Reparations
Recommendations for Giving Reparations to Soul 2 Soul Sisters
Soul 2 Soul Sisters is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Financial reparations to Soul 2 Soul Sisters are tax-deductible charitable contributions.
Anti-Black racism is a public health crisis in the United States of America. By promoting and providing loving healthcare options for Black Women and by fighting anti-Black obstetric violence, Soul 2 Soul Sisters is working to dismantle systemic anti-Black medical racism and the rigid nexus of white supremacy power that protects and sustains it. So many advances in the healthcare field result from the historic and present-day medical injustices perpetuated by the U.S. healthcare system against Black Women. Since our organization engages in healing and health work that is by Black Women and for Black Women to correct the injustices, we strongly encourage white individuals, families, organizations, congregations, businesses and foundations to give sustained/ongoing/recurring reparations to Soul 2 Soul Sisters. To make significant, positive impact in the lives of the Black Women health justice warriors in our organization and in the greater community, please read the following recommendations for giving reparations to Soul 2 Soul Sisters, and then GIVE:
- Donate at least 10% of your income each month to Soul 2 Soul Sisters - to do so please click here.
- To give reparations that exceed $100,000 please contact Executive Director Rev. Tawana Angela Davis, Ph.D. tawana@soul2soulsisters.org or (303) 597-8543
- Businesses, congregations/denominations, corporations, and foundations: calculate the total amount that you have donated to predominantly white events, schools, groups, organizations, etc. since the founding of your entity. Of the total, give at least 50% to Soul 2 Soul Sisters.
- Cover costs of all items in "Celebrating Your Black New Baby" baskets that we deliver to expectant Black families across Colorado.
- For Black Women midwifery students, pay full tuition and costs for books and supplies.
- So that the Women in the Sacred Seeds Black Birthworker Collective of Colorado can be salaried employees of Soul 2 Soul Sisters rather than contractors, cover costs for each doula’s salary.
- Toward ending the Black maternal and infant mortality crisis in the U.S., Soul 2 Soul Sisters aspires for our programming and services to be hosted in the “Soul 2 Soul Sisters Black Birthing Center/Sanctuary.” Here we will provide sacred space for program participants, and loving, culturally congruent, full-spectrum (prenatal to postpartum) healthcare to Black Women and infants. To achieve this goal, cover costs for purchasing real estate, building the Birthing Center/Sanctuary, furnishing the space, etc.
- Cover the cost for the gifts that Black Women participants receive at the end of our monthly Self-Love Saturday for Black Women, Femmes, & Thems gatherings.
- For aspiring Black Women-owned businesses, pay all start-up costs.
- Each month, for all Black Women participants in Soul 2 Soul Sisters’ programming, deposit at least $100 in each Black Women’s personal bank account. *Individual reparations are not tax-deductible.
- Host trainings for Black Women in your business’ area of expertise.
- Pay for all staff members and birthworkers to attend individual, bi-weekly, 1-hour mental health appointments.
- Pay for all staff members and birthworkers to receive a monthly, 1-hour massage or energy session.
- Cover the costs for all staff members and birthworkers to attend a one-week “Black Women Rest” retreat in any city in Colorado twice each year.
- Pay-off student loans for all staff members and birthworkers.
- Pay tuition for all staff members’ and birthworkers’ children to attend college anywhere in the world.
- Pay for all staff members’ and birthworkers’ children to receive tutoring during their elementary, middle, and high school years.
- Pay childcare costs for all staff members’ and birthworkers’ children.
- For all staff members and birthworkers, pay costs for caring for aging parents.
- Each month, deposit at least $100 in the personal bank account of each staff member and birthworker. *Individual reparations are not tax-deductible.
- For each staff member and birth worker, pay the deposit for a home.
- For each staff member and birth worker, pay the cost for home improvement needs (i.e. finishing a basement, replacing plumbing, replacing a driveway/sidewalk).
- Help establish Soul 2 Soul Sisters retirement fund and match all staff members and birthworkers contribution by at least 10%.
- Provide ongoing training and guidance in investments.
- Pay for all staff members health, dental, orthodontist coverage and healthcare costs.
- After three months of employment, provide a Black Unity Apple Watch to all new staff members and birthworkers.
- Cover costs for providing each staff member and birth worker with the exercise equipment that each one wants in their home
- Pay for each staff member and each birth worker to receive a weekly delivery of nutritious groceries to their home.
- Cover costs for all professional development trainings for staff members and birthworkers.
- Provide your business’ services to Soul 2 Soul Sisters.
- Twice each year, pay all costs for staff members and birthworkers to attend 1-week staff retreat anywhere in the world.
- For all staff members and birthworkers, pay all costs for a week of vacation anywhere in the world.
