| Abbreviation | UUSC |
|---|---|
| Formation | May 1940 |
| Type | Non-profit human rights organization |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
| Website | www.uusc.org |
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) is a non-profit, nonsectarian associate member organization of the Unitarian Universalist Association that works to provide disaster relief and promote human rights and social justice around the world.
UUSC was founded in May 1940 as the Unitarian Service Committee with the intended purpose of assisting European refugees endangered by Nazi persecution. [1] The founding director was Robert Dexter, who had served in a diplomatic role for the American Unitarian Association for more than a decade and had been moved, in particular, by the plight of refugees in Czechoslovakia, a country with a large Unitarian congregation. [2] The organization established an office in Lisbon and the first American Unitarians to be posted there were Rev. Waitstill Hastings Sharp, a minister of the Unitarian Church in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, and his wife Martha. Later, Rev. Charles Joy, Elisabeth Anthony Dexter and Noel Field were recruited to work in the organization's Lisbon and Marseille offices and they, along with many refugee volunteers, expanded the relief and emigration programs. The Sharps were posthumously honored by Israel in 2006 as the second and third Americans to be added to the list of Righteous among the Nations. [3]
The organization’s first board of directors was chaired by William Emerson, the former dean of the MIT School of Architecture. Other board members included Harold Hitz Burton, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio and a future Supreme Court justice; Percival Brundage, senior partner in the Price Waterhouse and future budget director for President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Louise Wright, chairwoman of the voters department of government and foreign policy for the League of Women Voters. [4]
Today, UUSC is involved in coordinating humanitarian efforts and documenting human rights abuses worldwide. Its programs focus on Migrant Justice, Climate/Disaster Justice, and International Justice and Accountability. In recent years, the organization has been active in addressing a range of issues, including U.S. immigration policies, climate change and environmental justice for Indigenous communities, supporting civil society organizations in Haiti, providing aid to communities affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and advocating for accountability for human rights abuses and war crimes committed by the Burmese military against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya population.
Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, respectively. However, modern Unitarian Universalists see themselves as a separate religion with its own beliefs and affinities. They define themselves as non-creedal, and draw wisdom from various religions and philosophies, including humanism, pantheism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, and Earth-centered spirituality. Thus, the UUA is a syncretistic religious group with liberal leanings.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1942 after amalgamating with the similar Emergency Rescue Committee, the IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution, or natural disaster. The IRC is currently working in about 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities where it resettles refugees and helps them become self-sufficient. It focuses mainly on health, education, economic wellbeing, power, and safety.
Varian Mackey Fry was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France from August 1940 to September 1941 that helped 2,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees, mostly artists and intellectuals, escape from persecution by Nazi Germany during World War II.
A flaming chalice is the most widely used symbol of Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism (UUism) and the official logo of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and other Unitarian and UU churches and societies.
William F. Schulz is a Unitarian Universalist minister who is most known for his role as the executive director of Amnesty International USA, the U.S. division of Amnesty International, from March 1994 to 2006. He is a prominent spokesperson, activist, and author focusing primarily on the issue of Human Rights and United States' Government role in promoting or disregarding them. In addition to his many public appearances, he has been affiliated with numerous non-profit organizations and universities.
Martha Ingham Dickie Sharp Cogan was an American Unitarian who was involved in humanitarian and social justice work with her first husband, a Unitarian minister, Waitstill Sharp, and others of her denomination, and so helped hundreds of refugees, including Jews, to escape Nazi persecution, through relocation and other efforts. In September 2005, Martha and Waitstill Sharp were named by the Yad Vashem organization as "Righteous Among the Nations", the second and third of five Americans to receive this honor. The subsequent ceremony involved the presentation of a medal and certificate of honor to the Sharps' daughter, Martha Sharp Joukowsky, amidst a large audience that included one of the children that her parents had helped get out of France, Eva Esther Feigl.
The American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) leads the civil society movement for full United States participation in the International Criminal Court.
Unitarian Universalism, as practiced by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and the Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC), is a non-Creedal and Liberal theological tradition and an LGBTQ affirming denomination.
