50 years ago: A United Methodist Church in New York City pays extortion reparations to Negro extortionists economic development organization

On May 1, 1969, James Foreman, director of the National Black Economic Development Council, launched a campaign in New York demanding $500 million in reparations from American churches and synagogues for past injustices to Negroes with a manifesto calling religious institutions "another form of government in this country."

On July 6, 1969, Washington Square United Methodist Church in New York City became the first predominantly white religious organization to give money to the National Black Economic Development Conference when they handed Mr. Foreman a cheque for $15,000. The U.S. Episcopal Church followed on September 3, 1969, when two days of emotional debate, during which one Negro clergyman told the U.S. Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies, "You don’t trust black priests, and you don’t trust black people," ended with a vote granting James Foreman’s Black Economic Development Council $200,000, which Mr. Foreman's organization had demanded as "reparations."

50 years later such demands are referred to using such terms as "a process of reconciliation" instead of by the more accurate term "extortion."