Video feature
Rev. Dr Angelique Walker-Smith, WCC president from North America, who moderated the discussion, opened with an overview of how the webinar was occurring alongside the fifth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
Walker-Smith explained how the discussion aligned with the broader theme of the forum: expanding the human rights of people of African descent during the Second International Decade for People of African Descent.
Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, reflected that the WCC has an important institutional relationship with the UN. “We emerged out of the same historical moment, driven by the same impulses, and driven by a reaction to the atrocities witnessed by the Second World War,” said Prove, also citing the WCC’s ongoing history of providing spaces for civil society actors coming together.
“I also want to acknowledge the fact and bring to your attention that this area of work, for racial justice, for people of African descent, is part of the DNA of the WCC in ways that you might not appreciate or be aware of,” he said. “We are proud of this engagement.”
Dr. Michael McEachrane, commissioner from the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, offered a summary of the Pan African journey, and recommended pathways of resistance and resilience.
“Economically, their labor and natural recourses were exploited to the benefit of white Europeans,” he said, sharing part of his multi-dimensional structural understanding.
Esther Souza brought a young adult perspective of the Pan African journey in Brazil. She described, among other initiatives, the campaign “388 Years of Slavery—and What about the Church?” which addresses the structural legacy of slavery, specifically focusing on the complicity, silence, or inaction of religious institutions during and after the 388 years of slavery in Brazil (1500–1888).
Ambassador Sandra Bowen, from the African Union-6th Region, offered a summary of the role of the African Union in the Pan African journey.
“The Pan African journey is not confined to the past,” she said. “It is the living continuum of resistance, resilience, and reconstruction.”
Dr Pauline Christian, a member of the Strategic Planning Committee with the African Union-6th Region, spoke from the perspective of her role as an activist. "We must confront the truth,” she said “We have named the injustice but we have not dismantled the systems. It doesn’t make sense.”
The webinar acknowledged the following key global milestones: the 60th anniversary of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 25th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, and the fifth anniversary of the Permanent Forum itself.
"Redressing harm: forum brings voices from People of African Descent", WCC feature, 18 April 2024
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