“True national unity can only emerge with acknowledgment of harm. It’s one of the first steps in pursuing restorative justice. For that reason, UUSJ supports serious discussions of reparations. Rep. Cori Bush’s resolution provides a much-needed framework for the federal reparations commission to begin. It allows us to start sacred dreaming and imagine what repair might look like in practice,” said Pablo DeJesús, Executive Director of Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice. “As Unitarian Universalists and Americans, many of us want to understand the harms of slavery and its impacts on our contemporary society. We believe that to overcome the legacy of American slavery as a primordial moral failure of our nation, we must have fact-based dialogue. That we should uphold the right to remedy for abuse and discrimination as a well-established principle of U.S. and human rights law,” added DeJesús.

“The deep work of dismantling systemic racism must include acknowledging the harm of American slavery and its continued impact on racial and ethnic communities, impacts such as disparities in health, education, employment, housing, environmental outcomes, and policing, among other things. We can not do that properly without a sincere and brave willingness to engage the facts of our history,” concluded DeJesús.

Continuing our support for the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act (H.R. 40 and S. 40), UUSJ joined the endorsement of a House Resolution (text) by Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO-01) (Rep. Bush’s remarks). The measure cites both H.R. 40 and H.Con.Res.19, the first United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) by Congresswoman Lee (D-CA-12) (Rep. Lee Press Release). These two measures seek to advance formal acknowledgment of American Slavery by the U.S. Government and begin discussions of comprehensive and holistic reparations policies. Since 2021 UUSJ has maintained “the very least we can do is to ‘study and recommend’ since restorative justice begins with acknowledgment.”

By endorsing the resolution, UUSJ joined over 240 individuals and organizations like the American Friends Service Committee, American Humanist Association, Amnesty International USA, Center for Law and Social Policy, Human Rights Watch, Japanese American Citizens League, Leadership Conferences on Civil Rights and Human Rights, Middle Collegiate Church, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council of Churches, National Council of Jewish Women, National Organization for Women, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Showing Up for Racial Justice, Sojourners, University of Virginia, and the Young Buddhist Editorial.

See a more complete list of various endorsers and statements of support. Below you may review a selection of such statements:

“America has unfinished business, and this legislation will help to address it.” – Rev. Jesse Jackson, President, Rainbow PUSH Coalition

“Just as Japanese Americans were granted redress and a formal apology from our government 35 years ago for the unjust incarceration during WWII, we are past due to make reparations for the wrongs inflicted by our government upon Black Americans throughout our nation’s history. This resolution helps to reinforce the need to make amends and supports the need to create a commission to study how we might provide reparations to Black Americans.” – David Inoue, Executive Director, Japanese American Citizens League

“Liberation is collective. This means that no person is free while their neighbor is shackled, but it also means that we will never break these chains without a universal and reflexive commitment to one another’s thriving. We have a way to change the story of racism in America, and comprehensive reparations to mend the lasting harms done to Indigenous and Black people during and after colonization and enslavement *is* that way. Middle Collegiate Church wholeheartedly endorses and supports Rep. Cori Bush’s visionary House bill.” – Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister for Public Theology and Transformation, Middle Collegiate Church

“Congresswoman Cori Bush’s resolution on reparations for Black people in the US reflects the urgent need to show up for a constituency that has for too long weathered discrimination, abuse, and neglect. The legislation is in line with the growing national recognition that reparations are essential to consider for rectifying the alarming racial wealth gap and ending the disparities in access to health care, housing, and even clean water that are legacies of slavery. It is past time for President Biden to use his executive authority to set up a federal commission to study reparations proposals as laid out in HR 40, which has been supported by hundreds of organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Reparations measures should not be conflated with President Biden’s equity policies, and the US government should not continue failing to meet its human rights obligations to the people who’ve helped to build this country.” – Tanya Greene, Director, US Program, Human Rights Watch