Put your values into action!
Please join us for a rally & march from Boston City Hall Plaza to the State House on Tuesday, May 20th at 5pm. We will be there in support of rent control and our fight to stay in our neighborhood. More details to come!
On Zoom, May 27th at 6:00!
Join us for a workshop on how to best keep our and our communities' information digitally secure in the context of rising authoritarianism and data mining. This workshop will be co-led by The Electronic Frontier Foundation and CB Beal, a faith-based consultant focused on equity, justice, and creating safer spaces for marginalized communities within congregations. Especially for those working with folks most at risk in this moment, we hope you will join us to do our part in keeping ourselves, our communities, and those we are in solidarity with safer. We will have time for concerns and questions as well as sharing tools and practices to increase our digital information security.
There will be two parts to this workshop. The first covers a basic introduction to digital security for everyone. The second will be for people managing lists and data at the institutional level (such as a congregation), focused on creating effective digital security policies and systems.
In crisis, there is always opportunity. As more and more of our nation becomes politicized against billionaire oligarchs, corporate power, and the state of our climate- Massachusetts can make progress forward for climate justice. Learn about one of our priority campaigns that links these things all together and keep taking action with us.
The UU Mass Action Climate Justice Team organizes with Mass Power Forward (a statewide grassroots climate coalition) to win collective political victories for climate and environmental justice while also connecting and building community.
Do you want to better understand how ICE detention works in Massachusetts? Do you want to be prepared to support loved ones or community members detained by ICE? Join the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) to learn about ICE detention in MA, and how you can support detained people and their loved ones to navigate this system. Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen (BIJAN) and attorney Leah Hastings (Prisoners’ Legal Services of MA) will share information on what to do right after someone is arrested by ICE, where people are detained, how to find someone in detention, how to get phone numbers and visitation approved, how to add money to someone’s commissary, and more. We will also discuss what information and documents are helpful to gather ahead of time to prepare for the possibility of ICE arrest and detention. We hope through this workshop you will be better prepared and resourced to support those detained and impacted by ICE detention in MA.
We are aiming to raise $100,000 by the end of our fiscal year, June 30, and hope to see you on Friday June 13th at a fundraiser to help us reach this goal!
Join us on Friday June 13th 5:30-7:00 on zoom. RSVP here to receive the zoom link!
We hope you were able to read our email with an important announcement about UU Mass Action's funding. In these uncertain times, we recently learned that two major grants we depend on will not be renewed, due to reasons outside of our organization’s control. This will leave us with an unexpected $90k shortfall for FY26. As a result of this shortfall we are launching ‘Dreaming Beyond Crisis: An Emergency Capital Campaign.’
Though we may be at financial loss, at this moment UU Mass Action is doing some of the most powerful, effective work in our organization’s history.
How to Give:
Donate online to the campaign!
If you’d like to Mail us a Check, send it to: UU Mass Action, P.O. Box 300159, 655 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-9998
Interested in donating stock or planned giving? Give us a call or email! 401-216-9589 or jmurphy@uumassaction.org
Save the Date for end of year celebration! More info coming soon!
Join our May UU Action Hour to take actions together! This gathering is an opportunity to hear updates about all our campaigns and take action together, such as calling your legislators, signing petitions, and more to support our frontline and coalition partners. In this time of chaos, let us come together and support each other in taking actions that will move forward campaigns led by UU Mass Action frontline partners. We will walk you through each action, and be available to support any questions you have.
Our May Action Hour is co-sponsored by the First Parish UU of Arlington! Learn more about what co-sponsorship means and have your congregation sign up!
Optional Pre-Meeting Gathering: Immigration Justice Tea and Skill Share, 11:30 - 12:00
Join Judy Wolberg from the Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network to learn how you can take concrete action to support immigrants in detention. Being a sponsor is often a big help in persuading a judge to release a migrant from detention on bond. This gives them the opportunity to pursue their legal case outside of jail. Requests for sponsorship may come from the detained person, from their family, or from their attorney. Each volunteer will only be asked to sponsor 1-2 times per year. As we work to support those in detention, and return individuals to their families and communities, this concrete role can make a huge difference. Join us to learn more!