- Soul 2 Soul Sisters aspires to launch a Young Womanists Summer Camp for Black girls who are in high school. Young Womanists is an 8-weeks-long summer camp that guides Black girls through an introduction and exploration into Womanist creative thought and theology through creative lessons, readings, field trips and so much more. Additionally Black girls deepen their awareness and practice of self- and sisterly care, and the students’ caregivers attend weekly parenting evening dinner/celebrations. The program concludes with a week-long trip for the camp family – including the students’ caregivers – to a city in any country in Africa that centers and celebrates Black matriarchal leadership. To achieve this goal, cover costs for developing curriculum, recruiting and training educators, recruiting students, meals, snacks, supplies, dinners for caregivers, field trips, the trip abroad, etc.
- At the intersection of Black Women’s healthcare and electoral justice, within the next 3-5 years Soul 2 Soul Sisters aspires to launch sister organization in strategic states: Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. To achieve this goal, cover costs for purchasing real estate in the specific state, construction of the birthing center/sanctuary, furnishing the space, recruiting/training/paying new employees, etc.
Visualize the significant impact of white people synchronously providing various forms of sustained reparations to grassroots, Black Women-led organizations. This is healthy life-sustaining modeling for ways that the U.S. government must provide reparations for all Black people in the United States of America to evidence genuine acknowledgment, apology, and compensation for the horrors of enslaving Black people for centuries and the subsequent anti-Black violence and wealth chasm. Reparations must be a reality, right NOW …
Give Reparations
If you would like to donate to our reparations fund, please use the donation form below. Or, send your donation using Zelle to: bookkeeper@soul2soulsisters.org
Reparations as economic justice and healing justice are interwoven in Soul 2 Soul Sisters’ racial justice approach.
In all of our anti-racism work we more deeply explore the United States of America’s multigenerational reality of slavery, historic and present-day systemic racial plunder and discrimination, and this country’s racial wealth chasm. We discuss these realities and many others all while synchronously engaging in African healing ritual and discussing reparations as right and righteous.
Soul 2 Soul affirms reparations as:
- Acknowledgment of the horrendous sins committed by white people against Black people historically and presently – as America continues it's addiction to free-labor on the backs of Black people, Brown people and historically marginalized people.
- Apology for the horrendous harms committed by white people against Black people historically and presently.
- Compensation that includes money, universal health care, universal education, employment and more.
- Conciliation – Plans for cultivating mutual, endearing, egalitarian relationships with Black people toward building hospitable and just systems and communities.
Reparations as economic justice and healing justice are interwoven in Soul 2 Soul Sisters’ racial justice approach.
In all of our anti-racism work we more deeply explore the United States of America’s multigenerational reality of slavery, historic and present-day systemic racial plunder and discrimination, this country’s racial wealth chasm, we discuss those realities and many others all while synchronously engaging in African healing ritual and discussing reparations as right and righteous.
Soul 2 Soul affirms reparations as:
- Acknowledgment of the horrendous sins committed by white people against Black people historically and presently – as America continues it's addiction to free-labor on the backs of Black people, Brown people and historically marginalized people.
- Apology for the horrendous harms committed by white people against Black people historically and presently.
- Compensation that includes money, universal health care, universal education, employment and more.
- Conciliation – Plans for cultivating mutual, endearing, egalitarian relationships with Black people toward building hospitable and just systems and communities.
For several years, Soul 2 Soul Sisters Black Women leadership have been working for reparations through chanting, prayer, meditation, teaching and preaching. We also welcome reparations to assist in sustaining Soul 2 Soul Sister’s transformative work. Recently Colorado Public Radio aired two powerful interviews about reparations. One interview featured Soul 2 Soul Sisters - we received a $200,000 personal, partial, reparation from an anonymous person who recently heard a tape revealing that her grandmother's grandmother was gifted an enslaved girl named Alice. #SayHerName #Alice
To speak with Soul 2 Soul Sisters about reparations giving, contact us at info@soul2soulsisters.org or call us at 720-295-4876.
Reparations Right NOW
Many of us are familiar with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2014 article in the Atlantic entitled, “The Case for Reparations” in which Coates presents the economic impact of enslavement on Black people. In his article Coates says, “Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is – the work of fallible humans. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.”
So we are clear that Black people have been fighting long and hard for reparations for centuries, in Mary F. Berry’s wonderful book entitled, My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations, Berry shares the story of a Black woman warrior named Callie House who was an ex-slave. #SayHerName #CallieHouse. During the late-1800’s, Callie House mobilized more than 300,000 ex-enslaved Black people to secure pensions for their unpaid labor. Barry writes: “Through cajoling and explaining, House inspired the old ex-slaves to exercise their rights as citizens to demand payment for their long suffering. She … listened as they shared stories about their lives under slavery. Often in tears, aging and ailing men and women recalled being treated as less than human during their years of unpaid labor for masters who sexually abused slave women, broke families apart, and who had ‘the power to whip them to death.’”
We hope you will take time to listen to the CPR reparations segment. May we all experience some level of encouragement and commit/re-commit to ending anti-Black racism using approaches that center acknowledgement, apology, reparations and healing practices.
