“Go and Do Likewise”: Reparations, Loving Your Black Neighbor, and the Work of Healing the Wounds of Antiblackness

This talk will expand and transform how people think about reparations, using Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan as a paradigm-shifting lens. Led by the Rev. Dr. Drew G.I. Hart, we’ll explore the multi-layered work of reparations, but with a foundation rooted in the call to genuinely love Black people by pursuing their collective healing, well-being, and thriving.

Dr. Hart is an associate professor of theology at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and has 10 years of pastoral experience before teaching. He currently directs a university program, “Thriving Together: Congregations for Racial Justice,” and co-hosts the Inverse Podcast with Jarrod McKenna, an award-winning peace activist from Australia.

Dr. Hart is the author of “Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism” (2016) and “Who Will Be A Witness?: Igniting Activism for God’s Justice, Love, and Deliverance” (2020). He is also a co-editor and contributor to “Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair” (2023). Hart received bcmPEACE’s 2017 Peacemaker Award and the 2019 W.E.B. Du Bois Award in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 2023, Life Esteem Ministries recognized him with the Harambee Award for the Nguzo Saba Principle of Umoja—Unity for his faith-based activism and public scholarship in the community.

The event is co-sponsored by the Center for Studying Structures of Race, the Roanoke Reparations Group, and the Central Church of the Brethren

Learn more about the Center for Studying Structures of Race.