Immigrant Justice Tea and Skill-Share” from 11:30 - 12:00
In addition to our regular meeting, we will continue our extra 30 minutes before the meeting sharing and problem-solving. This is an optional, informal time for more open conversations with each other to support you in building your immigration teams and discussing more broad questions about immigration justice organizing in your congregations. Topics we’ve covered in the past include legal resources, what skills you need to accompany someone to court, and more! You can RSVP for both times on the regular RSVP form.
Our Indigenous-led coalition invites you to take action with us for our five critical bills that will protect Native heritage, improve education, and end outdated racist practices.
Monday, May 12th we are hosting a day of action at the MA statehouse.
11:30 — Kick Off on the MA Statehouse Steps
12:30— Visit Legislators
1:30 — Legislator Briefing in Room 428
2:3 — Closing
Please invite your legislators to come to the briefing here.
A Spiritual Crisis: Healing Alienation from Mother Earth
April is Earth month, and at UU Mass Action, we know that healing our relationship with the Earth is embedded in Indigenous justice.
Our Featured speaker is Kristen Wyman. Kristen is a citizen of the Hassanamisco Band of the Nipmuc tribe in Massachusetts and a longtime advocate for the self-determination of BIPOC communities. For over 15 years, Kristen has worked as a consultant with nonprofit organizations, tribal governments, and state and federal agencies including Native Land Conservancy, Nipmuc Indian Development Corporation,and the Mashpee Wampanoag Natural Resources Dept. She has initiated several womxn and youth-led programs in issue areas of gender-based violence and substance abuse prevention, youth development, food sovereignty, and transformative leadership and nonprofit development. Kristen is co-Founder of Eastern Woodlands Rematriation, a network of Indigenous womxn and two-spirits restoring the foundation of sustainable food systems.
We invite you to gather with the UU Mass Action Indigenous Solidarity Team. We organize with the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda (a statewide grassroots Indigenous led coalition) to win collective political victories for Indigenous justice while also connecting and building community.
Optional Post-Meeting Tea and Immigration Justice Skill Share from 6:30-7pm
Join UU Mass Action and Shannon Flynn from the newly launched LUCE Defense hotline. We will learn about the goals of this hotline, updates about how ICE has been showing up in MA and the local landscape, and how to get involved.
In addition to our regular meeting, we will continue our extra 30 minutes post-gathering for “Immigrant Justice Tea and Skill-Share” from 6:30-7pm. This is an optional, informal time for more open conversations with each other to support you in building your teams, problem solving, and asking more broad questions about immigration justice organizing in your congregations. We hope this can address some of the questions and ideas that we don’t always have time for in regular meeting times. You can RSVP for both times on the regular RSVP form.
UU Mass Action hosts regular monthly UU Action Hours where participants take action. For April, we are partnering with others for a special Immigration Justice Action Hour and Info Session as part of Detention Watch Network's National Day of Action!
Join Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN), UU Mass Action, and Families for Justice as Healing (FJAH) for an Action Hour where we will learn together about about the Dignity Not Deportations bill, the Free Her Policy Platform and its importance to migrant justice, and take action together.
Speakers include Safi Chalfin-Smith, Brazilian Worker Center and UU Mass Action's very own Regina Corrao (First Parish in Concord, Immigration Justice Task Force)!
Sponsored by Congregation Dorshei Tzedek and Myrtle Baptist Church
The need for short-term housing and support of immigrant families is growing! Come learn how you and your community can rally together to host and support a family—whether for a week or months, any help is needed. The Brazilian Worker Center Inc offers a range of supports to immigrant families and hosts, and the First Parish in Concord has organized a successful community wide effort to host and support families.
Register here! - Offered in English
Hear from BIJAN organizers, learn about our work, ground in our shared values, and connect directly with coordinators to fill the most needed volunteer roles:
Accompanying community members to immigration hearings and/or district court
Phone answerers
Drivers
Writing letters to community members detained by ICE
This session is meant for folks new to the Network or who are just starting with us, but we welcome volunteers who are already in the work as well.
Please complete the registration form and a coordinator will send a confirmation email with the Zoom link prior to the meeting on the 12th.
We will not record the orientation, but will offer another orientation on a subsequent date.
