This is the second installment of member stories the Social Justice Committee is collecting for a special publication, “The CVUU Connection,” devoted to social justice. Do you have a story to tell about a personal experience in the effort for Justice? Send us your stories, either of your own struggle for justice or your experiences within freedom movements. Please submit to Lianne Smith, SJC Co-chair lilismith13@gmail.com, and/or Sheila Dinwiddie sheiladinw@aol.com.
By Sheila Dinwiddie
My first social justice activism was paper drives for worthy causes when I was in high school. And then life happened. I married a sailor and had six children. We moved to Norfolk in 1961. In southern California, the newspapers had been full of the civil rights struggle. We moved to Navy housing next-door to a cradle Unitarian. We went to church with her, were amazed, and signed the book. The minister, James Brewer had headed up the committee to reopen the schools, that Virginia’s Governor had closed in massive resistance to the Supreme Court decision forcing racial integration. Our first Sunday at UCN, Reverend Brewer called for our local museum to reopen its studio classes, which chose to close rather than integrate. I knew I was in the right place.
When Jim Brewer moved on to take a position in an Anti-Apartheid organization in South Africa, James Curtis became our minister. He continued the emphasis on social justice and civil rights. In the late 60s UCN Social Justice Committee sponsored a conference called Time For Action in the Mid South, which brought together many diverse organizations to brainstorm further social action, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the lunch break they reported that a white postal worker had been killed. He had been on a one-man mission, supporting civil rights, carrying a sign, saying so, in Alabama. The students challenged us to stop talking a good fight and join them in a March in downtown Norfolk. Ron Buck, a fellow Unitarian, and I followed the students as did many others. It was one of the most sacred experiences of my life. We were embedded in the black church, all around us choir members were singing, We Shall Overcome and other freedom songs. It was an honor that I cherish. I have marched for many causes since then: anti-poverty, women’s rights, gay rights, peace, and gun control, in Norfolk, Richmond, and Washington DC, but nothing can match the inspiration that I received from being enveloped in the black church that Saturday morning.
Sheila Dinwiddie is one of our Congregation’s oldest members. She has spent most of her adult life as a UU and a member of our community, She calls herself a kitchen table poet. She has hosted a Writer’s Group at her home for many years