July 2026

Many, if not most, of the 2025-26 Supreme Court rulings were antithetical to the values of our Unitarian Universalist progressive religious and spiritual movement. The Roberts court has continued to strip away the rights of people with less social class advantage – while multiplying the burden on those with intersectional oppressions.

The court, which had also nearly gutted the Voting Rights Act in an earlier session, further erased decades-old voting rights for people of color and those without class privilege by siding with the Louisiana Republican leadership that suggested that the United States is now a color-blind society. This clears the way for Republican legislatures across the South to redraw maps and erase majority-Black districts. Read more

Hello friends and colleagues,

Have you noticed that working-class characters in movies are most often presented as cheap stereotypes, or are absent altogether? Fortunately there are shining exceptions, as you’ll hear at Working-Class Movie Night!

On Thursday July 2 at 7 pm ET, three popular culture scholars will tell us about their favorite films that represent working-class cultures and characters well. Sarah Attfield (past president of the Working-Class Studies Association), Katherine Kidd and Kathy Newman will show us images and video clips, and will dialogue with each other about their choices.

And of course we’ll invite your recommendations and opinions too. It’s going to be a really fun evening.

Register here, and you’ll get the Zoom link by email. Hope to see you on July 2!

In solidarity,

Betsy Leondar-Wright

for the Talking Class webinars of the Working-Class Studies Association

UU Class Conversations at General Assembly

Reported by Diane Pansire

On June 20, UU Class Conversations hosted a workshop titled “Class in the Age of Billionaires,” exploring how class, public policy and personal experience intersect in our daily lives.

Together, participants reflected on their own class backgrounds and journeys, recognizing that class is about much more than income. Housing, education, occupation, wealth, family resources, opportunity and economic security all shape how we experience the world and how we understand ourselves and others.

Using the recently enacted 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act as a case study, we examined how a single piece of legislation can affect many aspects of life, including healthcare, housing, student loans, food security, taxation and the accumulation of wealth. Rather than debating partisan positions, participants considered how public policy influences opportunity, risk, and security for different individuals and families.

In breakout discussions, participants shared personal experiences and reflected on questions such as: Who benefits from public policies? Who bears the burden? What values are reflected in our collective decisions? What kind of society are we hoping to build?

One recurring theme was the recognition that public policy is not merely a collection of rules and budgets. It is one way a society expresses its values and determines how we live together. Participants also reflected on the importance of finding meaningful ways to engage without becoming overwhelmed.

The workshop concluded with an invitation to consider not “How do I fix everything?” but rather, “What is mine to do?” Social change depends not on any one person carrying the whole burden, but on each of us contributing our unique gifts in service of a more just and compassionate world.

Class Perspectives

Would you like to tell UUCC your class story? We want to hear from you about how you identify, whether your class identity has changed throughout your past experiences, and how. One of our Steering Committee members, Lily Cho, is open for a recorded Zoom conversation with any congregation members. Contact Lily this month at info@uuclassconversations.org . These conversations will be edited for content and shared to give viewers a better understanding of social class and classism through a UU justice lens. They will be available on the UU Class Conversations website — much like the written stories currently on the site.

Mutual Aid Discussions

Nearly 40 UUs attending UUA General Assembly 2026 signed up to discuss the role of mutual aid in supporting and building community, especially creating safe space for working class and other economically vulnerable UUs in these current economically challenging times. Meetup attendees talked about what they are doing to provide mutual aid through their UU congregation or organization – or with local groups. Others attending discussed the type of support needed to begin this work.

We are planning a follow-up meeting in late July. Contact Denise at info@uuclassconversations.org (subject line: Mutual Aid) to let us know if you would like to attend the July meeting. Check the UU Class Conversations website by July 10th for the time and date.

Mutual Aid Advocacy Pilot Project

When the UUCC began its work seeding conversations around issues of class over a decade ago, we were aiming to fill a need of that moment: building an awareness, a working vocabulary and a set of tools to address classism.

In the current political and economic climate–made all the more precarious by rising costs, shrinking safety nets and increasing harm to working-class communities–it is mutual aid networks we believe will help us meet the challenge of the moment, providing an essential if nascent infrastructure for survival, dignity and collective resilience. We’re therefore seeking congregations interested in piloting such a project.

This mutual aid pilot phase is an opportunity for participants to learn how to hold money as a shared commons: how decisions are made, how funds move quickly and with care, and how we remain accountable to one another without surveillance or conditionality. After this initial period, we hope to move toward a centralized mutual aid fund that is accessible across the UUCC network.

Please be in touch with Denise Moorehead info@uuclassconversations.org or uuclassbridges@gmail.com if this sounds like a timely and potentially transformative project for your congregation

Eli Poore and Peter Bermudes