Building on the success of past webinars, the Living Legacy Project offers a new three-part series, Speaking Truth: Countering Disinformation About Racial History. Expert voices will clear away the clutter and noise of reactionary rhetoric and false narratives that threaten to derail progress. We’ll clarify the past in support of present-day actions for equality, justice, and equity.

Join us as we talk about important topics filling our news cycles, so we can all speak with clarity and act with purpose to make our window of opportunity matter. Now is the time!

Save these Thursday dates: September 16, October 21, and November 18. 5:00 pm Pacific, 6:00 Mountain, 7:00 Central; and 8:00 Eastern.

Register for one, two or all three programs! All programs are free and open to the public. Registration is required and donations are appreciated. ​

Note: we recognize that our Jewish friends might be involved in Yom Kippur observations on September 16. If you have to miss any of the programs, they will be recorded and available for on-demand viewing on our YouTube channel. ​

In our June 30, 2020 program in our series Voting Rights: The Struggle Continues meet three generators of voting rights activists, Dr. Ellie Dahmer, Dr. Joyce Ladner, and Ms. Arekia Bennett. These three dynamic women will discuss the history of the voting rights struggle for African Americans, the progress, and the ongoing struggles. 
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Dr. Dahmer has been involved with civil and voting rights in Mississippi for most of her life, including serving as Election Commissioner in Forrest County, MS, in the same district where her husband was killed by the KKK for his advocacy. She held this elected position for more than a decade supported by both white and black voters.

​Dr. Ladner served as VP for Academic Affairs at Howard University from 1990-1994 as an interim President there from 1994-1995. A noted sociologist, her passion for the movement, for social justice and activism became an part of her writing, teaching, and advocacy, 

Ms. Bennett is the Executive Director of MS Votes, an organization committed to civic engagement of Mississippians across generations, cultures, identities, inequities, and struggles, with particular focus on young people. Arekia founded GIRL, a black feminist collective at JSU and has been critical in developing and nurturing a black feminist political space and policy agenda with GIRL through MS Votes' "One Girl, One Vote" initiative. 

Don't miss this exciting conversation, moderated by the Rev. Dr. Gordon Gibson. 

The program starts at 7:30 pm Eastern time on June 30th, but join us "on the bus" at 7:15 pm for our pre-show, including music by Living Legacy Project's co-president and music director, Reggie Harris.  

For more information and to register, visit http://www.uulivinglegacy.org/votingrights2.html

As the 2020 election draws near, the Living Legacy Project is offering a monthly online series focused on voting rights. In these sessions, we'll be exploring what we can learn from the Voting Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s to apply to challenges we face today in these unprecedented times.

In the first program in this series, we'll be joined by Ms. Flonzie Brown Wright and Larry Rubin.

In 1968, Ms. Flonzie Brown Wright became the first African American woman to hold a position as elected commissioner in Mississippi. In this role, she monitored elections, trained poll workers, supervised registrars, and sued the Elections Board for discriminating against black candidates and poll workers. Between 1969 and 1973, Brown Wright served as vice president of the Institute of Politics at Millsaps College, and from 1974 to 1989, she worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1994, she published her bestselling book, Looking Back to Move Ahead. 

Larry Ruben was a SNCC organizer in Southwest Georgia and Northern Mississippi, working to support Black Southerners who were risking their lives to exercise their right to vote. Rubin grew up in a secular Jewish household in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rubin’s father was a welder and his mother a hairdresser. Both were active in the progressive movement. His parents instilled in him the idea that the “essence of being Jewish is the responsibility to fight for justice.” When SNCC asked white organizers to form their own projects in white communities to fight racism Rubin started organizing poor whites, then became a union organizer and communications specialist and served four terms on the Takoma Park, Maryland City Council.

Mark your calendar for 7:30 pm Eastern Time, on the last Tuesday of every month up to Election Day 2020, beginning May 26, 2020. Don't miss these important conversations! 

