Faith & Reparations
UCE & Reparations
UCE puts our values in action and Supports Reparations in Evanston and Beyond
In 2021, our congregation passed the 8th Principle, committing ourselves to journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.
In May of 2022, we passed a resolution to support reparations locally and nationally. We resolved to support reparations from the federal government of the United States of America to Black Americans; to support the passage of H.R. 40,“Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act”; and to support reparations being made to Black residents within the City of Evanston. Therefore, we support the City of Evanston’s reparations programs, the Evanston Reparations Community Fund, and related reparation efforts made with direct involvement by the Black residents of Evanston.
A month later in June of 2022, empowered by this resolution, our Senior Minister signed on to join our interfaith siblings in supporting the Evanston reparations initiative and the Evanston Reparations Community Fund. Rev. Eileen Wiviott signed on to this statement with clergy and leaders from 16 other faith communities.
The combined support of our interfaith community is a powerful statement being heard around the world and across the country. Other municipalities are observing Evanston as an achievable way to move the conversation and action forward on reparations. We will celebrate together Martin Luther King Day weekend, January 2023, the total amount raised through these interfaith efforts.
Support of Reparations includes:
- Financial support, as individual members and as a congregation
- Commitment to continued learning about the impacts of racism nationally and locally.
- Ongoing efforts to help educate the community at large and our members about the Evanston Reparations Community Fund governed by the Reparations Stakeholders Authority of Evanston and the City of Evanston’s Reparations Resolution 58-R-19, “Commitment to End Structural Racism and Achieve Racial Equity.”
- Courageous and humble exploration of our own histories and a willingness to share the stories of when we, as a congregation and as individuals, have remained silent and complicit to the impacts of racism as well as when we have shown solidarity.
- Dedication to building and maintaining relationships of healing and repair across differences.
These efforts will be ongoing. It is clear that no amount of money or actions will erase the atrocity and impacts of chattel slavery, Jim Crow segregation laws, lynching and domestic terrorism, red-lining and housing discrimination, and mass incarceration or police brutality. But our faith calls us to make every effort to work toward repair, reconciliation, and healing.
Funding Reparations
UCE’s financial support will be multi-pronged:
- December’s shared offering will be shared with the Evanston Reparations Community Fund (ERCF).
- The Endowment has approved a matching fund grant in the amount of $20,000 and UCE members and friends are invited to make one-time contributions to be matched by the endowment funds, doubling our impact and the total amount going to the Evanston Reparations Community Fund. If you would like to contribute to this matching program, please make a check out to the Evanston Reparations Community Fund, with UCE in the memo line and submit to the church office.
- You can give directly to the Evanston Reparations Community Fund through their website. Please write “Unitarian Church of Evanston” in the “Special Gift Instructions” section so that we can appropriately acknowledge your contribution and track the total amount raised by our congregation. This way we can share the results of these efforts at the Martin Luther King Day event in January 2023.
If one lump sum is not possible for you or you would rather commit to ongoing giving, please visit the ERCF page and set up a monthly giving amount for a 3-5 year period or beyond. Please still indicate “Unitarian Church of Evanston for Reparations” in the Special Gift Instructions box.
Sharing Our Stories
Additional Resources
Learn more about Reparations in Evanston
Reparations in Evanston Workshop Update: September 24, 2021
The second session of our workshop on Faith, Justice and Reparations in Evanston will be held this Sunday afternoon from 4 to 5:30 pm. The three-part series is being held completely on-line. Register today to attend.
Our first session last week, which focused on the history of Reparations, was very well-received. We heard from both Rev. Michael Nabors of Second Baptist Church and Woullard Lett, a leader with N’COBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America) and New England UUA Regional lead.
There were also several opportunities during last week’s session for workshop participants to reflect on the issue and share their views. Next week we’ll focus on the history of race relations in Evanston and the ways our faith traditions call us to be involved. We’ll be joined by Dino Robinson of the Shorefront Legacy Center, as well as by a panel of local religious leaders. Evanston Reparations founder Robin Rue Simmons will join us for week #3.
Each session will offer participants a chance to exchange ideas, ask questions, and get involved. We’ll also give you updates on the Evanston Reparations project and on various related funding efforts. Before each session, you can enhance your learning by reading and reflecting on selected articles and videos.
Over the summer, several members of the Racial Equity (REAL) and Peace and Justice teams have been working to develop this faith-based workshop series on Reparations. We will explore what “reparations” means, how Evanston’s history of exclusion and discrimination calls for repair, what is happening with the city’s current Reparations programs — and consider how we, as people of faith, are called to act at this significant moment in history.
To find out more and to access links to articles and videos on Reparations, Evanston history and faith statements on slavery and racial justice, visit the workshop website here.
