Palmer Lecture on Human Rights

“I Can’t Feel My Heart”: What the denial of Human Rights Really Means by the Rev. Mary Katherine Morn

The annual Robert C. Palmer Lecture on Human Rights (The Palmer Lecture) will be Friday, Nov. 8, at 7 p.m in the sanctuary at First UU.  

The speaker this year is the Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, a former minister of First UU and current Director of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) whose mission is to advance human rights and social justice around the world, partnering with those who confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies. Their work centers on intersecting roots of injustice to defend rights at risk due to criminalization and systemic oppression of people based on their identity.

 I will be sharing stories from Unitarian Universalist Social Committee (UUSC)’s work with our partners addressing migrant justice and climate justice, focusing on the real impacts among people whose lives are already at risk because of larger systems that discount, ignore, imprison, exile, displace, torture, kill, and erase them. The stories from our partners wake us to the gross injustice all around us and the courage and creativity of those most affected as they build a new way. -Mary Katherine Morn

The Palmer Lecture was established by our Board of Directors in 1983 to honor our church’s first called minister, the Rev. Robert Palmer, who was a civil rights activist and a contemporary of Dr. Martin Luther King.  The lecture host renowned speakers whose work and expertise focus on issues related to civil and human rights.

Prior to the lecture, there will be a potluck dinner offering both vegetarian and non-vegetarian items

Potluck begins at 6, doors open at 5:30, lecture starts at 7 p.m.