Rev. Heidi Heath

Feb. 25: National Reparations Awareness Day

Sunday, February 25, 2018

From the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA):

National Reparations Awareness Day is a national initiative to increase awareness of the need and demand for reparations to repair the historical and ongoing damage to descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States (DAEUS) and to American society. Reparations means repair to be made whole. This includes repair of individual injuries and the rehabilitation of enabling institutions.

We call upon the faith community to take a bold moral leadership stand and participate in activities to increase awareness of the need and demand for the repair, reform and rehabilitation of the enabling social institutions that stand complicit in the crime against humanity of the African chattel slave trade by commission or omission.

As individuals and communities identify and employ both internal and external strategies for repair of the damage wrought by African chattel slavery, it is incumbent upon the enabling social institutions, law enforcement, criminal justice, schools and universities, and the church, to begin the process of acknowledging their historical role and engaging in activities to rehabilitate and reform the policies, practices and programs that are based on error and institutionalize ignorance and injustice.
Suggested activities:

  • Include national and local NCOBRA contact information in church bulletin(s)
  • Ask Pastor(s) to preach sermon on “Reparations Movement and Youth”
  • Invite representative from NCOBRA to speak on Reparations at Sunday Service
  • Ask Church(es) to take up a special offering for NCOBRA to support reparations movement.
  • Ask Church choir director to sing a Reparations appropriate song, i.e., “I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed On Reparations” during service.

This should be a first step in the long journey to societal wholeness. We hope that this will not be the only step you take.

Deuteronomy 15: 12–15
Jeremiah 22:13
Leviticus 25:8-55
Numbers 31:2-4

If they ask what I did well, tell them I said Yes to truth

America’s bloody history of expropriation and exploitation is not well know and covered with a mythology of morality, meritocracy and democracy. But laying just below the thin veneer of legitimacy held in place through mental submission and force of arms lies the beautiful truth of the ugly past.

Because we are aware that many of you may not be familiar with the issue of reparations beyond the dominant social narrative that justifies the sins of the past and rationalizes the injustices of the present, we are including a link to a sample sermon.