Church of England announces CASH for reparations; attracts mixed sentiments

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#England, January 20, 2023 – Chicken feed is how one journalist is describing the recent £100 million reparation fund from the Church of England after the institution on January 10th announced its intention to pay because of its connections to slavery, those historically affected.

Dr. Steve Cushion told the Guardian it was “chickenfeed compared with the modern value of the money that the report has identified.”

Cushion put the real time value at well over a trillion.

David Comissiong, Barbados’ Ambassador to the CARICOM and Deputy chairperson of the country’s National Task Force on Reparation on the other hand described the acknowledgment as “groundbreaking and called on the British government to apologize as well.

The money will come from a church fund, the Church Commissioners’ endowment, which was built up by and invested in companies that participated in enslaving Africans and will be paid out over a decade.

The payout was initiated after a review was commissioned by the church into its links with slavery and found that the endowment traces its origins partly to Queen Anne’s Bounty, a fund established in 1704 which had direct links to a slaving ship company, the South Sea Company.

In response the Church said “the Church Commissioners’ Board has committed itself to trying to address some of the past wrongs by investing in a better future. It will seek to do this through committing £100 million of funding, delivered over the next nine years commencing in 2023, to a programme of investment, research and engagement.”

The money will be funneled into

• a new impact investment fund to invest for a better and fairer future for all, particularly for communities affected by historic slavery and;
• grant funding for projects focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery.

The church has also committed to be at the ‘forefront of responsible investment globally.’