Unitarian Universalists have a long history in the fight for racial justice, from advocating for the abolition of slavery, to supporting the Civil Rights movement, to participating in the Black Lives Matter movement. This history of combining hands-on work for social justice with the free search for truth and meaning continues in the work of our Reparations Task Force.
Act Now
- Add your name: New Jersey Unitarian Universalists Calling for Reparations
- Plan to join our 2022 common read: The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome, by Alondra Nelson
- Contact reparations@uufaithaction.org or admin@uufaithaction.org to join our UU FaithAction NJ Reparations Task Force mailing list, with invitations to our monthly statewide organizing calls.
While the concept of reparations is not new, it has never been the subject of formal systematic study in the United States. Given the role of slavery from the birth of our nation to its emergence as a world democracy and financial super power, that we as a country have never studied the effects of the emotional, social, financial, and societal trauma on its victims is shocking. A bill called HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African American’s Act, has been languishing in Congress for over two decades. In response to this stagnation, many states and localities have taken to introducing legislation that would form their own task forces to study the issue as well.
UU FaithAction NJ’s Reparations Task Force, along with its coalition partners, advocates for the passage of A711/S322 which would create a New Jersey Reparations Task Force that would examine the issue in depth and make recommendations based on its findings. Read the letter to New Jersey elected official signed by diverse organizations.
Recommended resources for UU Congregations to improve their Reparations literacy:
Thank you to Dionne Ford, author of Slavery’s Descendants and member of UU Montclair, for compiling this list
- Darkening the Doorways, by Rev. Mark Morrison Reed
- Revisiting the Empowerment Controversy, by Rev. Mark Morrison Reed
- In Their Own Words: A Conversation With Participants in the Black Empowerment Movement Within the Unitarian Universalist Association, published by Starr King School for the Ministry
January 20, 2001 - Former UUA Pres Bill Sinkford’s call for a “Truth, Repair and Reconciliation” commission in 2007: https://www.uua.org/racial-justice/history/engaging/104381.shtml
- Findings of the UUA “Truth, Repair and Reconciliation” report: https://www.uua.org/files/documents/gibsongordon/080501_truth_repair_review.pdf
- 2017 General Assembly speaker, Dr. Mtangulizi Sanyika, in what he called a spiritual reconciliation: https://smallscreen.uua.org/videos/ga2017-249-black-power-challenges-liberal-religion-fifty-years-later
The national organization UUs for a Just Economic Community (UUJEC) also has a reparations task force led by Carl McCargo, who also was an organizer/panel member for Reparations workshops at the last 2 UUA general assemblies. (I am a UUJEC board member.)
Thank you, Sally, for this addition!
Sally thanks for mentioning the UUJEC. I have participated on Zoom calls with Carl, Woullard Lett, Ari Merretazon, Jane Bannor and the others for the better parts of 2020 and 2021. I say we must broaden our NJ state work to envision passing the national reparations legislation HR 40 and Senate 40. Plus we might look at assisting the regional struggle for reparations being waged by the 14 Caribbean nations who are seeking to get their former colonial and slave master European overlords to acknowledge and their reparations obligations. By the way Woullard, Ari and myself have long been active in N’COBRA, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America.
La Luta Continua
Mahdi
UUFaithActionNJ, Reparations Task Force Co-Chair