$1.7 Million for Slavery Reparations Fund Puts Virginia Theological Seminary at Forefront of Debate

Virginia Theological Seminary took what appears to be an unprecedented step this week by announcing that it had set aside $1.7 million for a slavery reparations fund – something considered but not yet enacted by other institutions of higher education that historically benefited from slave labor.

Enslaved African Americans worked on the Alexandria campus of Virginia Theological Seminary, which was founded in 1823, and at least one building, Aspinwall Hall in 1841, was built with slave labor. Black students were excluded from attending the Episcopal seminary until the 1950s.

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Income from the endowment fund for reparations will be put to use in a variety of ways, from encouraging more African American clergy in The Episcopal Church to directly serving the needs of any descendants of the enslaved Africans who worked at the seminary.

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The issue has been particularly active in the academic world, with numerous colleges and universities founded before the Civil War grappling with their own histories of racial injustice. More than 50 of them, including Sewanee: University of the South in Tennessee, have joined a coalition called Universities Studying Slavery to research that history.

Sewanee has not yet taken up the topic of reparations directly, though its Robertson Project on Slavery, Race and Reconciliation includes among its goals “to consider the obligations that Sewanee’s history places on us in deciding how we can become a more equitable, inclusive, and cohesive university community.”

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The seminary’s Office of Multicultural Ministries will administer the fund “as part of our commitment to recognizing the racism in our past and working toward healing and reconciliation in the future,” the seminary said in its press release.

It specified five ways the income from the fund might be spent:

• On needs identified by local congregations with ties to VTS.
• On the needs of descendants of enslaved people who worked at VTS.
• To support the work of black alumni, especially at historically black congregations.
• To raise up African American clergy.
• Other activities that promote justice and inclusion.

{snip} [The Rev. Joseph] Thompson, director of VTS’ Office of Multicultural Ministries, {snip} in an interview with Episcopal News Service, said the seminary expected to be able to spend about $70,000 a year from endowment income. The seminary has engaged in racial reconciliation efforts for a while, he said, but those efforts took a big step forward about 10 years ago when Markham, the dean, issued a public apology for the seminary’s complicity in slavery.

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The seminary’s first steps will be to try to identify descendants of slaves who were forced to work at VTS and to reach out to the local community.

For decades, The Episcopal Church, too, has emphasized fighting racism and fostering racial reconciliation while shining a light on the church’s own past involvement with slavery and segregation. A 2000 resolution passed by General Convention called on the church to “overcome its historic silence and complicity … in the sin of racism.”

In 2006, General Convention passed another resolution supporting federal legislation that would confront the country’s legacy of slavery and take a step toward “monetary and non-monetary reparations to the descendants of the victims of slavery.”

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