Rev. James T. Meeks, Senior Pastor of Salem Baptist Church of Chicago and former Illinois State Senator, demands 100 years of free education, child care, health care, and guaranteed employment for black Americans in this July 2020 message, "A Biblical Case For Reparations."
—TRANSCRIPT HIGHLIGHTS—
Our country knows reparations. In 1991, we passed the Japanese Recovery Act...We relocated Japanese. They were not enslaved, they were not raped, they were not castrated, they were not murdered. Yet for four years of inconvenience, we paid the Japanese.
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Every year, the United States, right now, we put $5 million in our budget for Holocaust survivors. Right on. I ain't against Holocaust survivors. They survived a whole lot. But what about those of us who had to survive the Negro Holocaust? What about those of us who are still in the middle of the Holocaust? Don't we deserve something?
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Let me get ready to close. What do we want? We want the American government to give restitution to the descendants of the people who built America.
We want free college for every black kid for the next hundred years. That's the action step. We want a job for every black person in America for the next hundred years. And the government can do it. We want child care for every parent who's African-American for the next hundred years. We want free health care for every black American for the next hundred years.
Well, pastor, ain't that gonna take a long time? Ain't that gonna take a long time? The Congress came together and in two weeks passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package. If the will is there, if they desire to do it, they can.
So, for everybody who wanna come on and, "Pastor Meeks, what can I do? What can we do?" Everybody who wanna march with Black Lives Matter, lemme close with another Bible scripture. Lemme close, lest you think that I'm biblically illiterate and I don't know my Bible.
Let's close with the Bible. Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 19, verse 8. This is Jesus and Zacchaeus. "And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto him: Lord, behold, half my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold."
If I took it. If I egreged him. If I inconvenienced him. If you can systematically show that it's my fault, Zacchaeus said it is my obligation to restore him fourfold.
Listen to what Jesus said. "Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, for as much as he is also a son of Abraham." I'll know that you're saved when you start talking about reparations. I'll know that you're saved when you start saying and acknowledging that negro people should be paid back. I will know that salvation has come to your house when you admit it is wrong to enslave a group of people and then turn them loose without giving them anything.
So, while other people are getting reparations, while Jews are getting reparations, while Indians are starting to get reparations (I'm happy for you, Indians. I ain't against you. I'm happy for you), all we get is ghettoes and slums and bad schools.
And you're wondering why we are turning on each other like savages and shooting each other and killing each other. Because we are denied opportunities. And black kids don't see a future. And they don't see a hope. Let's give them a future. Let's give them college. Let's give them health care. Let's give them child care. Let's give them hope.
If black lives matter, if you really got it, if you really got it, then government, come on! Turn around and be sensitive and give to black people what black people deserve! Repair the damages! Repair the damages! Repair the damages!
Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXDzmH91s1s
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