With all that has been going on in Minneapolis, with ICE, and the attendant discussions, I, like many, have been thinking about my own connection to these matters.
I’ve been sensitive to the attention deficit in national media for the lethal behavior of federal agents, until Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed, and therefore, I’ve been thinking about my own work for racial justice. For me, that story has a key inflection with a conversation about financial literacy.
Nearly thirty years ago, I found myself in a long elevator ride in a Chicago skyscraper—the same building where I worked for an African American–owned investment firm. My boss had just spoken with a visitor and, unbeknownst to me, told him that I might be able to help with a project he had in mind.
A moment later, the elevator doors opened, and in stepped a tall, commanding Black man whose presence filled the space. His voice—deep, resonant, inviting, unmistakable—echoed off the steel walls as he began talking about the racial wealth gap in America. In the mid-1990s, the typical white family held roughly 7–8 times the wealth of the typical Black family. He spoke of this not as an abstract statistic, but as a moral crisis.
He told me he wanted to work with Chicago Public Schools to create a financial literacy curriculum—something almost unheard of at the time—because he believed early financial education was essential to closing that gap. Then he looked at me and said, “I hear you can help.”
It took me a moment to fully register who I was speaking to.
It was Rev. Jesse Jackson.
One does not say no to Jesse Jackson.
(And yes, I did go on to collaborate for nine months with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Chicago Public Schools to help develop that curriculum.)
Rev. Jackson’s recent passing has brought that moment back with new clarity. His legacy is vast—civil rights, voting rights, acknowledging the gay and lesbian community, global diplomacy—but what he named in that elevator was something that remains painfully urgent today: the escalating economic inequity that continues to shape American life.
Connecting Rev. Jackson’s Vision to UUSJ’s Call for Economic Justice
UUSJ has identified Escalating Economic Inequity as one of its core advocacy priorities. The widening gap in wealth and opportunity is not simply an economic issue—it is a moral, spiritual, and democratic one. It determines who thrives, who struggles, and whose children inherit possibility versus precarity.
Rev. Jackson understood this long before it became part of mainstream discourse. He saw financial literacy as one tool among many needed to dismantle structural inequity. He believed that closing the racial wealth gap required both personal empowerment and systemic change.
That belief aligns deeply with Unitarian Universalist commitments to justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. It also resonates with UUSJ’s mission to mobilize our collective voice for policies that advance fairness and dignity for all.
The NCMR: Poor People’s Campaign: Continuing the Work Dr. King Began
Rev. Jackson’s vision also connects directly to the NCMR: Poor People’s Campaign, which carries forward Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s unfinished work for economic equality, voting rights, and a moral restructuring of our society. Under, Rev. William Barber, II and Rev. Liz Theoharris the Campaign reminds us that poverty is not an accident—it is a policy choice. And it calls faith communities to stand in solidarity with those most impacted by economic injustice.
At UUSJ, we strive to make structural interventions through federal policy. What Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharris of the NCMR: Poor People’s Campaign refer to as “interrupting federal policy violence.
Both Rev. Jackson and Dr. King, understood that economic equity is foundational to a just society. They knew that democracy cannot flourish when millions are denied the basic conditions for stability, dignity, and agency.
Why This Matters for Us—Right Now
As Unitarian Universalists, we are called to widen the circle of concern and to act where our values meet the world’s needs. Rev. Jackson’s elevator conversation was not just a personal turning point for me—it was an invitation into a lifelong commitment to economic justice, for racial justice.
Today, the racial wealth gap remains staggering. The NCMR: Poor People’s Campaign continues to sound the alarm. And UUSJ urges us to confront escalating economic inequity with courage, clarity, and collective action.
Rev. Jackson planted seeds in countless people—sometimes in elevators, sometimes in crowds of thousands. His legacy challenges us to keep pushing, keep educating, keep advocating, and keep imagining a world where wealth is not a barrier to dignity or possibility.
I hope you join us at UUSJ in this urgent, needed work on structural interventions.
May we honor his life by carrying the work forward.
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Raised in Chicago, Kim Rebecca-Murray graduated from the University of Illinois and earned a Master of Fine Arts from Miami University of Ohio. Kim served in the Peace Corps in Honduras, where she taught fish farming to small, isolated, impoverished mountain communities to help increase protein intake in the local diet. Active in social justice since the age of nine, Kim was present during demonstrations in Skokie, IL (protesting Nazis); she built and lived in anti-apartheid “shanty towns” at the University of IL; she was first employed as a legal advocate for survivors of domestic violence; she taught composition, ESL, and literature at inner city colleges in Louisiana and Chicago as an adjunct professor; and much more.