{"id":26348,"date":"2024-09-18T01:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T05:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/?p=26348"},"modified":"2024-09-26T16:26:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T20:26:48","slug":"advocates-for-collective-liberation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uusj.net\/wp1\/advocates-for-collective-liberation\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocates for Collective Liberation?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pablo DeJesus, Executive Director<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If “nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” shouldn’t we be…<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Advocates for Collective Liberation?<\/h4>\n

In our recent<\/span> 2024 Annual Report<\/b><\/a>, you may have noticed mention of<\/span> Collective Liberation<\/b><\/a>, a term I’ve been using with, and introducing to, UUSJ supporters for several years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, while related to that mention, this post comes in happy response to the UU@UNO Intergenerational Seminar on September 21st & 22nd, 2024<\/a>, where participants can “build a tomorrow where we are all free together,” and they use the tagline “Reimagining Tomorrow: Global Solidarity Beyond Empire.”<\/p>\n

I read that as collective liberation, and I am pleased. Here is why:<\/p>\n

Collective liberation is the idea that multiple oppressions are intertwined and that people must work together to end them. I think most of us agree. If I believed otherwise, I would not continue in our tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

My interest in collective liberation, as it pertains to Unitarian Universalist activism, became serious over a decade ago when I took<\/span> Jubilee training with Paula Cole Jones<\/strong><\/span><\/a> as a Church Council Steering Committee member and a consistent social justice volunteer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, with UUSJ, my interest increased when our organization started to work on how to<\/span> widen our circle of concern,<\/span><\/a> what it means to<\/span> become a national organization<\/span><\/a>, what it implies to have<\/span> Moral Owners<\/span><\/a>, and whether we should<\/span> voluntarily adopt the 8th Principle<\/span><\/a>. This receptivity accelerated further as I discussed with our volunteers how best to express what UUSJ genuinely wants in our work toward mission fulfillment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Collective liberation is a framework grounded in anti-racism organizing by Black Feminists. As such, it pulls from the liberatory traditions of the Black Church, builds upon lessons from the Civil Rights era, and translates a Feminist analytical frame for the Black Community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is explicitly linked to the 1977 <\/span>Combahee River Collective Statement<\/span><\/a> and is generally associated with the 1996 pro-indigenous <\/span>Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing<\/span><\/a>. (We can add anti-colonial here as well.) Over time it has been appreciated and further translated and transposed by other communities of color.<\/span><\/p>\n

Famously, author Chris Crass<\/strong> successfully connects such ideas in his 2013 book<\/span> Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Collective liberation has a rich history of thought and organizing prowess behind it. It involves:<\/span><\/p>\n