We have to give black people more and more money, forever.
That is our values.
It’s who we are.
Virginia Theological Seminary is paying reparations to descendants of Black slaves that worked on the institution’s campus prior to abolition.
Curtis Prather, the school’s director of communications, explained to Campus Reform that Virginia Theological Seminary has a research team dedicated to investigating records and claims. He said the school has made 16 payments to date using funds from a $1.7 million endowment established in 2019.
Each annual payment is approximately $2,100, but that amount is subject to change while the duration of the reparations is indefinite.
Reparations will also extend to descendants of low-wage Black employees that worked at the school during Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
“There is no plan to end the initiative,” Prather said to Campus Reform. “Every year recipients will receive a payment from VTS. The amount of the checks will fluctuate each year, based on the returns of the endowment and the number of shareholders identified. Since the New York Times article was published last month, significant contributions have come into the fund.”
Virginia Theological Seminary made the first payment in February.
With this money, the blacks will be able to buy scratch-off lottery tickets, 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor, and crack cocaine. That won’t fix the pain of having been enslaved – but it will ease it, if only for a while.