Collective Liberation: What it Means, A Summary

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Pablo DeJesus, Executive Director

Lilla Watson, Aboriginal activist, academic, and artist:

“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

 

 

Fannie Lou Hamer, Civil Rights Icon:
 “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

 

 


Opal Lee, Grandmother of Juneteenth, Civil Rights Icon:
“I have to tell you that none of us are free until we are all free.”

 

 

 

Aurora Levins Morales, Poet:
“We cannot cross until we carry each other, all of us refugees, all of us prophets. No more taking turns on history’s wheel, trying to collect old debts no-one can pay. The sea will not open that way. … and all of us must be chosen. This time it’s all of us or none”

 

Tenaja Jordan, Writer, Organizer and Research & Communications Director:
“May we continue to work in true solidarity towards collective liberation, knowing that none of us are free until we are all free.”

 

 

Review a longer post about collective liberation by UUSJ’s Executive Director, Pablo DeJesús:

If “nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” shouldn’t we be…

Advocates for Collective Liberation? 

 

A Summary:

Collective liberation is the idea that multiple oppressions are intertwined and that people must work together to end them. It involves:

  • Acknowledging oppression 

Acknowledging oppression is often associated with recognizing root causes, and it points to the recognition that systems of oppression are connected and that these systems create the conditions of people’s lives. Unitarian Universalists are very focused on root causes.

  • Working together 

Often associated with “being in solidarity” or “working in solidarity” to undo oppression in communities, families, institutions, and ourselves. The justice-making notion of being “eye-to-eye, shoulder-to-shoulder, arm-to-arm,” which has been embraced by Unitarian Universalists, points to this idea.

  • Centering marginalized voices

Centering marginalized voices is often associated with recognizing root harms, which suggests prioritizing the experiences and voices of those who have been marginalized. The justice-making notion of widening the circle of concern, which Unitarian Universalists have embraced, supports this idea.

  • Building community

Building relationships and sharing stories, both joyful and sorrowful, to build shared accountability and power. The famous LGBTQia refrain, “Nothing about us, without us,” sums up the sentiment well, as does the refrain, “El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido.”

  • Learning

Acknowledging that everyone has a role to learn when it comes to issues of justice and equity. Looking to understand and accept the existence of root harms as we move to a state of being where we value and honor the lived experience of those not ourselves.

 

UU Resources:

Other Resources: