By Dan Holly

Sitting just south of the Mason-Dixon line – the line separating slave states from free states in the early history of this country – Maryland was located just barely in slavery territory. But the state was deeply into slavery nevertheless. The commodities produced by slaves “provided the foundation for Maryland’s economy,” according to a state history document.

Today, strikingly, Maryland is a leader in reconciliation efforts between Black and White residents, including reparations initiatives for Black residents. Among the more prominent of these projects is one undertaken by the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, which, in 2020, established a $1 million seed fund to be disbursed to programs in Black communities.

The initiative for the fund came from Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton, who, in 2008, became the first bishop of color in the diocese. When the diocese’s convention passed a resolution establishing the fund, Bishop Sutton commented: “Passing the resolution is in recognition of our collective complicity and contributing to the impoverishment of Black communities. I had nothing to do with enslaving persons. I’m not guilty of that, but I have a responsibility. … I know we don’t all agree that this is the best vehicle to make amends. We all do agree, I’m quite sure, that we will do all we can to eradicate the sin of racism off the face of the earth and repair the damage that it has done to this nation, this state and our communities for centuries.”

Since 2022, the diocese has awarded over $655,000 in reparations grants to more than a dozen organizations, and the grants will continue. (The fund was set up so that grants can come from interest, not principle, and can continue in perpetuity.)

Standards for use of the Reparations Fund have never been set in stone. From the beginning, there was controversy. Diocese archives show that there was a lively debate in 2020 when the resolution establishing the plan was proposed: “Those who spoke against the resolution did so not as much in opposition to the concept of reparations, but with questions as to how the money will be wisely and faithfully spent,” the archives state.

A committee was established to disburse the funds. Suggested uses included:

• Improving housing assistance programs that help Black Americans purchase homes.
• Developing mixed-use housing that supports socio-economic diversity.
• Bringing desperately needed services such as grocery stores, urgent care centers, and community centers to communities, and
• Developing meaningful job-training programs in partnership with corporations and local businesses for actual job placement.

The chosen winners have depended a lot on the strength of the application, according to J. Jason Hoffman, Director of Communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. In the third round in 2024, $50,000 grants went to African American Resources Cultural and Historical Society, Baltimore Children’s Peace Center, BRIDGE Maryland, Doleman Black Heritage Museum, and Marian House.

For the fourth round, in 2025, the grantmaking focus has changed some to emphasize start-ups. “Fifty thousand dollars is really not a lot of money,” Hoffman said, “but it can have a great impact on a start-up.”

The $50,000 grant that the Doleman Black Heritage Museum got in 2024 played a “vital” role in helping the group accomplish its mission, said Alesia Parson McBean, the museum’s project director. The museum, located in Hagerstown, Maryland, is dedicated to preserving African American culture and history. The grant allowed the museum to restore stained glass windows from a local church that had been torn down. The windows were more than merely decorative; in slavery times, the church was a stop on the Underground Railroad and the windows show images that secretly alerted escaping parties that the church was a safe house, McBean said.

The restored windows will be displayed at the museum’s new home, which is under development.

“We [African Americans] are 14% of the [county] population, and the median income is less than $40,000, so people who have an interest in preserving Black heritage, history and culture don’t always have the disposable income to throw at it,” McBean explained. “This grant came at a wonderful time.”

Two people in a good position to assess the impact of the diocese’s Reparation Fund are the Rev. Nancy H. Hennessey, rector of Sherwood Episcopal Church in Cockeysville, Md., and Stephen Gibson, a retired school principal from Baltimore. They were co-chairs of the first Reparations Fund Committee.

Both can point to success stories for individual grant recipients, but they cannot offer hard data on the fund’s overall impact, because the grants are not set up in a way that specific metrics of success can be applied.

“From the very beginning our approach was to say, if we are truly looking at reparations, we are not going to micromanage and look at what you did, dollar for dollar,” Gibson said. “That was never the intent of the Diocese of Maryland. The intent was to go through the discernment of letting God lead us to organizations that are trying to do the right things. We have people in the committee who are assigned to that particular organization to take a look at it and work with them. But we do not ask for a lengthy report where we say, ‘Show me how you spent each and every dollar.’ ”

More important, Rev. Hennessey said, is the impact on people. “It’s about building relationships – particularly for the White community, to understand what barriers are still in place now. …A lot of our churches were built on the backs of slaves. So that’s a whole ’nother component of it. Eventually, I hope, each of our congregations will do a deep dive into their own history. Some have done a fabulous job already. Others are still trying to come to terms.”

“We’re a little unorthodox, but you know, that’s the point,” Rev. Hennessey reflected. “And it is all about restitution.”