The Boston Task Force on Reparations called on “white churches” to step up and pay the black community back for racial inequities that root back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to reports.
The Boston Globe reported that black and white clergy members met in Roxbury for a press conference intended to be held outside, though it was instead held in the basement of the Resurrection Lutheran Church on Saturday because of rain.
The commission was established through a 2022 Boston City Council ordinance and made up of 10 members, including two from the youth community.
In February, the Boston activists called for the city to “fully commit to writing checks” and for a $15 billion payout since the city’s wealth was built on slavery.
“We call sincerely and with a heart filled with faith and Christian love for our white churches to join us and not be silent around this issue of racism and slavery and commit to reparations,” Rev. Kevin Peterson said.
Peterson is a minister and is trying to rename Faneuil Hall because of its ties to the slave trade in the 18th century.
“We point to them in Christian love to publicly atone for the sins of slavery and we ask them to publicly commit to a process of reparations where they will extend their great wealth — tens of millions of dollars among some of those churches — into the black community,” said Peterson. --->READ MORE HERE
Activists in Boston are asking for $15 billion in reparations for slavery from the city and “white churches.” Clergy leaders and the Boston People’s Reparations Commission made the announcement about their proposal to combat institutional racism in a news conference on Saturday.
“Today we call upon this city, its financiers, and its white churches to stop the shirking, stop the lying, tell the truth, and pay what is owed,” the Rev. John Gibbons of Arlington Street Church in Boston said at the press conference.
“We call on the white church in Boston to join us in supporting a black reparations movement,” Rev. Kevin Peterson, founder of New Democracy Coalition, said.
He added, “We demand from Mayor Wu full monetary compensation for wages and lost lives through slavery and anti-black institutional oppression. Today, we call on a full and robust reparations process.”
The group demanded that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu support their proposal for $15 billion in reparations for the descendants of enslaved people. They proposed that the fund would be split three ways: $5 billion in direct cash payments to black Boston residents, a $5 billion investment in new financial institutions, and $5 billion to address the racial educational achievement gap between black people and white people, along with supporting anti-violence measures.
Peterson reportedly said, “Many of the well-known white churches in downtown Boston are connected to the slave trade and the proliferation of what was a ‘slavetocracy’ in our city.”
“We point to them in Christian love to publicly atone for the sins of slavery, and we ask them to publicly commit to a process of reparations where they will extend their great wealth, tens of millions of dollars among some of those churches, into the black community,” Peterson added. --->READ MORE HERE
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