Lets “lose the A from the UUSA”….

As The Sierra Club outlined in an article titled “What’s in a Name?”… “Native Americans have long fought to change derogatory place-names,” and …. “it’s particularly offensive to Native Americans when geographical features in our ancient homelands and sacred places bear the names of violent colonizers.” Toward that end, in 2022, the U.S. Department of Interior changed the name of more than 650 geographic features across the country to remove a name offensive to Native peoples.

In an effort to understand the history of the name of our congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst, it might be useful to examine where this name came from in the context of a desire to disassociate our congregation from the name of a violent colonizer. Hence… this proposal.

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The following is a proposal initiated by the UUSA Indigenous Awareness Circle and modified and subsequently approved by the UUSA Racial, Religious and Ethnic Justice Circle. It was submitted to the UUSA Board of Trustees in July 2024 for consideration.

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