Understanding Reparations: A Critical Race Theory Perspective
The Reparations Study Group advocates for First United Methodist Church to consider reparations as a part of its on-going work to become an antiracist congregation. The Sunday message on critical race theory, given on July 3, 2022, provides an important perspective for understanding calls for reparations and can assist our church community in understanding the historical and political context for reparations.
First United Methodist Church Message on Sunday July 3, 2022
Joe Smith and Claudia Detwiler
PART 1 Joe
On July 5, 1852—a decade or so before the beginning of the civil war, the emancipation proclamation, and the eventual end of chattel slavery in the United States—Frederick Douglass, the runaway slave turned rhetorician and statesman, was invited to address the citizens of his hometown in Rochester, New York.
“Why am I called upon to speak here to-day?” Douglass asks… Read More