Why Boston Activists Want White Churches to Pay Reparations

Religious leaders in Boston have rallied together to demand reparations for Black Americans, including a call for $15 billion from city authorities and white churches to help bridge the equity gap and tell a story of enslaved people in the northeast “that is rarely talked about.” In February 2023, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu appointed members who would be part of the city’s Reparations Task Force. However, last month the task force said it would not complete its work by the end of the year as originally planned and that an action plan is now expected “sometime in 2025.” Boston is one of a number of U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, and St. Louis, that is working to identify local ties to slavery and whether reparations are appropriate. Arlington Street Church Rev. John Gibbons, a white community minister who leads a multi-ethnic congregation, says many people consider Boston to be “the Deep North,” a play on the racist ideologies of the Deep South. “In New England, we don’t think of New England and the North as a place of slavery, and it did take a different form than it did in the South,” he told The Daily Beast....