There Is More Love Somewhere

This is one of the few spirituals in Sing Out Love—a song from the Black tradition, and from the struggle to survive enslavement and white violence. 

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We invite white and white-majority congregations to sing this mindfully, and with understanding of its roots. In particular, we caution against changing the words. 

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As Dr. Thomas Rideout explains:

"For those of us who live with the privilege of knowing love, it can be difficult to understand the perspective of one who lives without such a privilege... It can be difficult to understand the lived experience of those who have trouble finding the evidence of love in their immediate vicinity; in their church; in their neighborhood; in their city; in their nation; even in their planet. For some who don’t share the privilege of perceiving love 'right here,' moving toward that idea of privilege had become a vital practice of Black faith. If we, as a spiritual community of Unitarian Universalists are to mean anything to the lives and the deaths of people of color, we must begin by learning—not squelching—the forms of expression that arise from these living perspectives."

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In Singing the Living Tradition, where this hymn appears as #95, the tune was named BIKO after Bantu Stephen Biko (1946-1977), an anti-apartheid activist who spearheaded the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. 

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