Opening statement: The Land and Labor Acknowledgement Task Force helped our congregation live our Unitarian Universalist principles by researching our land’s history and finding appropriate ways to honor that past. The LLATF educated congregants through an exhibit, meetings with small groups, eWeekly notices, and this blog. The Task Force also worked with the Board of Trustees … read more
River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation (RRUUC) dedicated our Land History wayside on October 8, 2023. The wayside is installed along the flagstone walkway on RRUUC property and is adjacent to the sidewalk facing Whittier Boulevard. The wayside presents the results of research into the history of our land, initiated in late 2021. This research led to the … read more
Over the last year, the Land and Labor Acknowledgement Task Force has presented information on the history of slavery on our land and RRUUC land ownership. This blog provides an overview of human history in our area, from the first native peoples, through the Piscataway Confederacy, the Friendship land grant, the Nailor farm, and the … read more
November 3, 2022 Despite the complexities of recent years, Americans have many blessings to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Indigenous Americans, like Maryland’s Piscataway tribal people, however, may take a different view of Thanksgiving, which was only officially declared a holiday in 1942. The life journeys of many Indigenous Americans have been difficult, haunted by laws … read more
There are highways and concrete drainage culverts now along the Potomac River where RRUUC sits. But, long before our area was carved into what we now know, tribes of Piscataway indigenous people had claimed this land for millennia as their ancestral territory. Its forests were filled with wildlife and medicinal plants. The Potomac was abundant … read more
At our June 13, 2021 Service, Reverend Nancy Ladd led a worship service called “For Those Who Were Here in This Place.” In her sermon, she shared the recently uncovered history that the land where RRUUC now sits was once part of a large plantation/farm where enslaved Africans worked. Last month the Land Acknowledgement Task Force … read more
(Note: since the writing of this post, the name of this Task Force was changed to the Land and Labor Acknowledgement Task Force.) The River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation (RRUUC) Board established the Land Acknowledgement Task Force (LATF) in the fall of 2021. The Board tasked the LATF with helping the congregation address its history and … read more
