An officer of the United Church of Christ was in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to support the effort to restart a legislative push for federal reparations for Black Americans. The Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister, stood with Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and other lawmakers in front of the Capitol on May 17, as Bush introduced the “Reparations Now” resolution to urge the United States government to compensate Black Americans for centuries of slavery and systemic racism.
“I am one of the 40 million people in this country descended from enslaved Africans,” said Bush. “Our ancestors were torn away from their homes and families, enslaved, and forced to fuel this country’s economy since the day it was founded. And then they were left landless, impoverished and disenfranchised.
“Black people continue to bear the harms of slavery and its vestiges, through the Black-white wealth gap, segregation and redlining, disparities in health outcomes, a racist and destructive criminal legal system, and countless other ways,” she continued. “Yet our federal government refuses to acknowledge the lasting harms of slavery and the unjust world it created for Black people.”
The resolution calls for $14 trillion in compensation for Black Americans to close that racial wealth gap.
Rev. Blackmon referenced Martin Luther King Jr.’s last set of essays in her remarks: “When millions of people have been cheated for centuries, restitution is a costly process. Inferior education, poor housing, unemployment, inadequate health care — each will require billions to correct. Justice so long deferred has accumulated interest, and its cost for this society will be substantial in financial as well as human terms.’”
UCC advocates have long supported the call for reparations. Most recently, last June church leaders called on President Joe Biden to issue an executive order to explore reparations, and the Join the Movement for Racial Justice campaign hosted a webinar on the subject. Next month, the General Synod of the UCC will consider a resolution, submitted by the Indiana-Kentucky and Central Atlantic Conferences, to publicly proclaim support for a U.S. commission to study and develop reparation proposals.
“Reparations are ultimately about respect, reconciliation and healing,” Bush said, “in the hope that one day Americans of all backgrounds can walk together toward a more just future.”
“America owes generations of African descendant people in this country more than a financial debt,” Blackmon said. “America owes us its dream.”