Honoring the Campbell Legacies

The Campbells and the UU Church of Nashua

Rev. Jeffrey W. Campbell was a Black minister, born in 1911, who grew up in the Unitarian Church of Nashua and who dedicated his many talents to the Unitarian Universalist denomination. Despite years of service, excellent references, and a quick mind, Rev. Campbell never found a full-time ministry.

Grassy unmarked area of cemetery
Formerly unmarked grave site of the Campbell family

Instead, he had to defend himself and his sister Marguerite from overtly racist attacks and subtle rebukes. He was consistently sidelined and ignored by the UU denomination throughout his life, and almost entirely forgotten after his death in 1984.

Rev. Campbell, Marguerite, and their mother Lillian are buried in Edgewood Cemetery in Nashua, NH. The plot for their graves had no marker until we raised funds to make and place a gravestone. The marker commemorates their service to our faith, despite the persistent racism they faced.

Today we continue to publicize and celebrate these two UU leaders as one way of atoning for the past racism of our spiritual ancestors. But even as we present this story to our larger community and at at a General Assembly workshop, even as we hold our annual Campbell Day of Action, we acknowledge that our work today cannot undo the way our denomination sidelined, ignored, and dismissed the Campbell family. Nevertheless we are amplifying this important Black history in order to fulfill the call by Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) to decenter whiteness within our faith.

Read and watch the detailed history of the Campbell family

Remembrance and Reconciliation, 2018

We gathered on September 22, 2018 to remember and honor Lillian Campbell, Rev. Jeffrey Campbell, and Marguerite Campbell Davis.

Our graveside dedication at the Edgewood Cemetery, 107 Amherst Street, Nashua, NH, included a blessing for the new marker placed on the family’s previously unmarked grave.

Crowd assembled at the graveside ceremony honoring the Campbell family, in the green Edgewood Cemetery, 2018 Flowers and a bouquet from the NAACP over the grave of the Campbells, 2018  Flowers strewn all over the new grave marker of the Campbell family, in Edgewood Cemetery, 2018

We first held a service of remembrance of the Campbells, which Rev. Jeffrey Campbell’s daughter attended. The service included a moving apology on behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Association, delivered by its Executive Director, Carey McDonald.

Bronze plaque on a table with a blue velvet cloth, honoring the Campbells in the UU Church of Nashua NH

Interior of a white church, with peopel filling the pews, at a 2018 service honoring the Campbells in the UU Church of Nashua NH

Afterwards, we dedicated our chapel in honor of this family of our spiritual ancestors, by renaming it the Campbell Chapel.

Doors to the chapel of the UU Church of Nashua, renamed in honor of the Campbell family in 2018, showing its bronze plaque and its name above the doors

Bronze plaque mounted outside the chapel of the UU Church of Nashua, renamed in honor of the Campbell family in 2018

History is Social Justice: the GA Workshop

Here’s the video-workshop that will be presented at UU General Assembly, June 2025. It offers guidance on how other congregations can follow the path that we took to research and remember the lives of the Campbell family, and to work towards reconciliation with the larger community around us.

Fundraising Video

In order to pay for creating and placing the new grave marker, we produced this video in 2017 for Faithify, the crowdfunding platform of Unitarian Universalism.

Read and watch the detailed history of the Campbell family