Knoxville Beloved Community Circle

"Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise what is the point of seeing?' - Thich Nhat Hanh

About Knoxville Beloved Community Circle

Knoxville BCC (KBCC) believes effective social action requires sharing our victories, mistakes, and feelings of exhaustion in order to maintain our well-being and ability to keep on advocating for justice. We meet monthly to meditate, share deeply, plan, and engage in one social action together.

Our first action involved marching in Knoxville’s Juneteenth/Martin Luther King, Jr. parade in 2024, now an annual tradition. In 2025, we focused on fighting against the Ridgeline gas pipeline. As U.S. democratic principles and institutions have increasingly come under attack, our focus has shifted to actions such as the No Kings protests.

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What is a Beloved Community Circle (BCC)

Beloved Community Circles (BCC) is a decentralized network of people around the world who care about racial, social, and climate justice.

Local Circles are comprised of 5-12 individuals who commit to:

practice mindfulness together,
care for one another, and
engage in social justice work together.

While BCC has its spiritual roots in the Plum Village tradition of Engaged Buddhism as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, the principles are universal and can be adapted by other faith-based groups.

For more information on the international Beloved Community Circles network, we encourage you to visit the main website at https://belovedcommunitycircles.org.

Origin of the Term "Beloved Community"

The name “Beloved Community” is credited to Christian theologian, Josiah Royce, in 1913. Later, the Fellowship of Reconciliation organization introduced the idea to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who embraced it and made it a cornerstone of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King introduced the term to Thich Nhat Hanh, who made a vow to continue building the Beloved Community

However, none of these spiritual leaders invented the idea of the beloved community, which is an ancient human longing.