This program is a joint effort by UCE, Lake Street Church, Northminster Presbyterian Church, Saint Luke Episcopal Church, and Sherman United Methodist Church. It is endorsed by Interfaith Action Evanston and funded by the UCE Endowment Fund.
With many different faith traditions involved in our sessions, we’ll have the chance to exchange ideas and learn about the experiences of residents throughout the community. Working with church archivists and religious leaders from throughout Evanston, we plan to focus on how local faith communities have responded to racial discrimination in the past and what we can do to level the playing field moving forward.
Donate to Evanston’s Reparations Fund: October 8, 2021
At last Sunday’s Interfaith Reparations workshop we learned about an exciting opportunity to support Evanston’s Reparations program. A group of UCE members has pledged up to $11,000 to match any contributions made to the Evanston Community Foundation’s Reparations Fund. Contributions to the fund will be doubled.
Donations are tax-deductible and will be used to “directly benefit Evanston’s Black community and to heal racism and address harm caused by discriminatory practices.” Plans are underway for funds to be used to improve health care, pay for education, and help expand housing and business opportunities for Evanston’s black community. To find out more, you can visit the group’s website at Evanstonforever.org.
Donations should be made in the next four weeks. To donate by mail, write a check to ‘Evanston Reparations Community Fund’ at 1560 Sherman Ave, Suite 535, Evanston IL 60201. You can also donate on-line by visiting the online donation page. In both cases make sure to write “Interfaith Reparations Workshop” on the memo line of your check or in the space reserved for ‘Tribute Information’ on the on-line form, that way the Community Foundation will know your contribution qualifies for matching funds.
You’re also welcome to give directly to the housing fund established by the City of Evanston and supported primarily by cannabis taxes. You can donate to the housing fund here. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet been able to work out a way with the City of Evanston to double donations made to this site.
Either of these funds provide a great way for us to live our values, show our support for the city of Evanston’s Reparations efforts, and atone for the discrimination suffered by the city’s black community. We hope you’ll consider making a donation today.
Many thanks to those who’ve contributed to the matching fund. This announcement is not for you. We’ll ask you to fulfill your pledge in a few weeks, after we know how much money has been collected from the rest of the congregation.
Also at last week’s Reparations workshop, we heard inspiring words from former Ald. Robin Rue Simmons, the driving force behind Evanston’s program. She urged people of faith to actively support the work that’s begun in Evanston, healing rifts in our congregations and working for better housing and more city services for all. She also urged support for the national Reparations bill, HR-40. The workshop closed with time for participants to offer suggestions on how we all can stay involved. Be looking for information on next steps in upcoming issues of the newsletter.
Reparations in Evanston Workshop Update: September 10, 2021
Coming soon! A three-part workshop on Faith, Justice and Reparations in Evanston. On-line sessions will be held on Sunday afternoons September 19, 26, and October 3 from 4 to 5:30 pm. Register today to attend.
Over the summer, several members of the Racial Equity (REAL) and Peace and Justice teams have been working to develop a faith-based workshop series on Reparations. We will explore what “reparation” means, how Evanston’s history of exclusion and discrimination calls for repair, what is happening with the city’s current Reparations programs — and consider how we, as people of faith, are called to act at this significant moment in history.
While news releases and public meetings have introduced the Evanston reparations program to local residents, they have not emphasized reconciliation and repair. In our sessions we plan to look at different faith traditions’ grounding in social justice; and encourage each of us to consider how we’re effected by current inequities, what we can do to end injustice, and how we can begin to repair our community.
All workshop sessions will be held on-line. Our guest speakers will include former Alderman Robin Rue Simmons, who initiated the Evanston program; Morris (Dino) Robinson, local historian and co-founder of Shorefront Legacy Center; and Woullard Lett, a representative of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA).
Each session will offer participants a chance to exchange ideas, ask questions, and get involved. We’ll also give you current updates on the Evanston Reparations project and on various related funding efforts. Before each session, you can enhance your learning by reading and reflecting on selected articles and videos.
To find out more and to access links to articles and videos on Reparations, Evanston history and faith statements on slavery and racial justice, visit the workshop website here .
This program is a joint effort by UCE, Lake Street Church, Northminster Presbyterian Church, Saint Luke Episcopal Church, and Sherman United Methodist Church. It is endorsed by Interfaith Action Evanston and funded by the UCE Endowment Fund.
With many different faith traditions involved in our sessions, we’ll have the chance to exchange ideas and learn about the experiences of residents throughout the community. Working with church archivists and religious leaders from throughout Evanston, we plan to focus on how local faith communities have responded to racial discrimination in the past and what we can do to ‘level the playing field’ moving forward.