For more information and to register, visit: Voting Rights: The Struggle Continues. 

Please share this information on Facebook and Twitter! 

Dear Members of the Living Legacy Project Family,

Just ten days ago, we expected that we’d be spending this week and next leading two full buses with a total of eighty-five people from over twenty states on Living Legacy Pilgrimages. With deep regret, we had to cancel both trips because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Board and Founders of the Living Legacy Project struggled with this decision but came to this conclusion from deep care and concern for the well-being of everyone involved, including the people we would meet along the way.

Today, we are asking for your help in recovering some of the losses incurred as a result of these cancellations. We are most concerned about Civil Rights Movement veterans and others who make the LLP such a transformative experience.

We are pleased to report that every one of the hotels gave us a full refund without hesitation. Our long-time bus partner, Cline Tours, also willingly gave us a full refund. However, it still means financial losses to the LLP and to the people who were committed to helping make these pilgrimages memorable events, including:

• Anthony Liuzzo, son of Viola Liuzzo, the Unitarian Universalist woman killed by the Klan on the stretch of highway between Montgomery and Selma,
• The Carlton Reese Memorial Unity Choir, a choir that has been singing freedom songs since the 1960s,
• Selma voting rights veteran Joanne Bland, and Terry Chestnut, son of J.L. Chestnut, Jr., Selma’s first black lawyer and a key organizer of the Selma Voting Rights Campaign, and
• Della Maynor and other Marion, Alabama, veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.

These amazing people will not only miss out on an opportunity to share their stories and gifts with us but will miss out on the honoraria we offer them for meeting with our groups. For some, the money they receive from speaking/singing/catering/touring engagements is an important part of their income.

When the LLP Board decided to cancel the two upcoming Pilgrimages, we also decided that we would do whatever we could to acknowledge the importance of our fabulous resource people and let them know how much we value them.

This is where you come in.

We are grateful that the registered participants of the canceled Pilgrimages have already donated almost $6,000 to help us offset the LLP’s unrecoverable costs associated with canceling these two Pilgrimages and send monetary thank-you gifts to the people who make these Pilgrimages so special.

We need an additional $10,000 to cover our costs and make these gifts. Will you help us compensate our partners for their time and commitment?

While the future of the Living Legacy Project is bright, this financial setback will slow our progress. We understand that in the current pandemic you are almost certainly helping meet deep human need close to home. We hope that, in addition to those efforts, you will join with us to move the LLP forward. We need these stories now more than ever! Help us spread them to new generations!

You can make a donation online using this link: Living Legacy Project Donation.

When you donate, please select March 2020 Recovery Fund under Gift Designation. And, if it works for your budget, please select a Donation Schedule so your gift repeats Monthly, Quarterly, or Annually.

If you prefer to use PayPal, you can donate using this link: https://paypal.me/LivingLegacyProject

Or if you'd rather stay away from online payments, you can send a check to:
Living Legacy Project
1000 Blanton Ave.
Richmond, VA 23221

Thank you so much. We are so grateful for your generosity. We will report back to you on our progress.

We wish you the best in this difficult time. May you and your loved ones stay healthy and well.

In peace and solidarity,

Living Legacy Project Co-Presidents
Reggie Harris
Jan Sneegas

On behalf of the LLP Board:
Kristin Famula
Rev. Dr. Gordon Gibson
John Harris
Rev. James A. Hobart
Rev. Dr. Hope Johnson
Dr. Janice Marie Johnson
Rev. Seanan Holland
Julian Sharp
Rev. Carlton E. Smith
Dr. Pamela Zappardino

P.S. Please spread the word about our post-election Living Legacy Pilgrimage scheduled for Nov 7-14, 2020. This will be an opportunity to prepare for whatever comes next!

We'll be in touch as more information becomes available.

We are always pleased when members of one of our Pilgrimages finds a way to express their experiences and is willing to share those expressions. Laura Ingersol accompanied us on our October 2019 Pilgrimage and chronicled her journey through blog posts. We are sharing them here. 