NOTE: Registration deadline was March 25. We still welcome you to register for advocacy day after the deadline. If there is already a meeting being scheduled for your legislators, we will add you in. If not, we will not be scheduling new meetings after this date. However, you are welcome to join the other parts of Advocacy Day day outlined in the agenda! You are also welcome to register even if you don't plan to meet with your legislator, but want to join for our other programming.
Click here to view our priority bills!
Do you care about racial justice and are looking for ways to put your values into action? Do you want to have an impact on critical social justice issues facing our communities in MA? Do your UU values ground you in your social justice work?
At this annual event, we come together as UUs from across the state to build power for our movements. Participants will meet with legislators about our key areas of Immigrant Justice, Climate & Environmental Justice, Economic & Housing Justice, Indigenous Justice and Decarceration & Ending Solitary Confinement. This will be a critical moment to show up together as UUs, grounded in our faith, to let our legislators know which bills - out of the thousands that are filed - we care the most about.
In these times of onslaught of Executive Orders and cruel policies on the national level, let us call on our state leaders to take bold action to protect our communities.
RSVP, Info, and Access Info here!
Note about event messaging: We at UU Mass Action recognize that the flyer for this event contains nationalist messaging, and that some of the images used represent systems that cause real harm. We want to name that UU Mass Action is committed to fighting for a true democracy, and part of that fight involves collaborating and working with others who have chosen to use the American flag, etc. as symbols of a country they hope to better. We at UU Mass Action are committed to facing the true harm of our history and building a real liberatory future. While we might not agree with the use of nationalist imagery, we are committed to collaborating with others towards a more just future for all.
Location: Meet at Parkman Bandstand, Boston Common
Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They're taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them. On Saturday, April 5th, we're taking to the streets nationwide to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!
We will celebrate Boston as a sanctuary city for both immigrants and Trans people.
Co-sponsors: Mass 50501 Indivisible MA - Indivisible Northampton - Metro Boston Indivisible Coalition Swing Blue Alliance Swing Left Western MA UU Mass Action Third Act MA Vote4Change
Location: BU School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Classroom 103, First Floor
More information here.
Join UU Mass Action at this event to learn about one of our priority bills: the human rights bill.
This event will bring together Boston-area legal and community organizations to share the legislative advocacy skills and strategies that they have employed in their efforts to promote greater healing, dignity, and freedom in Massachusetts.
Webinar on SPJE Faith Resolution Campaign with Speakers Rev. Jim Antal, Rev. Jamie Hinson-Rieger, and others (see flyer for details).
People of Faith - Act on climate justice by opposing private jet expansion! Learn ways faith communities can take action against an environmental injustice that encourages a small number of the ultra-wealthy to pollute our world in an unconstrained way that contributes disproportionately to the climate crisis.
Co-sponsored by UU Mass Action (UUmassaction.org) and the Coalition to Stop Private Jet Expansion at Hanscom or Anywhere (SPJE.org)
Establishing Indigenous People’s Day statewide in Massachusetts is one of five bills in the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda. In this gathering we will share, connect, and hear from featured speaker Mahtowin Munro, of United American Indians of New England.
We invite you to gather with the UU Mass Action Indigenous Solidarity Team. We organize with the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda (a statewide grassroots Indigenous led coalition) to win collective political victories for Indigenous justice while also connecting and building community.
Witness to Injustice is a powerful 2.5 hour interactive history of land theft and genocide of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (aka the United States). It uses participation and role playing - led by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous facilitators - to foster truth, understanding, and respect for Indigenous cultures and peoples.
Space is limited to 40 participants. You are encouraged to come with 1-3 others members of your congregation or organization to process the experience together. Appropriate for Teens and above.
Do you find it challenging to make time to sign petitions, call your legislators, or send emails about issues you care about? Commit to just one hour!
This gathering is an opportunity to hear updates about all our campaigns and take action together, such as calling your legislators, signing petitions, and more to support our frontline and coalition partners. We will focus on our key issues areas: climate justice, immigrant justice, decarceration, Indigenous Legislative Agenda, and economic and housing justice. We will walk you through each action, and be available to support any questions you have.
Consider signing up your congregation to sponsor a UU Action Hour! Learn more here.
