Activists at a recent meeting demanded the City of Boston allocate billions of dollars in slavery reparations and also called for local white churches to invest millions more.
On Saturday, approximately 200 people gathered at the Bolling Building in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston to meet with members of an activist group called the Boston People's Reparations Commission. The professed purpose of the meeting was to establish community demands regarding restitution for slavery, which was effectively banned in Massachusetts before the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789.
The Boston People's Reparations Commission officially called for $15 billion from the city, ostensibly to be distributed among current black residents to atone for the beleaguered lives of slaves who died centuries ago. However, Rev. Kevin Peterson, the head of the activist commission, indicated that no amount would ever be satisfactory.
"Fifteen billion ... is not enough," he told WCVB. "Every life is incalculable. We think about tens of thousands of slaves who died in the midst of slavery in Boston. How do you put a number on that?"