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Shelley Butler, Beloved Community Communications Team No Question That Reparations Are Owed After coming into the Parish Hall for Wellspring Wednesday on January 31, 2024, and saying hey to a few people, I took a spot at the front in one of the only seats left for the panel discussion, “The Process of Politics and Reparations in Saint Paul,” sponsored by the Unity Racial and Restorative Justice Team. Unity member Russel Balenger spoke about being a descendent of enslaved people, and about growing up in Rondo before being displaced. In a brief film, we heard Bridgett Floyd, sister of George Floyd, speak about the enslaved ancestors who managed to acquire several hundred acres of farmland in the South after emancipation only to have it stolen from them. Our country and our state of Minnesota were built on stolen land and free labor. Reparations are not an abstract idea relating to people over 100 years ago. The action is personal to Russel and Bridgett and every descendent of an enslaved family member. And it is about the continuing legacy of slavery: trauma, lost generational wealth, health care issues, housing discrimination, disproportional imprisonment, the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood, and more. We learned that Minnesota has the third-largest racial wealth gap in the country. It should be personal to all of us. Jane Prince has worked on reparations for years and is now fresh off the City Council and a Unity Church member. She said, “Reparations [are] a federal debt.” The work in St. Paul is a start, as are the 116 other proposals to do with reparations that have passed around the country.  Reparative Work by the St. Paul City Council To bring us up to date, Trahern Crews, a Black Lives Matter Minnesota leader and one of the conveners of St Paul’s Reparations Advisory Committee, walked us through the years of study and work completed by himself, Balenger, Prince, and many others that led to successful reparations work in St. Paul.  Highlights include:
Independent of the City Council, Mayor Melvin Carter established the Rondo Inheritance Fund to help displaced Rondo families purchase housing. And while information on the Inheritance Fund is on the city website under “City Council Reparations Efforts,” it is not related to the commission. Due to a large number of applicants, the city is no longer taking applications for this fund. What You Can Do Right Now The history so far is important, but to hear direct-experience testimony is to witness the pain and hopefully, to become allies in the work of reparations. Thus, the call to immediate action. Here’s what you can do:
 Questions for Further Thought
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Rebecca Gonzalez-Campoy, Beloved Community Communications and Indigenous Justice Ministry Teams Unity Church-Unitarian sits on land stolen from the Dakota people. We read this in our weekly Order of Service and proclaim it prior to the start of most church meetings, our own pledge of allegiance of sorts. However, what does this really mean and how did it happen? Unity’s Act for the Earth and Indigenous Justice Community Outreach Ministry Teams series, “Truth Telling and Healing: Indigenous and Environmental Justice," included a close look at how Unity came to be located on Dakota land (Land and Reparations). During this presentation in March 2023, Jessica Intermill of Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light and Intermill Land History Consulting, invited us to look at history differently.  From presentation by Jessica Intermill - March 2023 Unity Church Reparations: Repairing Generational Wounds History is typically laid out chronologically in books: American Revolution, Slavery, Western Expansion, and the Civil War. However, slavery occurred before and during the Revolution and played a part in westward expansion. “Today’s physical landscape has everything that came before us right now,” explained Intermill. The question is, “What does it mean to take responsibility for a past that’s not past?”
