MUUSJA connects UUs and other communities to shape a just and loving world.
OUR GROUNDING
As Unitarian Universalists, we aspire to…
…be skilled, accountable, faithful partners with broad movements, local communities, and Unitarian Universalists working for justice and collective liberation.
…affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of all humans, and our radical interdependence with all of creation.
…accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.
OUR APPROACH
Collective power emerges when people gather and learn from one another.
Building Community
Bringing people together within, across, and beyond congregations.
MUUSJA exists because together UU’s are smarter, stronger, and more powerful. From Bismarck to Winona, from fellowships of 10 to churches of 1000+, MUUSJA connects UU’s and allied communities in common purpose: the collective liberation of all.
Building Capacity
Developing skilled, joyful, rooted, and supported justice teams.
We all have something to teach and something to learn. MUUSJA shares strategies for doing effective advocacy, creating authentic partnerships, sustaining resilience, grounding our work in UU faith values, and claiming the power within each of us.
OUR VISION
We are UUs from across Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota — diverse, spirited, and deeply committed. We are firmly grounded in our UU principles of peace, justice, and sustainability. We work collaboratively on focused programs of education, witness, reflection, and advocacy, to create a world that works for everyone.
Knowing that communities are stronger together, a key MUUSJA goal is to weave and strengthen connection amongst UU’s within and among congregational groups who may feel geographically or spiritually isolated. Whether you are from Mankato, Minneapolis, Winona, or International Falls, you are welcome in our spaces of care and support where relationships blossom and imagination flourishes. We aspire to deepen our collective religious voice, and to bring this voice to the public sphere. We follow and team with multi-faith and secular organizers beyond UU congregations, seeking accountable relationships that embody Beloved Community.
We take an Action, Reflection, Research, and Collaboration approach to social change:
- ACTION to combat root causes of injustice.
- REFLECTION to ground our work spiritually and evaluate our progress.
- RESEARCH and teaching to ground our work in collective knowledge, life experience, and science.
- COLLABORATION to maximize our power and impact.
OUR HISTORY
The first UU multi-congregational organizing effort in Minnesota began in 2000 with the UU Affordable Housing Partnership, an effort that brought together UUs from the Twin Cities metro concerned about affordable housing. UUAHP’s success inspired formation in 2001 of the Metro UU Social Justice Alliance, a multi-issue UU social justice organization. UUAHP became a working group of MUUSJA in 2002. In 2006, successful state-wide UU organizing on the issue of same-sex marriage equality inspired the name-change to Minnesota UU Social Justice Alliance. In 2020, as organizing shifted increasingly towards the virtual, it became easier to connect Minnesotans statewide, and to include UU’s in North Dakota and South Dakota.
In recent years, MUUSJA has organized with community partners and congregational teams to celebrate Pride festivals and fight for reproductive justice; speak out on End of Life options; advocate for affordable housing, sick leave, and childcare; learn about and act for racial justice, decriminalization, abolition, and decarceration; organize vigils and advocate to end immigrant detention and deportation; register and inform voters to defend a multicultural, multiracial, multigenerational democracy; and honor our treaties with Indigenous peoples, resisting pipeline construction and toxic mining and agricultural practices.