This article by Jane Shaw in the November issue of Prospect magazine discusses the Church of England’s new £100m fund for “projects focused on improving opportunities for communities impacted by historic transatlantic chattel slavery”, saying it should be called what it is: reparations. Coming out of an admission of complicity in the trade of captive human beings known as the transatlantic slave trade, the church seeks reconciliation with the communities who suffered. The article asks if this can be found and looks at the history of calls for reparations from within the church.
In setting up this fund the Church of England has joined other institutions such as Lloyd’s insurance and Greene King Brewers and the group ‘Heirs of Slavery, composed of descendants of some of Britain’s wealthiest slave-owning families, in taking action. Though welcomed as a first step it is pointed out that the £100m sum “is less than 1 per cent of the Church Commissioners’ £10.3bn fund and will be taken from its income over a period of nine years, so that the original endowment remains untouched.”
A useful read to go alongside watching the MJR documentary ‘After the Flood: the church, slavery and reconciliation’. Read the article here.
