The Story of UU Justice NC

In the fall of 2012, Doug Rhodes created the UU Legislative Ministry of North Carolina. It was a social justice network that connected UUs in the state for five years. Then in 2017, under the leadership of Rev. John Saxon, our state Legislative Ministry was relaunched as the UU Justice Ministry of North Carolina, with the Common name - UU Forward Together. Through a grant from the UU Funding Program and generous support from North Carolina UUs, we became an official 501c3 nonprofit.

Over the next few years our network grew to hundreds of UUs across the state. We worked to give life the shape of justice through legislative advocacy, justice trainings, and direct actions with our growing number of community partners. And twice a year we created the opportunity for UUs across the state to come together at our annual fall gathering and in February at the NAACP and Poor People’s Campaigns’ HKonJ Moral March on Raleigh.

In February of 2020, Rev. Lisa Garcia-Sampson took over as the Executive Director. That year, in the midst of a pandemic, over 650 UUs across 16 congregations participated in UU the Vote. It was the largest activation of North Carolina UUs in our history.

Since then we have continued to engage NC UUs in a range of legislative efforts, direct actions and opportunities to grow as skillful, spiritually grounded organizers for justice. In 2021 we also changed our common name from UU Forward Together to UU Justice NC! We joyfully organize UUs to co-create a transformative movement for justice through spiritual grounding, collaboration, and imagination.

The next chapter of this story is in our hands.