Maryland Church Donates $500k in Reparations to ‘Atone’ for Slavery

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This week the Memorial Episcopal Church announced plans to contribute a total of $500,000 by 2025 — $100,000 each year — towards racial justice organizations, particularly efforts to support slave reparations.

“Our church has a long history of, unfortunately, supporting racial segregation up until 1969 [and] being active participants in it,” the Rev. Grey Maggiano said Tuesday of his 160-year-old church.

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The move follows a decision by the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland in September to allocate $1 million as “seed fund for reparations.”

The resolution reportedly passed with almost 83% approval, asking diocese members to “prayerfully consider committing a percentage of their endowments or other resources to this fund.”

By October, Bishop Eugene Sutton reported $100,000 in donations had been made to their reparations fund, “and we’re not even in a fund-raising mode [yet],” he said.

Prior to the pandemic, Memorial boasted a weekly attendance of about 110 worshippers. Maggiano’s predominantly white congregation (15% who attend are black) aims to demonstrate their accountability for a history of racial discrimination and past ownership of slaves.

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RNS also reported that St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of Annapolis, which averaged about 45 churchgoers each Sunday, will also contribute $785 this year to the diocese fund. That’s about 1% of St. Luke’s operating budget.

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