Many of us are receiving incredible high utility bills this cold winter! What the heck is going on? This gathering will not only ground us in state-level actions that push back against federal level erosion, but it will also teach us how Eversource, National Grid and other for-profit utilities in Massachusetts are price gouging us, all while scapegoating the energy efficiency program, Mass Save. Join us for connection, learning and action.
The UU Mass Action Climate Justice Team organizes with Mass Power Forward (a statewide grassroots climate coalition) to win collective political victories for climate and environmental justice while also connecting and building community.
ICE Protocols For Your Congregation With Episcopal City Mission
ICE raids are increasing around the country with little regard to entering previously protected spaces (i.e. faith institutions and schools). Many congregations are working to understand how they can best protect their communities against ICE. Join us and Hannah Hafter from Episcopal City Mission to hear an overview of their newly released guide for how to best protect your congregation from ICE, and to understand the risks of various actions in support of our immigrant communities. This meeting will be from 12:30-1:30 (note the change from the usual time).
In addition, we will pilot an experimental pre-gathering “Office Hours” from 12-12:30. This is an optional, informal time for more open conversations with each other to support you in building your teams, problem solving, and asking more broad questions about immigration justice organizing in your congregations. We hope this can address some of the questions and ideas that we don’t always have time for in regular meeting times. You can RSVP for both times on the regular RSVP form.
Amid all the noise, we come together. In reaching out to each other, we nurture our hope, our joy, and our power. This gathering will center on our ability to move together, delve into our new climate justice priorities for the 2025-2026 legislative session, and invite you to join us in taking action.
The UU Mass Action Climate Justice Team organizes with Mass Power Forward (a statewide grassroots climate coalition) to win collective political victories for climate and environmental justice while also connecting and building community.
UU Indigenous Solidarity Team Gathering: Resisting Erasure in Brookline
Storytelling as a path to truth-telling, connection, and relationship building
Share our Facebook Event
First Parish in Brookline is literally on an ancient Indigenous path, only blocks from where a tribal village, burial ground and planting field once were. But the church and town have little evident memory of the native Massachusett people who were violently dispossessed of the land four centuries ago by white English settlers and their militia. Called by a long-neglected need for repair, Ann Gilmore, Jody Leader and Paul McLean will describe their ongoing effort to tell this story, build new relationships, and explain why Susanna Backus has come to matter so much. This gathering will uplift intersections with Black & African heritage liberation.
We invite you to gather with the UU Mass Action Indigenous Solidarity Team. We organize with the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda (a statewide grassroots Indigenous led coalition) to win collective political victories for Indigenous justice while also connecting and building community.
Invite your congregation/local groups to Co-Sponsor the event: Fill out this form
We are showing up together to Stop the Coup. We aim to demonstrate our resistance, root our movement in love for justice, and be visible and inspiring. UU Mass Action and our partners are working to convene this action.
Current Co-Sponsors:
350 Mass
Boston Democratic Socialists of America
Boston Coalition for Palestine
Brookline PAX
Canton Residents For a Sustainable Equitable Future
Communist Party of Massachusetts
Climate Action Now Western Mass
Elders Climate Action - Mass Chapter
Friends of the Notch Forest
GreenRoots
Indivisible Upper Cape
Jamaica Plain Progressives
Massachusetts Action for Justice
Mothers Out Front Massachusetts
North American Indian Center of Boston
Northshore For Palestine
Our Revolution Massachusetts
Palestinian House Of New England
Pipe Line Awareness Network for the Northeast (PLAN)
Progressive Massachusetts
Sierra Club Massachusetts
Springfield Climate Justice Coalition
The Enviro Show
Third Act MA
UU Mass Action
Join Keeping Families Connected!
Action 1: Keeping Families Connected 2025 Valentine's Advocacy
Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, 10am-12pm
Meet at the 4th floor cafe of the MA State House,
24 Beacon St., Boston (near Park St. T Station)
Join the Keeping Families Connected coalition to ask legislators to co-sponsor our bill to improve visits in prisons and jails, "An Act to Build Restorative Familiy and Community Connection". HD3241/SD985. If you are able, bring Valentine's Day cards for your Rep and Senator asking them to co-sponsor the bill!
Action 2: #FreeHer Galentine's Day at the State House!