Reparations Workshop Update: October 1, 2021
The final session of our workshop on Faith, Justice and Reparations in Evanston will be held this Sunday afternoon from 4 to 5:30 pm. The three-part series is being held completely on-line. Register today to attend.
This week, we’ll be hearing from former Ald. Robin Rue Simmons, who spear-headed the Reparations movement in Evanston. We’ll also be hearing about an exciting opportunity for us to support this important racial justice initiative.
Our second session last week, which focused on the history of race relations in Evanston, was very well-received. We heard from a panel of local religious leaders, as well as from Dino Robinson of the Shorefront Legacy Center.
Are you familiar with the Dodge Ave YMCA? The Community Hospital? The crusading 5th Ward Alderman who integrated the public school teaching staff and began the fight for equal housing in Evanston. Tune in to the recording of last week’s session to find out more.
Over the summer, several members of the Racial Equity (REAL) and Peace and Justice teams have been working to develop this faith-based workshop series on Reparations. We have begun to explore what “reparations” means, how Evanston’s history of exclusion and discrimination calls for repair, what is happening with the city’s current Reparations programs — and to consider how we, as people of faith, are called to act at this significant moment in history.
To find out more and to access links to articles and videos on Reparations, Evanston history and faith statements on slavery and racial justice, visit the workshop website here.
This program is a joint effort by UCE, Lake Street Church, Northminster Presbyterian Church, Saint Luke Episcopal Church, and Sherman United Methodist Church. It is endorsed by Interfaith Action Evanston and funded by the UCE Endowment Fund.
Reparations Study Advocacy at General Assembly
Submitted by: Tom Hempfling
Our Reparations Study Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) did not get enough votes to be one of the three approved AIWs at the 2016 UUA General Assembly. (The three approved AIWs were: expressing solidarity with Muslims, advocating gun reform, and affirming support for transgender people). We were encouraged that the Counsel for Social Witness staff chose to include the Reparations Study AIW as one of the six that were voted on by all delegates, and our team collected the most nominating signatures of any of the AIWs. For some delegates, the Reparations Study proposal did not meet the test of immediacy as well as the three adopted AIWs.
We believe circulating the petition was a good experience for our delegation — it got us in touch with the Black UU and the Allies groups and honed our understanding of the bill. We are determined to continue with a long-term sustainable approach for this effort–one that is focused, yet recognizes valid opportunities for synergies.
UUs for a Just Economic Community chose Reparations as one of the issues to continue work on, including holding a lobby day / conference in Washington, DC in April, 2017. We have engaged with a trustee of UUJEC with the intention of seeing how Reparations Study Advocacy might be folded into its work and how we can further support it. The New Orleans GA in June of 2017 will be a “Justice GA” like the GA in Phoenix two years ago with opportunities for greater follow-up.
REPARATIONS STUDY TOWN HALL
Submitted by Tom Hempfling, April 2016
In January 2016, a petition was initiated at UCE to express support for Rep. John Conyers’ House Bill HR 40. This bill will conduct a study of proposals for reparations to the descendants of slaves in America, and it includes studying the effects of slavery and its later manifestations in our society today. A key purpose of HR40 and of making reparations to the African American community is reconciliation – to help make one
America from this divided nation.
Among other areas of inquiry, HR 40 would:
• study the economic deprivation and physical and emotional suffering of the descendants of slaves, including deprivation that occurred because of U.S. Government policies
• seek to expand educational efforts to help Americans move toward a “common memory,” and thus a greater sense of true community in our nation.
If reparations are enacted, the form they could take has yet to be defined, but an example could be public works that include racial justice in their mission.
Our proposal and its rationale was described in an article in the Jan 8, 2016 UCE newsletter and was discussed at a Crackerbarrel session on January 24. On Feb 17 we presented 77 signatures to the Board of Trustees, well in excess of the number needed to bring the proposal to the congregation. A discussion is scheduled for the May 1 Town Hall Meeting, and the proposal is on the agenda for the May 15 congregational meeting.
If it is approved, we will inform elected representatives and others at a later date of its approval and submit a Proposed Congregational Study/Action Issue (CSAI) to the UUA prior to its next deadline of October 1, 2016, for consideration and eventual adoption as a Statement of Conscience by the UUA, or for incorporation into the existing CSAI in progress on “Escalating Inequality.”
PETITION FOR UCE SUPPORT OF REPARATIONS STUDY
“Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.” — Georges Erasmus, Canadian Aboriginal Leader
Beginning on January 10, several members of the Reparations Study Team will offer you the opportunity to sign your name on a petition for UCE to express support for legislation introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., HR 40, entitled: “The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act.” If such a resolution is approved at a Congregational meeting, we will inform elected representatives and others, and seek follow-up actions with the UUA.
