The idea was born out of isolation – maybe even a bit of desperation. Video chats were still novel and Zoom boxes still unfamiliar and uncomfortable when the National UU Service Committee introduced the Action Hour concept.
It was early in the pandemic and everyone was struggling to figure out how to do life trapped at home. Rev. Lisa Garcia-Sampson was also three months into her role as Executive Director of UU Justice NC, and looking for ways to engage UU congregations around the state and build connections.
Her initial efforts started out as small, intimate gatherings for a handful of folks hungry for human interaction and looking for a way to make a difference. Five years later, by Friday Action Hour #250, those early seeds have blossomed into expertly programmed, joyous celebrations of people power with hundreds of committed participants.
What’s the secret to getting people to show up on Zoom, week after week, for 250 Fridays in a row?
Joy. Purpose. Impact. And a really good playlist.
A feeling of joyous community is a dominant theme for Friday Action Hour die-hards, and it translates to a growing number of newcomers. Of course, it wasn’t just about closing the social distance gap at the start. The key element of Friday Action Hour is the “action” part. And there was more going on in our lockdown society than just the pandemic in 2020.
As many participants observed, COVID exacerbated the inequities and disparities that exist in our communities. Doing something to push back against preventable tragedies reduced the feeling of helplessness many felt as everyone was learning to adapt to a much more physically restrictive and less-mobile lifestyle.
A Summer of Protest
The first Friday Action Hour took place on May 8, 2020, with participants advocating for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, Covid relief and justice for Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade. Two weeks later George Floyd was murdered while being detained by a Minneapolis Police Officer, sparking a summer of protest across the country. On May 25, 2020, Action Hour attendees called Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman demanding justice for Floyd.
The 2020 Summer of Protest was formative for the Friday Action Hour community. Over those months and the ones that followed, the community came together to witness the impact of a national protest movement, advocate for the removal of confederate statues and participate in a national reckoning around police violence.
Tactics developed during these early months — phone banks, letter-to-the-editor (LTE) writing campaigns and gratitude blitzes — became powerful, impactful tools. And not just for the UUs. These tools, including an LTE toolkit developed by UU Justice NC, made their way around to the wider network of social justice-aligned organizations in North Carolina.
Coalition partners took notice. And so did others.
Building Community and a Container for Action
Rev. Lisa leaned on music to help establish joy, camaraderie and a feeling of shared community in the early Friday Action Hours. As people stepped back in their Zoom boxes to dance to the music pumped in by DJ Rev. Lisa, they revealed more than just their faces and immediate surroundings. They shared larger, more personal windows into each other’s lives. Those personal glimpses and stories, nurtured and shaped by the expert hands of Rev. Lisa, came together to form a spiritual foundation for an incredibly effective community of activists.
Suddenly, local legislative and government offices were scrambling to respond to coordinated call and email campaigns from committed advocates who seemed to know what they were doing. And media outlets were running strings of on-topic opinion pieces in support. The group’s tactics were proving very effective in pressuring politicians and carrying the narrative in the media.
“We built an effective container to quickly respond to requests from our partner organizations,” says Rev. Lisa. “Every Friday, we have a group ready to take action.”
Joy and community generated the buzz, but it was the very real impact of Friday Action Hours that earned the respect of partners. As a result, the group was able to establish itself as an effective part of a statewide coalition.
In the early days, Rev. Lisa would call partners to ask if there was something the group could do that week. These calls and invitations to collaborate helped build trust and establish deep relationships with other organizations. Over time, movement friends began calling Rev. Lisa to request help with a letter-writing campaign or to do a briefing on an issue or a legislative concern. And Action Hour participants began adding items to the Weekly Roundup and proposing their own ideas for action-taking.
“Every week is a truly collaborative process; really, an act of co-creation,” says Rev. Lisa. “UU Justice NC does not pick the week’s focus – the movement does.”
The first big win came in December 2021, when then-Gov. Roy Cooper pardoned Dontae Sharpe, who spent 26 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted for a murder he did not commit. The pardon came about thanks to the legal work of the Wrongful Conviction Clinic at Duke Law. The substantial amount of media coverage and public pressure on Gov. Cooper, generated by a coalition of criminal reform organizations, including UU Justice NC, also helped a great deal.
More wins followed, the biggest being the expansion of Medicaid to over 600,000 people in North Carolina.
“People said it was never going to happen,” says Rev. Lisa. “But we kept fighting. And UUs played a key role in that win.”
Last June, UU Justice NC successfully partnered with childcare providers across the state to take on the looming childcare funding cliff and bring home $67.5 million in desperately needed funding. But despite the growing number of impactful wins, this past November brought about a sudden low point for the group.
Meeting the Moment in 2025
The imminence of a second Trump term was deflating for many people across the social justice ecosphere. At Friday Action Hour, the mood became more somber and less joyous as the year wound to a close.
Then, something happened in January. Action Hour attendance suddenly popped. Right around the inauguration, the call doubled in size — from 40+ to more than 80 — and the emotional tenor of the gathering changed back to joy.
“The story of our movement is not what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for,” says Rev. Lisa. “In this moment, we need to stay rooted in a deep sense of who we are, who we belong to, and what we are creating together.”
Some UU congregations have even started to stream Friday Action Hours, accommodating congregants who want to attend the call together. With the attendance surge, the Weekly Roundup — a beloved staple of the call — has also taken on more life, as more callers share the issues and successes from their communities.
These personal stories of hyper-local wins provide an important opportunity to connect communities facing similar problems and share solutions that actually work. They also infuse the weekly gatherings with strength, hope and resilience.
“The culture and practices of Friday Action Hour are resonating with a lot of people right now – and not just UUs,” says Rev. Lisa. “Every week we provide a values-based political analysis of what is happening in the world and help people cultivate a strong spiritual foundation.“
As the Trump administration ramps up its authoritarian playbook, Friday Action Hours remain a weekly source of committed resistance and a joyful way to stand up to oppression.