By Vivien Hao, Program Chair
Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus

BOSTON, MA--About 170 community leaders from Boston and throughout the country heard UU civil rights advocate and author Frank H. Wu speak at Tuft's University's Jaharis Family Center on how the "color line" is being redefined in America.

His talk, "Beyond Black and White: How Asian Americans are Revolutionizing Our Nation's Racial Dialogue" was sponsored the Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus (A/PIC) of DRUUMM (Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries) as an outreach program to share Wu's message of empowerment and coalition building with the larger Boston community.

Wu, author of the critically-acclaimed book, Yellow: Race in American Beyond Black and White, is in Boston at the invitation of A/PIC, organized earlier this year by 17 Asian American and Pacific Islander UUs from throughout the U.S. UUA Trustee Lyda Adair welcomed the audience members and Wu on behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

"Just as Unitarian Universalists heeded the call of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to march in Selma almost 40 years ago, we should now heed Professor Wu's call to join the community-at-large in broadening the racial dialogue," said Kim Varney, chair of A/PIC and a member of the UUA's Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Team. "Only through cross-racial collaboration and mutual advocacy can UUs and Americans begin to dismantle the racism in our institutions that continue to shackle us all."

The GA Planning Committee is sponsoring two GA events today featuring Wu-- a lecture at 1:30 p.m. and a panel discussion at 3:15 p.m., which will include UUA President Bill Sinkford and other UU leaders of color. The panel will address questions relating to how Unitarian Universalism can meet the challenge of the new racial dialogue in the 21st Century.

Wu, who attends All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C., is the first Asian American law professor to teach at Howard University. He has spent the last year as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School, which has an affirmative action case pending in the U. S. Supreme Court.

Wu has written and spoken extensively on affirmative action, racial profiling, and other civil rights issues. He has testified before Congress against legislation that would abolish affirmative action, and has appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and numerous other national media outlets, including NPR, PBS, MS-NBC, and BBC radio.

His 2002 book, "Yellow," now in its third printing, is heralded as the first to combine a comprehensive history of the Asian American civil rights movement with critical analyses of contemporary racial justice debates.

He is a co-editor for the course book Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment. Wu has also written more than 200 articles, op-pieces and book reviews for publications such as the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Asian Week.