Boston reparations advocates pledge to keep fighting as Trump resumes office

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has energized anti-DEI and conservative voices across the nation. In response, reparations advocates in Boston are shifting their focus from government toward religious institutions. “There is a rightward shift and there is antagonism toward many progressive causes,” said the Rev. John Gibbons, a community minister at Boston’s historic Arlington Street Church. “Nonetheless, the issue of reparations is one that predates Donald Trump and predates any current administration.” Gibbons is one of a handful of white religious leaders in Greater Boston who are working to persuade their peers to support the local reparations movement despite the change in Washington. The informal coalition is an offshoot of the New Democracy Coalition, a civic engagement organization founded by Boston-based public theologian the Rev. Kevin Peterson. Earlier this month the group unveiled a docket of “demandments” — a play on the Bible’s Old Testament religious and ethical guidelines for personal conduct. The list contains a set of actions for historically white churches to take in support of the reparations movement, including the formation of an independently controlled, $50 million fund for Boston’s Black community by the end of the year, the audit and public release of...