It’s another chance for you to contact your congressional delegation, urging co-sponsorship and support for HR 40, which would establish the first United States Commission on truth, Racial Health, and Transformation (TRHT).
Our national ELCA advocacy office is urging each of us to voice our support for this legislation, which would be charged with a study of the lasting impacts of slavery in the U.S. in order to develop a set of recommendations for advancing reparations for affected people of African descent. “As a moral issue, a matter of social justice, and expression of the ELCA’s commitment to advance racial equality,” our church has previously adopted various actions encouraging congregations to engage in a study of the “structures and rhetoric that empower and fuel racism and white supremacy and to take to heart the teaching of Scriptures so we may all be better equipped to speak boldly about the equal dignity of all persons in the eyes of God.”
Our own Calvin Schermerhorn gave a presentation at a forum earlier this year, sharing his own research as a historian specializing in slavery, and mentioning H.R. 40. Now, we have additional impetus to study the issue more fully, reading his books and utilizing the new ELCA resource, “How Strategic and Authentic is our Diversity”, and the National Council on Churches’, “Faith and Facts for H.R. 40.”
And, writing Congress in support of H.R. 40!
Ruth Wootten