A group of religious leaders in Boston have demanded that both the city and” white churches” give more than$ 15 billion in reparations payments to the city’s black community. Considerably- left Boston Mayor Michelle Wu issued an official explanation on behalf of the city for its “involvement in the Atlantic slave trade” in 2022, while the area has even commissioned a study on compensation.
Activist church people made the expectations at the Ascension Lutheran Church during an event organized by the Boston Women’s Reparations Commission. One of the speakers was Reverend Kevin Peterson, who called on” white churches” to join with the group in demanding$ 15 billion in payments. ” We call on the white church in Boston to meet us in supporting a dark compensation activity”, he said.
Demanding money from” white parishes” was a common theme throughout the celebration. ” Now we call upon this town, its lenders, and its white temples to cease the shirking, quit the lying, tell the truth and paid what he is owed”, declared Reverend John Gibbons, drawing applause from different speakers.
” And we are coming, as Dr. King said, to find our check”, said another speaker.
Elsewhere in the press conference, Peterson outlined how the$ 15 billion in demanded payments would be used. “$ 5 billion as first settlement around money payouts,$ 5 billion around strengthening our economic institutions, creating a new black banks, five billion dollars in terms of addressing problems of the learning achievement gap between blacks and whites”, he said.
A letter signed by 16 advocate priests was sent to individual temples demanding that they participate in paying the state’s black people to “atone for enslavement”. The temples named in the latter were King’s Chapel, Arlington Street Church, Trinity Church, and Old South Church.
These places of worship, the party argued, owed hundreds of slaves and have been called on to make either income payments, or by creating affordable housing “or financial institutions and financial institutions in dark Boston”.
” Somehow, we need to move with some urgency toward action and so part of what we’re doing is to prod and encourage white churches to go beyond what they have done thus far”, said Reverend Gibbons.
Peterson also singled out the Catholic Church, even though it was banned in Massachusetts when the state’s constitution was written in 1780.” ‘ 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”, he said.
The City of Boston created the Task Force on Reparations in 2022 to write a report on how the city can deliver reparations payments to its black residents.