To read them all, scroll to the bottom of this page: Reflections from Laura. Or jump to the places you are most interested in learning about:

• Day 1, Saturday, Birmingham, AL
• Day 2, Sunday, Birmingham, AL
• Day 3, Monday, Birmingham to Montgomery, AL
• Day 4, Tuesday, Montgomery to Selma to Marion, AL
• Day 5, Wednesday, Marion, AL to Meridian, MS
• Day 6, Thursday, Meridian to Philadelphia to Jackson, MS
• Day 7, Friday, Jackson to Money to Ruleville to Glendora, MS, to Memphis, TN
• Day 8, Saturday, Memphis, TN

​

This eight-day journey starts and ends in Birmingham, Alabama, where the 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four little girls, , Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley. We then travel to Montgomery to visit the Equal Justice Initiatives' Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Bryan Stevenson's lynching memorial). We'll visit Marion and Selma, Alabama, the center of the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and walk over the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

From there, we'll travel to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where members of the Ku Klux Klan killed three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. We'll visit the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, and then head up the Mississippi Delta to the area where 14-year old Emmett Till was murdered, through Sunflower County, where Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer lived and worked, and then on into Memphis Tennessee, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated and where the National Civil Rights Museum now honors his legacy and the legacy of all who fought for civil rights. 

This Pilgrimage is a sacred journey unlike any other. Not only will you visit the historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement, but you will also meet some of the very people who risked their lives to secure everyone's rights. These foot soldiers of this Movement have not stopped working for justice, and they will inspire you with their courage, their resilience, and their persistence throughout all these many years. ​

​For more information and to register, visit October 2019 Living Legacy Pilgrimage. 

We are making plans for our next Living Legacy Pilgrimage! It will be October 19-26, 2019. Mark your calendars now!

This eight-day experience starts in Birmingham, Alabama, where the 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four little girls, Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley. We then travel to Montgomery to visit the Equal Justice Initiatives' Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Bryan Stevenson's lynching memorial). We'll visit Marion and Selma, Alabama, the center of the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and walk over the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

From there, we'll travel to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where members of the Ku Klux Klan killed three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. We'll visit the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, and then head up the Mississippi Delta to the area where 13-year old Emmett Till was murdered, through Sunflower County, where Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer lived and worked, and then on into Memphis Tennessee, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated and where the National Civil Rights Museum now honors his legacy and the legacy of all who fought for civil rights. 

This Pilgrimage is a sacred journey unlike any other. Not only will you visit the historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement, but you will also meet some of the very people who risked their lives to secure everyone's rights. These foot soldiers of this Movement have not stopped working for justice, and they will inspire you with their courage, their resilience, and their persistence throughout all these many years. 

We plan to open registration by mid-June, so stayed tuned for further announcements. 

If you're not already on our mailing list, sign up now, so you be sure to get notified when registration opens. ​

March 20-24, 2019, we'll be traveling to Alabama for a four-day Living Legacy Pilgrimage. We'll gather in Birmingham and visit the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's Bethel Baptist Church, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. 

In Montgomery, we'll visit Maya Lin's Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center. We'll see where The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led his congregation and where the Selma to Montgomery March ended at the steps of the Alabama State Capitol building, and where Mrs. Rosa Parks chose to sit on a bus sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the most effective boycotts ever instigated.

Included in out visit to Montgomery is the newly opened Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, otherwise known as the Lynching Memorial. 

We'll then visit Selma, where Bloody Sunday, Turn-around Tuesday, the death of Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb, and finally the successful Selma to Montgomery March changed the course of history, although not before another Unitarian Universalist, Viola Liuzzo died at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. 

From there, we'll travel to Marion, Alabama, where Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed by a state police officer, and the idea for the Selma to Montgomery March was born as mourners considered marching Jimmie Lee's body to the state capitol in Montgomery. 

Don't miss this important Pilgrimage!