Around New England

Boston Black Church Leaders Call For Local Churches To Pay Reparations

March 26, 2024

An organization called the Boston People’s Reparations Commission, led by members of some of the black Christian churches in the city, want what they call “white” churches to pay reparations to blacks in Boston.

“Many of the well-known white churches in downtown Boston are connected to the slave trade and the proliferation of what was a ‘slavetocracy’ in our city,” Reverend Kevin Peterson, the organization’s founder, recently told WHDH.

Reverend John Gibbons of the Arlington Street Church in the Back Bay expressed a similar sentiment.

“Beginning in the 17th century, all of our colonial churches were founded on the profits of slavery. Colonial ministers were among the most likely to have enslaved servants,” Gibbons told WHDH.