In a video message posted Monday, Executive Conference Minister the Rev. Darrell Goodwin invites all to celebrate Black History month.

 "As we think about the Black experience," says Rev. Goodwin, "I wanted to offer you a couple of reflection points for this month."

Rev. Goodwin continues with a few ways people can honor the History of African-Americans in February and beyond:

1. Commit to being Anti-Racist and align yourself with like-minded organizations. In reflecting on those organizations, he asks us, "Do they have an anti-racist stance? Because that models who we want to be."
[Recource: https://nmaahc.si.edu/.../talking.../topics/being-antiracist]

2. Educate yourself about the impact of white supremacy in our world. "White supremacy has impacted all of us in some way," Rev. Goodwin explains.
[Resource:  https://news.harvard.edu/.../a-reading-list-on-issues-of.../]

3. Reflect on your inner circle and query if there are voices of folks who do not look like you. If your circle is homogenous do the personal work to expand your horizons. If so, we need to do the "deliberative work to stretch ourselves outside of that paradigm."
[Resource: https://youtu.be/V3NdUmQd_ss]

4. Patronize Black Owned and Operated Businesses. The resource linked below helps us be very specific in our activism to support African-American business owners.
[Resource:  https://officialblackwallstreet.com/directory/]

5. Explore Southern New England Conference and National UCC Resources
[Resource:  https://www.ucc.org/justice_racism/]

"I hope you are also committed to our journey of becoming an anti-racist conference," says Rev. Goodwin.