Blog Archives: March 2021

Our Environmental Justice Center has been busy pushing for stronger public policy to rectify long-standing injustices that disproportionately hurt People of Color and those at the margins of our society. We're fighting hard in Harrisburg for action on climate change. We're advocating for the implementation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which would force the reduction over time of carbon pollution from coal- and gas-fired power plants. Linda testified powerfully before the state on our behalf in December. Assuring safe ...

After choosing from my list of potential names I faced a new task: telling other people. As with most personal decisions, there is something vulnerable with sharing that decision with others. And with this, I was both sharing that I was no longer satisfied with my birth name and declaring that my name is Emery. I was never too worried about telling the church. I’ve been relatively open about my relationship with gender since I started coming so logically this wouldn’t be treated differently. It was more the logistics of telling a group vs ...

It was October, 2000. I had just moved to Philadelphia from Chicago with my husband Zolani, who had just accepted a job as professor at Haverford College, and our 3- and 4-year old toddlers, Sonja and Sarah. I was singing with the Anna Crusis Women’s Choir in a concert held in a little stone church in Chestnut Hill. Like most churches in which I’ve spent time, this one felt warm, welcoming, and just a little… “rustic.” The pews were arranged in a circle, and the objects in the space – the Jewish seder plate and a Muslim Quran on the altar ...