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| Figure 1: Trinity Church, Boston (Gregg Squeglia, Copley Square with Trinity Church and Hancock Tower, CC BY-SA 4.0). |
While the City of Boston has approved a reparations task force, and hired a team of researchers to conduct an initial historical study, White churches in the area have been asked to participate in the process of reckoning with their history with slavery and racism. The Boston People's Reparations Commission (an entity distinct from the City task force which includes various area church leaders), chaired by the Rev. Kevin Peterson, is in talks with some of Boston's historic White Churches to contribute financially to the reparations initiative. Included among the churches in question are Arlington Street Church, Trinity Church, Old South Church, and King's Chapel. The Commission initiative is an important step toward recognizing that White churches that supported and benefitted from slavery have a reparative obligation beyond their own walls, and beyond the affiliations of their own denominations. Though some denominations have begun to take steps to consider reparative initiatives within their denominations, in many instances, those who were harmed are no longer (or never were) part of the churches that perpetrated the harm. Though many organizers expect the process of building a case for reparative action to be "a marathon," initiatives like those in Boston show that there is increasing traction in churches for addressing current inequities that have resulted from the historic injustices of slavery.
