Reparations up to Date

At the first meeting of the National Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit just two years ago this week, a solemn, angry black man rose to read a "Black Manifesto." He demanded, among other things, $500 million in "reparations" from white U.S. churches and synagogues. What he wanted, said James Forman bluntly, was to be paid for past injustices. He calculated the bill at "$15 per nigger," and he urged black people "to commence the disruption of white racist churches and synagogues." Eight days later, Forman and some of his followers invaded Riverside Church, Manhattan's temple of liberal Protestantism, and demanded "extra reparations," partly because of its connection with Rockefeller money.

Since then, measured strictly by its own improbable expectations (Forman later upped the ante to $3 billion), the reparations movement has been something of a failure. So far, the Black Economic Development Conference (B.E.D.C.) has collected little more than $300,000. Critics contend that it does not adequately account for the money, and as a result, it has even lost the support of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, which sponsored the Detroit meeting.

The Rev. Calvin B. Marshall, outspoken Brooklyn pastor (TIME, April 6, 1970) who is chairman of B.E.D.C.'s steering committee, argues that one of B.E.D.C.'s virtues is the ability to "shoot down bureaucracy and get some dollars moving." Many of the dollars have been moving in the direction of one of B.E.D.C.'s main projects, the Black Star Press of Detroit. Its first book, by Forman, endorses "armed struggle and the seizure of state power."

The true impact of Forman's pronouncement, however, is greater than B.E.D.C.'s bank account. Though the manifesto in fact antagonized a good many churchmen, it may have helped release literally millions of dollars for expanded or new programs to aid minority groups, especially blacks. White churchmen generally deny that they are acting in direct response to the manifesto, whose revolutionary appeal they abhor. But in a number of denominations, there is evidence of a heightened effort to overcome the racial and social problems the manifesto dramatized. The churchmen are exercising control over their money and for the most part are not financing radicals. But they are giving. Items:

> The United Presbyterian Church voted in its 1969 General Assembly to reject any support of B.E.D.C., but it also voted to establish a Fund for the Self-Development of People with an initial goal of $10 million this year.

> The Episcopal Church, already involved heavily in more than $4,000,000 worth of special programs for minority assistance, made an additional $200,000 grant in 1969 to the National Committee of Black Churchmen, with the unwritten but clear understanding that it would be passed on to B.E.D.C. And though contributions have dropped, partly because of backlash over that and other controversial grants, the church has maintained the programs despite its financial crisis.

-The United Methodist Church also had been involved in a sizable aid program for blacks and other minorities before the manifesto, but has since voted an additional $4,000,000 to fund various minority community efforts. The $400,000 disbursed so far, however, has gone mostly to projects closely related to the church. Black Methodists, among other churchmen, "used B.E.D.C. as a threat," says Calvin Marshall. "They said to their churches, 'Deal with us, or you'll have to deal with them.' "

-- The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was outspoken in its rejection of the manifesto, but has since doubled the $2,000,000 previously earmarked for a "reconciliation" project. "I thank the Lord for the manifesto," says the black director of the Disciples' program. "It showed the denominations that the alienation was deeper than they thought." > The U.S. Catholic Bishops' $50 million Campaign for Human Development, launched last fall, is pointedly aimed at funding minority self-help projects. A one-day nationwide appeal last Thanksgiving netted a generous $8,400,000, comfortably more than the initial target of $7,000,000.

Much of the giving reflects the tactical problem faced by white religious leaders, particularly liberal Protestants: how to commit their churches to the aid of blacks without seeming, at the same time, to commit them to Forman's call to a black-led revolution. The experience of Riverside Church's chief minister, the Rev. Dr. Ernest Campbell, is typical. Though Riverside was noted for its active social ministry long before Forman's invasion, it is now seeking to raise $450,000 in a new Fund for Social Justice. The money will be distributed only after recipients' projects are approved by an independent, minority-weighted board. Black militants have decried that arrangement as continued white domination. Responds Campbell: "You wouldn't want us to leave half a million dollars in a brown bag on Lenox Avenue, would you?"

The manifesto has had other unintended results. The black church itself has split over Forman's tactics, which point inevitably toward black separatism. B-shop Stephen Spottswood of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church has attacked the manifesto, while the National Committee of Black Churchmen has served as a channel for funds to B.E.D.C. And indirectly, Forman gave the Jewish Defense League its push into prominence: the league's first widely publicized action was its unasked-for "protection" of a New York synagogue supposedly threatened by Forman-like black disruptions.

Those byproducts, however, are minor results of Forman's call to arms --as was the trickle of money to B.E.D.C. More significant is the growing response to the clear need of the poor, the rejected and the dispossessed.

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