• The legislation would establish a study of the economic deprivation and physical and emotional suffering of the descendants of slaves, including through Federal Government policies.
• A key component is education–to help Americans move toward a “common memory.”
• If reparations are enacted, the form they could take might not involve payments to individuals but rather programs such as job training linked to public works that include racial justice in their mission.
Many of us at UCE have become more aware of parts of our country’s history that are often downplayed, for example the enormous impact of slave labor in creating our nation’s wealth. There is a plausible case that slave labor and the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 precipitated the industrial revolution. The first recognizable factories were built to mass produce textiles with the cheap cotton made possible by slave labor. As late as 1860, slaves as an asset were worth more than all of America’s manufacturing and railroads put together.
In “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson, we read first-hand accounts of life in the Jim Crow South, a euphemism for terrorism.
And we learned about systemic economic obstacles for blacks through at least the 1970’s that whites did not face. One example: New Deal housing and mortgage programs enabled a tremendous increase in home ownership in the U.S. But these Federal agencies instituted redlining and supported restrictive covenants, generating self-fulfilling prophesies for black neighborhoods to lose value over time while white neighborhoods gained value, and where homes could become family nest eggs. Meanwhile black home buyers were driven into the arms of unscrupulous contract sellers; such homes became money pits with debt creation instead of wealth creation.
Yes, there are people who have their minds closed. But if we have an orthodoxy, it is that opinions and attitudes can change enough to make a difference. Facing this question of reparations would, as Ta-Nehisi Coates has written, “represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders.” Only then can our country exorcize these terrible demons of its past.
Tom Hempfling
Equity and Transformation Chicago Reparations for the War on Drugs
March 22 at 7 p.m.
UCE Sanctuary & Livestream
Alonzo Waheed, E.A.T. Chicago’s director of organizing, will lead a presentation on their initiative “The Big Payback”. Different from the film by the same name, this initiative is a campaign rooted in the commitment to make reparations to people harmed by the War on Drugs. This is a great opportunity to get to know a dynamic people-of-color led organization and to learn how to support this campaign. The event is co-sponsored by the REAL Team, UCE Prison Ministry Team, and the UU Prison Ministry of Illinois. Unlike the usual REAL Team meetings, we are asking people to register for the event, at this LINK.
Illinois became the 11th state to legalize marijuana in 2019. Promises of economic equity in the cannabis industry have been broken, and the state’s proposal to repair the harms of the War on Drugs has fallen far short. The Illinois Reparations Coalition is building a vision to address the Drug War’s human rights violations and destruction of Black families, using the UN Five Pillars of Reparations. Join us to learn concrete steps we can take, in alignment with our 8th Principle.
Two important notes: First, people who have been justice-involved, and their loved ones, may be affected by revisiting the impact of the criminal punishment system. Second, parents, please note that we will have the Nest area available with toys for young children. If you bring your older children, you may want to discuss with them beforehand the implications of marijuana legalization and remind them that substances like alcohol and marijuana are legal for adult consumption but pose serious risks for youth and emerging adults, whose brains are still developing.
We hope that all of our UCE members and friends will take advantage of this exciting partnership opportunity! Please register at this LINK to attend in person or to get an email with the Livestream link. See you on March 22!
Equity and Transformation Chicago Reparations for the War on Drugs
March 22 at 7 p.m. UCE Sanctuary & Livestream
Here is a great opportunity to get to know a dynamic people-of-color led organization and to learn how to support a campaign for racial justice. Alonzo Waheed from E.A.T. Chicago will talk about their initiative “The Big Payback” (not to be confused with the documentary). This campaign is rooted in the commitment to repair the War on Drugs’ decades-long devastation. The event is co-sponsored by the REAL Team, UCE Prison Ministry Team, and the UU Prison Ministry of Illinois. Unlike our usual meetings, we are asking people to register for the event, at this LINK.
Since Illinois legalized marijuana in 2019, the state broke its promise to ensure equity in the cannabis industry and to repair harms done by the War on Drugs. The Illinois Reparations Coalition is building a vision to address the human rights violations and destruction of Black families, using the UN Five Pillars of Reparations. Join us to learn concrete steps we can take in alignment with our 8th Principle.
Two important notes: 1. People who have been justice-involved, and their loved ones, may be triggered revisiting the impact of the criminal punishment system. 2. Parents, please note that we will have the Nest area available with toys for young children. If you bring your older children, you may want to discuss with them beforehand the implications of marijuana legalization, and remind them that substances like alcohol and marijuana are legal for adult consumption but pose serious risks for brain development in youth.
We hope that all of our UCE members and friends will take advantage of this opportunity to act in partnership for racial justice. Please register at this link to attend in person or to get an email with the Livestream link. See you on March 22!
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