I Had To Answer Love’s Call – Will You Answer It With Me?
It’s been two weeks since Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man, was shot in the head by the Minneapolis police. Multiple witnesses say he was handcuffed at the time of the shooting. When I first heard of this shooting, it was in a tweet from a prominent civil rights lawyer in Minneapolis, Jason Sole: “This might be the bullet that turns Minneapolis into Ferguson.”
Here’s a little context for why people have been saying for a while that Minneapolis might erupt like Baltimore or Ferguson: Though we have a reputation for being a progressive city with high quality of life, we were also recently rated the third worst city for Black Americans to live and the disparities in arrests by race for low level crimes is so severe that the ACLU did a special report on them. Weeks after Jamar Clark’s murder, Minneapolis activists remain focussed on sustained non-violent resistance. Even after a shooting by white supremacists took place, the activists’ response remains overwhelmingly nonviolent and positive. (And yes, that is my own activist kid describing that shooting, and yes, we are both relatively OK now…).
There have been a few rogue protesters acting out, and certainly the police have misbehaved—that same kid of mine has been held at gunpoint by police, and was also brutally beaten by them. Overwhelmingly, the encampment at the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis is full of peace and love. Crips and Bloods warming their hands together at the same fire… Community members getting to know one another… White residents from the south side finally spending time in the north side… Unitarian Universalist and other churches arranging to cook and deliver food.
Why have the protests here remained overwhelmingly peaceful, even as they effectively challenge the status quo? Leadership! Many, many, fine young leaders of color. At the epicenter of that leadership is CLF staffer Lena K. Gardner, who is managing media and relationships with faith groups, key government officials, police and protesters. I have witnessed these leaders de-escalate potentially violent interactions between police and demonstrators over and over, literally putting their bodies between them in potentially deadly situations (the police are always armed). There is no doubt in my mind that they have saved lives, and are holding together a city which is fractured to the point of breaking.
There are times when, as John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” This is certainly true for Lena, who is CLF’s Director of Fundraising and Membership. She was not hired by CLF to organize for Black Lives Matter, to change the course of history, to create a transformative moment in the streets of our state. Rather, she is our consummate data base operator, fundraising letter-writer, and grant-writer. December is our most critical month of the year for fundraising: about 25% of the year’s donations come through in December. It also concludes our calendar year. 
As the Senior Minister of the CLF, I have felt deep tension between what I see on the ground in Minneapolis and how irreplaceable Lena’s skills are in this critical organizing, how life-saving it is to have her engaged, AND my responsibility to the CLF to finish the calendar year well. Ultimately, after a great deal of prayer and consultation, I chose to greenlight Lena’s time almost exclusively to the organizing work, securing a grant from the UUA’s Standing on the Side of Love program to partially subsidize her time. The other staff members, in full support of Lena’s work, have stepped up with remarkable willingness and extra hours of hard work.
What is true is that now we really need CLF supporters, both current ones and folks who have never given to us before, to step up and be generous. Weak fundraising in December will ultimately require that we lay people off (because our budget is almost exclusively spent on staff salaries). All of the work at the CLF is also critically important! Whether you support Lena’s work in the streets of Minneapolis, Rev. Jorge’s Spanish Language Ministry from Colombia, the Prison Ministry that supports 700 incarcerated members, or the benefits you receive personally from written and online materials that speak to our shared religious values, please give generously.
And please invite your friends, the ones who might not know the CLF but who care about justice, or Unitarian Universalism, or new forms of ministry, to give as well. We squeeze every dollar and make it serve as many people as we possibly can. I hope and pray that I made the right decision, that keeping to our mission of transforming lives with Unitarian Universalist values of love and hope was a responsible decision for the CLF. You are the ones with the power to affirm that I did.
Your generosity will fuel all of the CLF’s work, for today and for the future. Please make your gift reflect your commitment to this mission!
UPDATE: 11:00 AM EST from Ashley Horan.
Our demands, as voiced by Lena K. Gardner.
Posted by Ashley Horan on Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Cover Photo by Uchechukwu Iroegbu of Uche Iroegbu Photographic.
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