Reparations for Slavery

In 1994 the 71st General Convention supported efforts to secure reparations from the United States government for surviving victims of Japanese Americans interned in concentration camps, and for the families of Korean and other women exploited during World War II. In its endeavors the Convention also urged the United Nations to create a special tribunal to investigate “gross violation of … human rights.”

Three centuries earlier the Episcopal Church was among the organizations that participated in a different kind of violation of human rights; that of institutional slavery and its subsequent legacy of legalized segregation. From 1619 to 1865, the Episcopal Church was among the groups in the US territories that participated in the enslavement of over four million Africans and their descendants. These workers received no monetary compensation during their forced labor. The residual effects of that early enslavement have most often resulted in legalized segregation of their descendants, racial profiling, inferior housing and healthcare, de facto glass ceilings in employment, limited educational opportunities and restricted housing.

The Episcopal Urban Caucus therefore calls upon the Episcopal Church to commission a report on the residual effects of slavery on African and African-American slaves in the United States and on their descendents. Such a report should include a determination of the Church’s role in the institution of slavery and recommend actions the Church may take regarding appropriate reparations. Redress may include but not necessarily be limited to support for public legislation, compensation, preservation of information regarding this chapter in our Church’s and the nation’s history and a public apology for the Church’s role in this violation of basic human rights.

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