Our Revolution Must Dance

The reading for the May "People So Bold" class is Robert Hardies, "Dancing in the Streets" in A People So Bold, pp. 57-62.

Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940), the great radical firebrand and anarchist, supposedly said, "If can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

It's not clear that she ever said that, exactly. She came close to saying it in her 1931 memoir, Living My Life:

At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. (56)

Our movement, cause, and faith -- Unitarian Universalism -- also needs dance. Even as we work to bring about "the revolution," we must also take time to celebrate, to model here and now what the post-revolution world will be like.

There is, for us, the hard work of social change. But if we are always deadly serious about the world's injustice,  if we are joyless, we won't help the world move toward joy. Our revolution needs to dance!

David Hardies' chapter talks about the response of the D.C. All Souls congregation to the 1968 riots:

In response to that moment, the members of All Souls Church did an extraordinary thing. They led.They hired David Eaton to serve as their first African-American senior minister. Under David's leadership, All Souls grew into a truly multiracial congregation and became one of the few places in the entire city where black folks and white folks could come together to talk and begin rebuilding the community. The church became a center of peace and of opposition to the Vietnam War. . . . All Souls was one of the first developers on that ravaged strip, building four hundred units of affordable housing that stand to this day. The church responded to its moment in history and became a leader.

If you have a chance, take a look at Robert Hardies contribution to the Minns Lecture series (an excerpt was in the last issue of the UUWorld): click here.

There are an infinite number of ways to phrase questions. More important than the precise question is that we gather together to talk -- and maybe laugh or even dance -- about the Fellowship we love. Tonight we'll share our perspectives on Hardies' writing.

1. What is our dance at UUFG? What's the most celebratory time you've ever experienced at UUFG.
2. What is our "revolution"? When has your involvement with UUFG most felt like we were really doing "what is ours to do"?