On the eve of Holy Week, a group of Black and white clergy members gathered Saturday in Roxbury to call on “white churches” in Boston to back reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade and provide financial support for an effort by investing in the city’s Black community.
The clergy members delivered their message at a news conference organized by the Boston People’s Reparations Commission, an independent group of activists who have called on the City of Boston to spend $15 billion on reparations.
“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,” said the Rev. Kevin Peterson, a minister who is known for his push to rename Faneuil Hall because of its namesake’s ties to the slave trade during the 18th century.
“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,” said Peterson.
Edwin Sumpter, co-director of the Boston People’s Reparations Commission, said the news conference marked the first time in city history that clergy from different houses of worship convened to show support for reparations. The event was initially planned to be held outdoors, Sumpter said, but relocated to the basement of Resurrection Lutheran Church because of rain.
Peterson said an open letter signed by 16 clergy and faith leaders was sent Friday to several churches that the Boston People’s Reparations Commission wants to support reparations in the city. The letter, which was provided to the Globe, lists ways the churches could provide reparations, including cash payments, creating affordable housing, and helping to back new “financial and economic institutions in Black Boston.”
The letter went to King’s Chapel in downtown Boston and Arlington Street Church, Trinity Church, and Old South Church in Back Bay, which were established in the 17th and 18th centuries, Peterson said in an interview.
The Rev. John E. Gibbons of Arlington Street Church said at the news conference that a number of churches have begun to research their history and discuss reparations.
“That is not enough,” said Gibbons, who has collaborated with Peterson on the push to rename Faneuil Hall. “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 Rev. Joy Fallon, senior minister at King’s Chapel, said the congregation is creating a memorial to enslaved persons and is working on establishing a charitable fund to support social justice and reconciliation. Research paid for by the church has identified at least 219 people who were owned by ministers and congregation members over hundreds of years, the Globe reported last year.
“Our first focus has been on history because we’re located on the Freedom Trail and have an unusual ability to tell visitors about Boston’s Colonial connection to slavery including our church’s,” Fallon said in a phone interview.
Messages left Saturday afternoon seeking comment from Trinity Church and Old South Church weren’t returned.
In 2022, a task force at Trinity Church published a report documenting the congregation’s connections to the slave trade. Old South Church has also prepared a report on congregation members who enslaved people.
The City of Boston established a Task Force on Reparations in 2022. To support the group’s work, the city has hired two teams of researchers to help craft a report on a reparations program.
Last year, the city opened an exhibit at Faneuil Hall that documented Boston’s ties to slavery, which was common in parts of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1780, Massachusetts adopted a state constitution that said “all men are born free and equal,” and enslaved people relied on this language to win their freedom in court.
Peterson said he is also calling on the Catholic Church for support. Catholicism was illegal in Massachusetts for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, according to the website for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Catholics became free to practice their religion with the passage of the state constitution, and the first public Mass was celebrated in 1788, the website said.
“They unfortunately assisted in sustaining institutionalized racism across the city,” said Peterson. “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.”
On Saturday, an archdiocesan spokesperson issued a statement, saying the “suffering of the black community is constantly with us in the Commonwealth and nationally.”
“As we have entered Holy Week with Palm Sunday Mass, we will certainly review what they have proposed in the days ahead,” the statement said.
In 2020, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, wrote on his blog about the failure of the US government to deliver on its promise to provide formerly enslaved people with “40 acres and a mule” following the Civil War.
“Any American who is asked if they are opposed to slavery would strenuously affirm their absolute opposition to this terrible institution,” O’Malley wrote. “Today, however, we must unite in our opposition to the consequences that this immoral practice has visited on our nation.”
Archbishop Leo Edward’s, a leader in the Spiritual Baptist faith who grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, invoked the failed promise of “40 acres and a mule” at the news conference.
“You promised 40 acres and a mule,” he said, his voice rising. “You know what is the acres? The prisons! And the mules [are] the prisoners.”
Danielle Williams, director of Prophetic Resistance Boston, a social justice organization, said her great-great-grandmother was enslaved in Africa and brought to North Carolina. At the news conference, she discussed the Holy Thursday tradition of re-creating the act of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
“Black people, the descendants of slavery have been washing the feet of our oppressors for well over 400 years,” she said. “Now it’s time for you to wash our feet. The descendants of slavery, we want our reparations. We want it now.”
“Amen,” said a voice in the crowd.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi.