Boston’s religious leaders, joined by an assembly of Black and White clergymen, are calling for historic “White churches” to commit to reparations.
The substantial sum of $15 billion is being urged to support the Black community in Boston, as a measure of restitution for the churches’ past involvement in slavery, the leaders said in a gathering at the Resurrection Lutheran Church.
The demand was orchestrated by the Boston People’s Reparations Commission for the institutional role played by the city in the transatlantic slave trade. The sum is also intended to endorse further reparations from the city itself.
“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,” the Rev. Kevin Peterson said, according to the Daily Mail.
“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,” he said.
Four notable churches that are included in the push for reparations include King’s Chapel, Arlington Street Church, Trinity Church, and Old South Church – establishments dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when slavery was prevalent among their congregants and clergy.
Baptist leader Archbishop Leo Edward said the U.S. has failed to provide the promised “40 acres and a mule,” which was once promised to free slaves.
“You know what is the acres? The prisons! And the mules [are] the prisoners,” he said at the event.
Rev. Peterson also singled out the Catholic church, despite it being banned in Massachusetts until the state constitution was passed in 1780.
“They unfortunately assisted in sustaining institutionalized racism across the city,” he said. “Not only are we looking at the period of slavery, we’re looking at three centuries of institutionalized anti-Black racism and the Catholic Church is inclusive of the churches we want to engage.”
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