Join Galentine's Day!
Thursday, February 13, 2025 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM ET
MA State House, 24 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02133
Join Families for Justice as Healing's annual rally to send love to incarcerated women and advocate for their legislative priorities at the Massachusetts State House. Galentine's Day, the day before Valentine's Day, has become a celebration of women in leadership in the Massachusetts state government, and we are going to remind our leaders that their solidarity must extend to incarcerated women. We do not need a new women's prison! We need a moratorium on prison construction. We need new ways to let women out of prison and ensure they are not incarcerated in the first place. We need to reimagine our communities so there is less harm and more abundance.
You can also take action to support FJAH's new bills, watch the recording of their campaign kick off, and sign Pat Olsen's clemency petition.
Join our Feb UU Action Hour to take actions together! This gathering is an opportunity to hear updates about all our campaigns and take action together, such as calling your legislators, signing petitions, and more to support our frontline and coalition partners. In this time of chaos, let us come together and support each other in taking actions that will move forward campaigns led by UU Mass Action frontline partners. We will walk you through each action, and be available to support any questions you have.
Our February Action Hour is co-sponsored by the Northshore UU Church in Danvers! Learn more about what co-sponsorship means and have your congregation sign up!
Join us for a Justice Church to get ready to organize your congregation to join our UU 2025 Advocacy Day! Together we will reground in this political moment and learn about this new legislative session. We will train you on how you can build your social justice teams through our UU Advocacy Day while urging legislators to pass critical legislation. Participants will leave spiritually nourished and motivated to take action with UUs from across the state!
Save the date for Advocacy Day: April 8, 2025 Learn more and Sign up to stay updated!
As we witness the flood of cruel and inhumane Executive Orders and the increased ICE presence and activity around the country, many of us are wondering what we can do to stop detention and deportations. At our February Immigration Justice Team meeting, we will hear from Javier Luengo-Garrido from ACLU and the Dignity Not Deportations campaign to share about an important bill we are working on to prohibit ICE contracts in MA as a way to prevent deportation. We will share ways that you and your congregation can support this bill with UU Mass Action, highlighting our upcoming UU Advocacy Day in April. We will also take time for a mid-year check in about how our UU Immigration Team can best support your congregation in the coming months.
Ask your legislators to co-sponsor this bill here!
Email nocostcallsma@gmail.com with questions!
Keeping Families Connected (the No Cost Calls champions) would like to invite you, your directly impacted friends and family, and your organization to an online community meeting about a bill filed again this year, which if it passed could improve visitation with people behind bars. We'll talk about the bill, the road to improving visitation, and what we can do now. We'll have time for writing testimonies to prepare for the hearing.
Join the MA Against Solitary Confinement campaign to end solitary confinement for a state of the movement gathering, and to plan for the future.
Our new 2025-26 legislative session has begun! Join this gathering to advocate for our priority bills this session. This is an opportunity to hear updates about all our campaigns and take action together, such as calling your legislators, signing petitions, and more to support our frontline and coalition partners. We will focus on our key issues areas: climate justice, immigrant justice, decarceration, Indigenous Legislative Agenda, and economic and housing justice.
We know that we send out a lot of opportunities to take action each week, and hope this can be one structure to support each other in staying accountable to showing up to these campaigns. We will walk you through each action, and be available to support any questions you have.
Facing the oppression of genocide, land theft, and erasure can be difficult- and yet we know we cannot adequately find our liberation without knowing the truth. Join us as we hear from The North Parish of North Andover Unitarian Universalist Congregation successes of moving through land acknowledgment work and developing relationships with the Pennacook.
We invite you to gather with the UU Mass Action Indigenous Solidarity Team. We organize with the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda (a statewide grassroots Indigenous led coalition) to win collective political victories for Indigenous justice while also connecting and building community.
Sign up to get on our listserve!
Join our community for a virtual kickoff to our advocacy for 2025. Learn about our continuing fight to stop new women's prison construction and our new priorities for ending the incarceration of women and girls in Massachusetts.
See other upcoming events and phonebanks here
Email Tali for more info!
Our January UU Youth Corps event is coming up! Whether your congregation's youth group has been part of the UU Youth Corps or you are brand new, you’re invited to join!
