Reparations Committee
Update – 1st Quarter, 2025
Purpose: This committee was chartered by the USG Board of Directors after a congregational vote approved a $150,000 allocation from the Sullivan Fund in April, 2024.The commitment was made “in the service of Reparations for harms, actual and historical, done to African Americans during and following their enslavement.”
Membership: The current members of the committee are Andrea Barsevick, Amy Birge-Caracappa, Deborah Coleman, Maurice (Mo) Gaston, Christine Ginsburg, Vanessa Lowe, Norman Matlock, and Deborah Kish- Silver.
Activities, Duties, and Responsibilities of the Committee: The Committee has been meeting since July 2024 to determine an agreed-upon definition of reparations, consider what the criteria for a reparations initiative will be, collect information on what is being done elsewhere both nationally and locally, and to ultimately determine what form reparations will take for USG, and for whom it will be applied.
Where we are now:
We have come to an agreement about the definition of reparations.
We created a draft rubric for evaluating options for investing our time and money.
We’ve collected some examples of reparations initiatives that have been undertaken by other entities.
We have shared our ideas about opportunities and are now beginning to assess the opportunities against the draft rubric.
We are having thoughtful discussions about how to manage the original $150,000.00; how the money can be preserved at that amount for the duration of the time we have to decide; and how to invest it so that it does the most good for the longest period of time.
In the next few months (when the weather is more favorable) we will be working with the Building and Grounds and Gardening committees to continue investigating the possibility of creating a memorial on USG grounds.
How You Can Be Involved:
If you have thoughts, questions, and information you would like to share about existing reparations projects, please email us with your ideas, The email address is reparations@usguu.org.
Reparations Learning Resources
Please pursue your own learning about this important issue – here are some resources to consider:
- Reparations Is Not A Four Letter Word (youtube.com)
- https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/the-weekly-wrap-chicago-is-latest-city-to-study-reparations
- The Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates
- A Letter from Green Street’s Reparations Committee
- Book: From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty First Century by William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen.
- “FacingOurUnhealedPast-updated-03-10-2023.pdf” https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:1d264bf7-0826-4dc7-ab1b-9c60bfbfc0c3
- https://www.supersummary.com/the-empire-of-necessity/summary/
- Book: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” by Heather McGhee