(DailyVantage.com) – A group of black Christian activists is urging the City of Boston to pay billions of dollars’ worth of “reparations” to the black community in the city, on the premise that Boston’s current wealth and prosperity were built on the backs of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
The group, which is called the Boston Task Force on Reparations, is demanding that “White churches” in the city step up and do their part – along with the city government – in coming up with a reparation payout in the amount of $15 billion.
Speaking to members of the press, Rev. Kevin Peterson said that the call for reparations comes from a “heart filled with faith and Christian love.” He also said that “White churches” should speak up regarding issues of “racism and slavery.”
Peterson is part of Boston’s reparations task force, a committee that was established by a city ordinance in 2022. It is comprised of 10 members, two of them from the youth community. Peterson is also the founder of the New Democracy Coalition, as well as the Faneuil Hall Race, a campaign to change the name of the city’s Faneuil Hall, due to the building’s connection to the practice of slavery.
Peterson, who is also a minister, claims that white churches in the city possess “great wealth,” with some churches even supposedly having “tens of millions of dollars.” Peterson invoked “Christian love” in calling for these organizations to “publicly atone” for the slavery and commit to the “process of reparations,” with the monies channeled into Boston’s black community. More specifically, the minister said that the reparation payments will go into creating affordable housing and more accessible “new” financial institutions for the black community in Boston.
A petition seeking reparation payments launched by Peterson garnered signatures from sixteen other religious leaders in the city. The petition was then sent to various churches in the Boston area.
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