Waitstill Hastings Sharp was an American Unitarian minister who was involved in humanitarian and relief work in Czechoslovakia and southern Europe in 1939 and 1940, just before and during World War II. With his wife, Martha, he provided relief aid to refugees, many of them Jewish, fleeing from Nazi Germany and countries under Nazi control and assisted people in danger of persecution to flee Czechoslovakia and France and resettle in the United States and elsewhere. In 2005, Wainstill and Martha were named by Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations, the second and third of five Americans to receive this honor.
SeedChange, formerly known as USC Canada, is a non-profit organization that works with farmers around the world, including in Canada, to strengthen their ability to grow food sustainably with locally adapted seeds. The organization was founded in 1945 by Lotta Hitschmanova as the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada. It updated its name in October 2019, a few months short of its 75th year.
Peter Morales is an American former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Morales was the UUA's first Latino president. In the early 2000s, he was the senior minister of the Jefferson Unitarian Church in Jefferson County, Colorado, a rapidly growing Unitarian Universalist congregation in the northwestern Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area. He also worked for the UUA from 2002 to 2004. In 2008, he announced his candidacy for president, and in 2009 he was elected. As the result of a controversy regarding the UUA's hiring practices and charges of institutional racism, Morales resigned as president in 2017, three months before the end of the term.
Robert Cloutman Dexter was the founder of the Unitarian Service Committee, which worked before and during World War II to rescue and assist refugees from Nazi Germany. Dexter headed the Unitarian's office in Lisbon, Portugal during World War II. The Unitarians and other humanitarian organizations helped thousands of intellectuals and artists, many of them Jews, fleeing the Nazis to emigrate to safety in the United States and other countries. Dexter also worked with the clandestine Office of Strategic Services (OSS), providing information about Nazi Germany to the U.S. from his network of refugee workers in France, Spain, and Portugal.
Elisabeth Anthony Dexter was a social historian who contributed the longest-lived service in southern Europe on behalf of refugees from Nazi Germany, including Jews, of any American churchwoman during World War II.
Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Summit is a Unitarian Universalist ("UU") congregation in Summit, New Jersey, United States, formally organized in 1908 as The Unitarian Church in Summit. It is active in social justice initiatives and received the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Social Justice Award in 2010. It has also been recognized as an outstanding UU congregation by various UU groups. In 2016, Robin Tanner became the Minister of Worship and Outreach.
Susan Frederick-Gray is a Unitarian Universalist minister who served as the ninth president of the Unitarian Universalist Association from 2017 to 2023. She was the first woman to be elected to the office.
Church of Our Father was the first Unitarian church established in Atlanta, Georgia. The church was organized on March 27, 1883, by Rev. George Leonard Chaney, a Boston minister. Rev. Chaney initially held Sunday services in the Senate Chamber, Concordia Hall and the United States Courtroom. A church building was constructed at the corner of North Forsyth and Church Street and dedicated on April 23, 1884. The original building was demolished in 1900.
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Congregation is a Unitarian Universalist church located in Bethesda, Maryland. The congregation is active in community service and social justice projects. The church is officially a "Welcoming Congregation" following the guidelines of the Unitarian Universalist Association, of which it is a member. Cedar Lane has weekly Sunday services and offers religious education classes for young people during the school year. Cedar Lane changed its name by congregational vote in 2023 from Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church to Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Congregation in an effort to be welcoming and inclusive to all religions.
Susan Elisabeth Subak is an environmental scientist and author. She has worked for environmental agencies around the world and is known for her work on America's carbon footprint and climate change.
Annie Bizzell Jordan Willis was an American religious educator and integrationist of the Universalist and later Unitarian Universalist faith traditions. She was the daughter of Rev. Joseph Fletcher Jordan, the first African American Universalist minister. She became a teacher and the superintendent of Suffolk Normal Training School (SNTS) and Jordan Neighborhood House. For decades, she taught and supported hundreds of children and their families, regardless of the varying degrees of assistance from her religious denomination. Her life and work are examples of 20th century anti-racism in the United States and the Unitarian Universalist religious faith. Some of her students include trauma surgeon L.D. Britt, Suffolk's vice mayor and activist Moses Riddick, and Suffolk Circuit Court Deputy Clerk Eula Williams, among many others.
Johanna Chao Kreilick was the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a scientific advocacy nonprofit based in the United States from May 2021 - February 2024. She represented the organization in lobbying Congress and business leaders to address climate change.
The bulk of this collection documents the activities of the New York office of the Unitarian Service Committee. The records cover 1944–1949. Includes digital images
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