Easter message, Women’s History Month, class webinar

March 2026

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Easter Message of Class & Economic Justice

Easter lilies on purple clothBy Reverend Robert (Bob) Murphy

I’m not a Christian. Not by any definition that I know.

I don’t endorse any of the Christian creeds, but I respect Jesus. I pause for religious reflection on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. On Easter Sunday, I can be as outspoken as any Christian evangelist in America.

Here’s My Easter Message

Jesus is still an inspiration for many. In this sense, he rises again for every generation. He was a mystic and an activist. Jesus said: Love God. Love your neighbor. The two commandments are both important.  If you know one and not the other, you’ve missed something important.

When pressed for an explanation, Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan. We don’t know how the Samaritan imagined God, but we do know how the Samaritan rescued a stranger on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho (Luke 10: 25-37).

Jesus was a radical Jewish peasant who lived and worked in a terrible situation in the Middle East. A foreign army occupied the area that Jesus knew. Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem hosted “a den of thieves.” In the midst of a cultural and political crisis, Jesus stayed with the poor, people with disabilities and others who needed his attention.
Read more

Women’s History Month: A Time to Reflect

March 2026 is Women’s History Month, and March 8 is International Women’s Day. Both celebrate the contributions of women throughout the world – and provide a time to look critically at the status of women and girls. This year’s commemoration finds that after decades of progress, rollbacks are leading to shorter lifespans, increased food insecurity and deepening poverty for women – not only in the developing world but in so-called first-world countries.

  • One in every 10 women lives in extreme poverty.
  • Access to safe birth control has diminished worldwide.
  • Women are less likely to have access to legal protection.
  • Women are less likely than men to have access to financial institutions or have a bank account.
  • The digital divide remains a gendered one with 37% of women globally not using the internet.

And the less social class advantage a woman has, the more these problems compound.

Read what experts have to say about the state of women and girls in 2026:

Human Rights Watch, Trump spurs global rollback on the rights of women and girls

UN Women, International Women’s Day 2026, Rights. Justice. Action.

UUSC, UUSC at the Commission on the Status of Women

Ms. Magazine, How Trump Gave America License to Roll Back Women’s Equality

Read more.

Talking Class

Join Dr. Betsy Leondar-Wright, UUSC cofounder, and Jack Metzgar at the next Talking Class webinar on Thursday March 19 at 7 pm, with special guest Josh Freeman, author of “Working-Class New York” and “Garden Apartments: The History of a Low-Rent Utopia.”

After you register here, you’ll get an email with a Zoom link and the link to the recording afterwards.

NYC Mayor Mamdani’s promise to create 200,000 new affordable apartments has been met with skepticism. But Josh Freeman draws hope from history, telling stories of effective government programs for affordable housing. His new book Garden Apartments profiles a government-assisted solution to the severe mid-twentieth-century housing shortage, and applies the learning to today, when the high cost of living has become one of the hottest issues in U.S. politics.

Join the Groundswell of ICE Out Activism

Millions of people are newly aware of and outraged at ICE’s illegal brutality. Ways to get involved are proliferating, here is what you can do:

Join the campaign against Citizens Bank

Citizens Bank, which is financing immigrant detention center construction, was picketed at 40 branches on January 24. Here are some ways to get involved.

No-Cost Workshop

Exploring Class and Classism:

Centering Love, Justice and Power

New Date! Sunday, April 19, 2026

4 p.m. ET; 3 p.m. CT; 2 p.m. MT; 1 p.m. PT

Our free UU Class Conversations hour-long online training will introduce you to the concepts – and real-life significance – of social class and classism. Explore the many ways that your social class background has shaped your worldview, and discuss the many ways that classism negatively impacts our UU communities and those far beyond our walls.

Learn more… 

Sign up today for this free Zoominar: 

No-Cost Class Zoominar

Do You Have a Class Story to Share?

It has been 10 years since UU Class Conversations began offering workshops to help our denomination grapple with issues of social class and classism. We would love to hear from congregations and organizations about their experience with a UUCC workshop and what changes evolved because of the workshop discussion and learnings. If you haven’t shared your congregation’s story with UU Class Conversations, we want to hear from you! Your story may be posted in this newsletter and/or on our website to inspire other congregations.

Send your story to info@uuclassconversations.org.

Please consider a donation to support our work with UUs across the country. 
Donate

We carry the flame for class and racial justice. Join us!

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