"To Uplift the Race"

"Deconstructing Mythologies of Unitarian Anti-Racism: 'To Uplift the Race'"

by Rev. Lisa Friedman

Join us online or in person for the second lecture in the 2025 Minns Lecture series. Popular Unitarian histories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries tend to focus on our heroic advocates for women’s rights. Without justification, we project backwards a mythology of ongoing Unitarian leadership that carried forward the legacy of Transcendentalist-era abolitionism into a twentieth century white anti-racist identity.  Separating myth from reality and identifying the small number of Unitarian leaders who swam against the currents of Unitarian white supremacy culture from Reconstruction through the Gilded Age are the goals of this lecture series.

Rev. Lisa Friedman is the Developmental Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minnetonka, MN and an Adjunct Professor at United Theological Seminary where she has taught UU history and polity. Her articles on history and theology have been…