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.