By William H. Stokes
W.E.B. Du Bois once wrote, “Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things. And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far as the truth is ascertainable?”
In America and New Jersey, it’s time to tell the truth.
After more than 400 years of hideous wrongs, it’s time to face and repair the enduring harm of slavery.
Today, my church, The Episcopal Church, is reckoning with its own history. In 2006, our denominational governing body passed a resolution calling on the church to “acknowledge its history of participation in this sin [of racism] and the deep and lasting injury which the institution of slavery and its aftermath have inflicted on society and on the Church…”
In November of 2020, the Diocese of New Jersey overwhelmingly passed a resolution to “establish a Task Force to initiate and oversee a multi-year process to examine our sins, complicity, and financial benefits through the history of slavery and its legacy continuing to contemporary practices, and to recommend appropriate actions for the Diocese.”
If my church can do it, so can New Jersey.
It is time for Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, Senate President Steve Sweeney and the entire state Legislature to pass, and for Gov. Phil Murphy to sign S322/A711, legislation to create a New Jersey Reparations Task Force.
Right now, we are in what theologians would name “a KAIROS moment” — an opportune time in which we are being called to a historical reckoning — including right here in New Jersey, which, unknown to many, was known as the slave state of the north.
Too often, our state has been on the wrong side of history. In 1704, the Colonial Province of New Jersey introduced the “Slave Code,” which prohibited enslaved Africans and free Africans from owning property. New Jersey opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and was the last Northern state to abolish slavery. Following the Civil War, New Jersey refused to ratify the Reconstruction Amendments.
By 1830, New Jersey was home to more than two-thirds of the entire slave population of the north.
Now, almost 200 years later, we see the direct consequence of that past as Black people in our state confront some of the worst racial disparities in America in the areas of health, wealth and criminal justice. In just one shocking example, according to the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, white individuals in our state have a median net worth of over $106,000, compared to just $179 for Black individuals.
This is no accident. This is our history of oppressive policy design showing up in our present.
The Episcopal Church is not the only faith group taking a stand for facing and addressing this truth in New Jersey.
Rev. Anya Sammler-Michael of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair, who joined me at a recent event, began her remarks by explaining that everyone in New Jersey has benefitted from or been harmed by slavery. “I have benefitted. Governor Murphy, Speaker Coughlin, you have benefitted,” she said.
She asked, “What is it that prevents the passage of this bill that would investigate what it would mean for New Jersey to take responsibility for this injustice? What is it other than fear? Fear of what we might find and what we might lose. And by ‘we’ I mean those of us who without this study would continue to benefit from the same sinful history. You must not let fear steal your courage.”
Rabbi David Vaisberg of Livingston’s Temple B’nai Abraham said, “You have to fix that which you broke. You have to give back that which you took. We need to figure out what exactly we need to give back to repair that damage and then some.”
Imam Wahy-ud Deen Shareef of the Council of Imams in New Jersey added, “One scholar said that hearts cannot heal when knowledge is confused. And until we begin to reveal the actual truth of what was done there will be no reconciliation, there will be no healing and there will be no coming together.”
And Rev. Charles Boyer of Bethel AME Church in Woodbury pointed out, “Today’s issues, the racial wealth gap, the racial disparities in the prisons, the housing situation for Black people, the health disparities — all can be traced back to New Jersey’s original sin.”
All of us see that a Reparations Task Force would afford an opportunity for true confession, repentance and formal, meaningful redress.
We don’t need to know all the answers now about what reparations might look like in our state, but we need to ask the question and hear and act on the answers when they arrive. It would be the job of the task force to study the issue and recommend reparative policies focusing on issues like wealth, health, democracy and criminal justice.
In this critical year in New Jersey, with the entire legislature and governor’s seat up for election, the moment has arrived to finally, at long last, face our wretched history and do — as Du Bois referenced — “great and beautiful things.”
Let’s do that together. Please lift your voice by going to 400yearsnj.org and urging legislators to begin the process of repairing the harm by establishing a Reparations Task Force.
The Right Reverend William H. Stokes is the 12th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.
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