Intermill mapped the location of Unity Church and then peeled back the layers of events on our land since the occupation of stolen Dakota land. She started with the arrival of United States General Zebulon Pike at the convergence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers who declared it an ideal spot to build a fort (Fort Snelling). In 1805, the United States Congress purchased from the Dakota people 155,000 acres of land at this spot for practically nothing. Through deception and manufactured devaluation, land that should have brought $300,000 to the Dakota people possibly brought them the remains of $2,000 worth of goods. Keep in mind that Bdote, the convergence of these two rivers, is where human life began according to the Dakota. So, this is sacred land which started out as a place of genesis and eventually became the site of genocide. Things didn’t fare any better when the U.S. government purchased more land surrounding Fort Snelling through the 1837 Sioux Treaty. Here again, treacherous cruelty prevailed — this time the Dakota only received $16,000 through this treaty while those who had intermarried with them received $110,000, and $90,000 covered fabricated Dakota debt created by white people (many of whom were of the federal government). This thievery stemmed from the demise of the fur trade and a need for those traders to come up with a new source of income. From there, the U.S. government paid soldier Sam Taylor for his work with a New York regiment with a voucher for a section of land between St. Clair and Marshall Avenues. Taylor didn’t want the land and sold it to land speculators, and it eventually wound up in the possession of a man named Woodword. So, back to Intermill’s original question: “What does it mean to take responsibility for the past that’s not past?” Participants in the final session in the Truth Telling and Healing series held last month shared their stories of how the programs had impacted them. These are some of the themes that emerged:
The group then considered next steps for themselves as individuals and for Unity as a congregation:
Among the suggested resources to continue the Indigenous and environmental justice journey is the Native Governance Center's Beyond Land Acknowledgment Guide. This is one avenue Unity’s Indigenous Justice Community Outreach Team will explore as it plans future learning and spiritual growth opportunities. Be sure to also check out Act for the Earth activities. Meanwhile, continue your own spiritual and educational journey by exploring: Laura Park, Beloved Community Staff Team
On November 30, Angela Wilcox and I presented the last of four programs on the Double Helix Model of Faith Formation and Antiracist Multiculturalism. This Wellspring Wednesday program focused on the characteristics of white dominant culture and the practice of the antidotes to those characteristics as a way of making the antiracist multicultural practices side of the Double Helix more concrete. We briefly described these four characteristics:
Angela noted that how you react to not understanding the double helix is a wonderful opportunity for practicing the antidotes to white supremacy culture. There was a collective moment of recognition when Angela said that the problem isn’t that you don’t understand, the problem is that you’re uncomfortable with not understanding. “So what will you do about your discomfort?” she asked. Angela also shared the research about how learning to speak a second language requires developing a tolerance for ambiguity. She suggested that exploring and practicing the Double Helix is actually learning a new language. We provided each table with a handout of the antidotes to the four characteristics as well as a list of possible spiritual practices. These spiritual practices included:
We asked each table group to pick one of the characteristics and discuss three questions:
Right to comfort was chosen by the most groups, but the one perfectionism group ended up being the largest. When the groups reported back on their discussion, the perfectionism group shared that they struggled with understanding perfectionism as problematic, rather than something to be proud of, until they could see how it limited them or affected their work/relationships. Many people recognized the importance of repetition to build skill to counter these dominant culture characteristics. As an invitation to build those skills we invited people to complete this sentence, printed on a slip of paper: “I commit to practicing the Double Helix by using _____________________ as my daily spiritual practice to live the antidote _________________. “ People chose a range of spiritual practices to help them live into the desired antidote, including using deep breathing to live the antidote of welcoming discomfort; journaling to develop a culture of appreciation; maintaining a gratitude journal to counter perfectionism; mindful walking to notice urgency; and worship and meditation to go beyond either/or thinking. Hopefully, people left the series—even just one of the sessions in the series—with a deeper appreciation for how the two sides of the Double Helix talk to one another in a life of faith. And, people were in community with others who are also grappling to understand this metaphor and model, so they know they're not alone in trying to understand. |
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Beloved Community ResourcesUnity Justice Database
Team Dynamics House of Intersectionality Anti-Racism Resources in the Unity Libraries Collection Creative Writers of Color in Unity Libraries The History of Race Relations and Unity Church, 1850-2005 Archives
February 2026
Beloved Community Staff TeamThe Beloved Community Staff Team (BCST) strengthens and coordinates Unity’s antiracism and multicultural work, and provides opportunities for congregants and the church to grow into greater intercultural competency. We help the congregation ground itself in the understanding of antiracism and multiculturalism as a core part of faith formation. We support Unity’s efforts to expand our collective capacity to imagine and build the Beloved Community. Here, we share the stories of this journey — the struggles, the questions, and the collaborations — both at Unity and in the wider world.
The current members of the Beloved Community Staff Team include Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, Rev. KP Hong, Rev. Lara Cowtan, Drew Danielson, Laura Park, Lia Rivamonte and Angela Wilcox. |
