While some bicycle enthusiasts ride to exercise or for fun, others see bikes as essential tools often used to help those in need, especially for healthcare workers.
The First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist, is taking active steps to meet this need for health professionals in Cuba, which is experiencing major fuel shortages. The house of worship will collect adult bicycles on Monday, Oct. 12, and donate them through the nonprofit Bikes Not Bombs.
“We are trying to find [ways to] repair the harm that was done to Cubans” during slavery in the 19th century by taking action today, said Fran Yuan, a member of the First Church in Belmont Legacy of Slavery Project (LoSP).
During the 1800s, the Atkins family, one of the house of worship’s main benefactors, owned a sugar plantation in Cuba that used 177 enslaved individuals as forced labor. As The Belmont Voice previously reported, after the church investigated the troubling history of the Atkins family’s fortune, Unitarian Universalist congregations across New England held a summit to discuss their own ties to slavery and steps they could take to “shepherd a process of repair,” according to the church.
The LoSP is continuing to learn more about the church’s ties to slavery in Cuba through the Atkins family and is dedicated to helping that country today. Previous efforts have included finding ways to “forge ties and collaborate with Afro-Cuban communities and organizations in Cuba and the U.S.”; holding educational programming, lectures and movie screenings; applying for grants; sending funding for mosquito nets to Friends of Caritas Cubana in Cuba; and hosting art shows, to name a few.
The LoSP recently held its first of four meetings on developing a proposal for a Congregational Commitment to Reparative Justice at First Church.
To address the wrongs of the past, the group keeps asking, “What are the steps [we can take] to repair the harms that have been done,” said Yuan.
More information
The First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist, is located at 404 Concord Ave. Bike drop-off is from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 12, at the church parking lot. If you need your bike picked up at a different time, contact legacyofslaveryproject@uubelmont.org.
For more information on the Legacy of Slavery Committee at The First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist, visit https://www.uubelmont.org/legacy-of-slavery-project
For more information about Bikes Not Bombs, visit https://bikesnotbombs.org/
