Activists Seek $50 Million From White Churches as Reparations

(DailyVantage.com) – The African-American community in Boston, Massachusetts, is working with a local government task force and a number of white churches in the city to develop forms of reparations meant to atone for Boston’s more than 150 years of participation in America’s bloody history of slavery.

Boston People’s Reparations Commission, a non-governmental organization, recently held a meeting that was attended by more than 200 people, where participants talked about what the city’s history of slavery and reparations meant to them.

In February, the group demanded that the city allocate $15 billion for reparations to the city’s black community. The money would have been allocated to three things: $5 billion for direct cash payments to members of the black community, another $5 billion for education and anti-crime initiatives for the black community, and the remaining $5 billion would be used to establish new financial institutions specifically for the black community.

However, during the most recent meeting, the group said that the $15 billion now seems inadequate, saying that “every life is incalculable.” Some attendees defined reparations as educational opportunities and land, aside from simply being cash payments. Others simply took the opportunity to vent their frustrations with the social system which many believe to be disadvantageous to black people.

The BPRC is also in discussions with white churches in the city for a $50 billion investment into programs and benefits for the black community. Betty Southwick, who belongs to the local Church of the Covenant in the city, said that her organization was willing to “work for repair” with the black community, in acknowledgement of the “truth of violence perpetuated in stolen lives, stolen land, [and] stolen labor” committed during the time of slavery.

The Boston People’s Reparations Commission is a separate organization from Boston’s Task Force on Reparations, which was established by Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu in January this year. The task force’s goal is to study the “legacy of slavery” in the city and determine that legacy’s effect on descendants today, as well as engage with the city’s black community and come up with recommendations for “reparative justice solutions for black residents.”