MINUTES 3/2/2020

Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

Minutes of Meeting - March 2, 2020

The meeting convened at 6 pm in the BUF Library. Present: Amoret Heise, Henry Ohana, Lauralee Carbone, David Curley and Cat McIntyre

Agenda:

1. Eracism minutes
2. Beloved Conversations
3. Eighth Principle
4. March 9 program
5. Review of Feb 9 service and future services
6. Other community programs

1. Eracism minutes.

• March 8 Amoret Heise
• March 15 Claire Lending or Murray Bennett (David will ask)
• March 22 Barbara Gilday
• March 29 Daria Haynes
• April 5 Cat McIntyre

The person giving the minute shall call Rev. Paul by Wednesday of the week preceding the Sunday service at which they speak. Those who give an eracism minute shall also send the eracism minute script to Mike Betz to be included in the BUF BLM blog.

2. Beloved Conversations 2. Cat spoke to Rev. Paul, who advised that there is not enough money in the budget for next year to pay for Beloved Conversations. There was shortfall from last year that had to be made up this year. We need a broad-based congregation base who want to take the course in order to make Beloved Conversations 2 a priority. We are already incorporating actions spurred by Beloved Conversations 1 in eracism minutes and the Sunday services we create. We should also consider charging some tuition for the program.

3. Eighth Principle. Representatives from Native American Connections, Immigrant Rights and Black Lives Matter met on Feb. 12 and 18. Following that, as subcommittee (Deb Cruz Mike Betz and David Curley) have met twice to refine the wording of the resolution and make sure that other forms of oppression in addition to racism are addressed. The resolution will be reviewed again before presenting it to the BUF Board of Trustees on or about March 16. We will also plan a series of congregational meetings facilitated by the Healthy Relations team. Their representative, Karen Nuckles Flinn has been very helpful in the first two large meetings. David will make sure it is on the Board agenda for 3/16.

4. March 9 program meeting. Topic will be 1619 Project, Episode 5 part 1. David will lead the discussion; Cat will make up some questions based on the podcast. Program will be announced in Midweek Update, on BUF News and on the BUF Black Lives Matters Facebook page. There will be one more 1619 podcast to discuss (Episode 5, part 2) at the April meeting. Cat suggested the May program may be Mary Alden talking about her experience in Republic of South Africa.

5. Review of Feb. 9 service and future services. We had much positive feedback about the Feb. 9, especially the Privilege Exercise. We will ask Rev. Paul when we might do another service this year, perhaps summer?

6. Other Community Programs. Henry and Lauralee described a notable activity at Garden Street Methodist. It is a large bulletin board with information on white supremacy that includes pockets for various handouts. We will ask the Garden Street Methodist church secretary when we might visit to see this.

Henry reports that the CAST program, which serves sandwiches to homeless and other hungry folk, has moved its service to behind the library at noon.

Respectfully submitted

Cat McIntyre, co-facilitator

BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

ERACISM MINUTE 3/8/2020

Creola Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson

Good morning! I’m Lauralee Carbone, here to present an E-Racism Minute, a moment of consciousness raising organized by BUF’s Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team.

Following up on last week’s theme of the intersectionality of race and gender, today’s eRacism minute, written by Amoret Heise, is about Katherine Goble Johnson, who died on February 24 at the age of 101. Although living to that age is a notable achievement, it is far from what she is best known for.

She was born in a small town in West Virginia, the youngest of four children. Although her father had only a 6^th grade education, he was known to be a math whiz, and she showed similar talent as a young girl. While a student at West Virginia State College, she was fortunate to have excellent African-American math professors. After graduating summa cum laude at the age of 18, she was one of only three African-Americans, and the only woman, selected to integrate West Virginia State College’s graduate school after the 1938 US Supreme Court ruling that states providing public higher education to white students also had to provide it to black students. She chose to marry and raise a family rather than complete the graduate program, a decision she never regretted.

Although she had previously worked as a teacher, when Johnson looked for work again after her children were older, she aspired to something more challenging. She learned in 1952 that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was hiring mathematicians to work at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, and they hired African-Americans as well as whites. She got a job there and continued to work for them later as the agency was superseded by NASA.

As an African-American, and a woman, she had to be careful reporting the results of her work in the segregated lab, especially when review of an engineer’s calculations showed an error. She asked if the calculation might not be correct, which brought the desired acknowledgment, math being exact and not a matter of judgment or debate. Over time her work became so respected that before John Glenn’s 1962 orbit around the earth, he refused to fly until she had manually verified the computer’s calculations.

Katherine co-authored 26 scientific papers, although women’s names didn’t go on the reports then, so she didn’t get recognition in the usual way. Belatedly, NASA named a building after her, and in 2015, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A book and movie, both named Hidden Figures, were written about her and other African-American women who worked behind the scenes in the Mercury space program, making sure the trajectories would get the astronauts where they were supposed to go and, even more importantly, bring them safely home.

Katherine Johnson is a hero because of her confidence and passion, two traits that enabled her to rise above the limits of segregation and discrimination, and become an inspiration for other female mathematicians of color.