Vote will be nay: Unitarian Universalist fellowship opposes district name change

(By Mary Giunca; Winston-Salem Journal) - In 1993, the National General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association had a costume ball. Since the meeting was in Charlotte, in the Thomas Jefferson District, the organizers invited people to dress in costume from Jefferson's time.

Jim Key, who is the president of the district, said he remembers that a black delegate asked, "Should we come in chains and rags?"

That comment ushered in a period a reflection among Unitarian Universalists about how welcoming the name "Thomas Jefferson" was to black members, Key said. A movement to change the district name in the late 1990s failed, but yesterday, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Winston-Salem took up the matter again, ahead of the district's annual meeting on Friday and Saturday in South Carolina.

After a short debate, the fellowship again rejected a name change, said Janet Owen, the president of the board of trustees for the Winston-Salem Fellowship.

"Everybody had done a lot of thinking and they pretty much had made up their minds," she said.