and values diverse beliefs and inclusiveness. Unitarian Universalists may come from different backgrounds and religious traditions.
CVUU is scheduled to celebrate Kwanzaa with marketplaces sponsored by its racial justice task force featuring local BIPOC-owned businesses on Jan. 1.
On New Years Day, it will host an Emancipation Jubilee Commemoration with the Virginia Beach NAACP and The New Journal and Guide newspaper. Colita Nichols Fairfax, a professor at Norfolk State University, will speak during the commemoration.
The racial justice task force started as part of the church’s wider commitment to social justice during the early stages of the Black Lives Matter movement when the church was located in Norfolk.
The task force’s work slowed during the pandemic but reemerged over the past year, said chairperson Diana Chappell. It’s working within the church and with other community organizations on education and events.
Chappell said she found the congregation following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. She wanted to be part of a socially conscious faith community.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been a member of a congregation that was predominantly white,” Chappell said. “But because the principles and the values of this faith were principles and values I was longing for, was seeking, it led me here.”
She learned about the task force and that it was no longer active.
“It was a calling for me to step into that role and reactivate the racial justice task force,” she said.
The task force educates and fosters discussion about race within the church. It embraces a principle to “accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”
Meetings within the entire church have discussed priorities such as becoming more diverse, a goal for the task force. Another need, Chappell said, was to remain a welcoming place and to be more involved outside the congregation.
“We want to be a more open and inclusive community,” Chappell said.
Unitarian Universalism is a progressive, open and welcoming denomination, said the Rev. Viola Abbitt, CVUU’s minister.
She said CVUU has struggled with racial inequity, as other organizations do.
“Generally, in Unitarian Universalism, there’s been this ongoing work around racial justice,” Abbitt said.
It is a congregation for everyone, Abbitt said.
“One of the things that we can do by making sure that people know who we are in the community is to let them know about progressive and liberal religion, which is really who we are,” Abbitt said.
“Social justice is how we live our faith,” she added.
Among other efforts, the task force reproduced Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1966 lecture in which he addressed the general assembly of the Unitarian Universalist faith.
“It has always been the role of the church to broaden horizons, to challenge the status quo, and to question and break mores, if necessary,” King said in those remarks. “I’m sure that we all agree that the church has a major role to play in this period of social change.”
“It’s just as if it was written for these times right now,” Chappell said.