Black clergy in Boston are demanding a $15 billion reparations package paid for by “white churches” in the local area.
The demands were made during a press conference the Resurrection Lutheran Church, organized by the Boston People’s Reparations Commission, according to The Boston Globe.
Among the speakers Reverend Kevin Peterson, who previously led a campaign to rename the popular tourist site of Faneuil Hall because of the name’s links to a slaveowner.
“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,” Peterson declared.
“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 continued.
Also speaking at the event was Danielle Williams, the director of a social justice group called Prophetic Resistance Boston, who claims her great-great-grandmother was a slave in North Carolina.
“Black people, the descendants of slavery, have been washing the feet of our oppressors for well over 400 years,” Williams reportedly said. “Now it’s time for you to wash our feet. The descendants of slavery, we want our reparations. We want it now.”
Another speaker, Rev. John E. Gibbons of Arlington Street Church, said that the commitment of various churches to research their links to slavery was not enough and that they must cough up money instead.
“That is not enough,” Gibbons said. “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.”
The Task Force have now sent a letter, signed by 16 religious leaders, to churches asking for their support and compliance with their demands. It is unclear whether any of those churches have responded.
Boston’s Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu first approved the launch of the city’s Reparations Task Force back in February, joining San Francisco in entertaining the prospect of reparations payments to black people, regardless of whether their ancestors were slaves.
Last December, Wu made national headlines after organizing a “no-whites” Christmas Party for Boston city councillors, although later claimed the email had been sent in error.
