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An award-winning journalist and trans rights activist will deliver the keynote address at this year’s General Assembly, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s annual gathering in June.
Imara Jones, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning political journalist who is an advocate for social justice and equality across a variety of media outlets, will give the prestigious 2025 Ware Lecture at this year’s multiplatform conference, set for June 18-22 in Baltimore and online. Jones is also the founder of TransLash Media, described on her official website as “a cross-platform journalism, personal storytelling and narrative project, which produces content to shift the current culture of hostility towards transgender people in the US.” TransLash Media tells the stories of trans and gender-nonconforming people through articles, podcasts, films, and zines.
Jones has been featured on a wide variety of news outlets such as NPR, The Guardian, MSNBC, CNBC, and more. In 2019, she chaired the first-ever UN High Level Meeting on Gender Diversity with over 600 participants. From her website, Jones is described as a leader who “pushes the envelope in our understanding of economics, race, politics, gender, and culture through incisive analysis and unconventional thinking with an unambiguous desire to separate right from wrong.”
Each year, the UUA president and GA Planning Committee invite a distinguished speaker to present the Ware Lecture, a high honor with a long history. Previous Ware lecturers include the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mary Oliver, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Van Jones, and Winona LaDuke. In its post announcing Jones as the 2025 recipient, the UUA said:
“In 1920, Harriet E. Ware of Milton, MA, bequeathed $5,000 to the American Unitarian Association (AUA) for its unrestricted use. Two years later, on the evening of May 24, 1922, the first Ware Lecture was given by the Rev. Frederick W. Norwood, pastor of the City Temple in London, England. The lecture had been ‘established in honor of the distinguished services of three generations of the Ware family to the cause of Pure Christianity.’”
The 2025 Ware Lecture will be delivered at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 21. Whether attending the lecture at the Baltimore Convention Center, streaming it live, or watching a video on-demand after the event, the lecture will be available to all who register for GA 2025.