Yahoo News! – ‘Church’s work on slavery should inspire others to do the right thing’

The Church of England’s work to address historic links to slavery must be the start of a wider conversation for British society, a campaigner has said, as a new report set a £1 billion target for an investment fund for “healing, repair and justice”.

The initial £100 million investment fund set up to address the wrongs of the past has been deemed too small and slow by an independent oversight group.

The funding programme was announced in January last year for investment, research and engagement to “address past wrongs”.

But its original nine-year timeframe has been judged too long by an independent oversight group which also stated that £100 million is “insufficient” to counter the “historic and enduring greed, cynicism and hate with penitence, hope and love”.

It said: “The sum of £100 million is very small compared to the scale of racial disadvantage originating in African chattel enslavement.”

The group said the Church Commissioners had “embraced a target of £1 billion for a broader healing, repair and justice initiative with the fund at its centre”.

Patrick Vernon, a member of the oversight group and a well-known Windrush campaigner, welcomed the church’s response to the report, and said it must be “the start of a journey for the country, to talk about this” issue.

He told reporters on Monday: “We have to recognise this is quite an historic occasion for one of the major institutions in British society, to put its hand up and say ‘we benefited from the African Chattel enslavement, we recognise injustice’ and in terms of the theology of the church, recognising that it had to do the right thing.”

Campaigner Patrick Vernon called for a wider and mature conversation on what organisations can do to address the wrongs of the past (Victoria Jones/PA)

Calling for a “mature conversation”, he said he hopes the report can spark other major organisations into action.

“I hope that this will inspire other institutions and other organisations who have been involved in a similar history, like the Church of England, to recognise they have to look at righting the wrongs,” he said.