Mission

The Reparations Interfaith Coalition (RIC) is a Massachusetts-based alliance of ethical and faith communities committed to pursuing reparative justice for Black and Indigenous peoples in collaboration with reparation efforts across the country.

We are committed to facing the hard truths of our state’s historical links to slavery, land theft, and Jim Crow, as well as continuing forms of institutional racism including the racial wealth gap and mass incarceration. We affirm the imperatives of acknowledging and addressing the consequences of these harms in solidarity with Black-led and Indigenous-led national, state, and local organizations. We pledge ourselves to support the full range of restorative actions encompassed in the United Nations Framework on Reparations: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantee of non-repetition. To these ends, our goals encompass education, advocacy, reconciliation, and resource distribution.

RIC welcomes the participation of all Massachusetts mosques, synagogues, churches, congregations, and ethical communities that support our mission.

Photo Credit: Bryan Dozier

History

The Reparations Interfaith Coalition (RIC), founded by members of Episcopal City Mission (ECM), Boston Workers Circle (BWC), and the Jewish Community of Amherst (JCA), was inspired by our collective commitment as faith and ethical organizations to work in solidarity with Black leaders in the reparations movement. We take our lead from the early reparations work of N’COBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America), as well as the more recent work by NAARC (National African American Reparations Commission). We have variously been influenced by the work of economist William Darity and historian A. Kristen Mullen (From Here to Equality), The Stolen Beam Curriculum (developed by JCA), the Grassroots Reparations Campaign (GRC), and the UN Five Dimensions of Reparations. For RIC, reparations is a spiritual and ethical practice.

Our core leadership team is building relationships with Black reparations leaders in Massachusetts and collaborating on joint events that focus on education, advocacy for legislation, support for solidarity economy work, and direct reparations for harm done by slavery and later forms of systemic racism: Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration, and other entrenched, egregious disparities in wealth, home ownership, health care, educational access, and job opportunity.

Our first event, "Call to Repair: Justice, Healing and Reparations in Massachusetts" was held on December 3, 2023 and drew over 175 participants from a variety of faith and ethical communities. We welcome everyone affiliated with a faith or ethical community to join with us to create a gorgeous tapestry of reparations initiatives, actions, policies, and programs in Massachusetts.

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