Faith and Reparations Forum - May 17, 2025

A forum in collaboration with Buena Vista, Easter Hill & Epworth United Methodist Churches

On Saturday, May 17th, Epworth (Berkeley) will join with Easter Hill (Richmond) and Buena Vista United Methodist Church (Alameda) to host a groundbreaking forum on reparations as a moral imperative and expression of our faith. The event begins at 9:30am at Easter Hill UMC.

We're blessed to welcome Don Tamaki, a member of California's Reparations Task Force and Buena Vista UMC, who will share insights following the Task Force's epic Final Report. Michael Martin, lay member of Epworth UMC, will provide important historical context, setting the stage for Don's presentation on policy recommendations and community action.

This gathering isn't just about education—it's about building relationships across our diverse faith communities and establishing a foundation for collective action. Following the presentations, we'll break into culturally-specific small groups for facilitated discussions, creating brave spaces for authentic dialogue about repair and beloved community.

Come and be part of this sacred convergence of three diverse congregations as we deepen our understanding of reparations as central to our discipleship journey and explore concrete ways to support this important work.

Register here https://epworthberkeley.churchcenter.com/people/forms/923641 About out featured speakers: 

Donald K. Tamaki is known for his historic work serving on the pro bono legal team that reopened the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. the United States, overturning Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing incarceration during the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and providing a key legal foundation in the decades-long Japanese American Redress Movement. Tamaki is the co-founder of StopRepeatingHistory.Org, a campaign focused on drawing parallels between the round-up of Japanese Americans during World War II and the targeting of minority groups based on race or religion. One major aspect of the campaign is the intersectionality of the Japanese American Redress Movement and that of African American Reparations, with an emphasis on creating solidarity and promoting public awareness on the importance of advancing reparations for African Americans.

Tamaki has been Senior Counsel at Minami Tamaki LLP since 2020; he served as Managing Partner from 2006 to 2020 and was Partner from 1987 to 2020. Tamaki was Executive Director at the Asian Law Caucus – Advancing Justice from 1980 to 1984. He was a Reginald Heber Smith Staff Attorney at Community Legal Services of San Jose from 1976 to 1979 and co-founder of the Asian Law Alliance. Tamaki is a Member of the Bar Association of San Francisco and Asian American Bar Association of the Bay Area. He received the State Bar of California Loren Miller Award in 1987 and the American Bar Association’s Spirit of Excellence Award in 2020. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Don Tamaki was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Michael Kerry Martin believes that he was born into activism, “raised on the mother’s milk of the Civil Rights Movement.” Born in Berkeley in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education, Michael is a 1972 graduate of El Cerrito High School. His home church, South Berkeley Community, was chartered in 1943 with the specific intent to be the first racially integrated church in California. It is there, as a boy, that he met the late Fannie Lou Hamer.

Michael’s Yale baccalaureate, earned in 1976, is in a then-new discipline: Afro-American Studies. There, as a young student, he studied with Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. After college, Michael wrote for and edited the California Voice, one of Oakland’s Black weekly newspapers. As a student at Berkeley Law, he was vice-president of the Boalt Hall Student Association, and communications director of he Black Law Students’ Association.

Michael’s decades-long tenure as a Washington, D.C. attorney reflects years of good work on the equal employment opportunity front. It is there, as a young lawyer, that he shook the hands of both the late Honorable John Lewis and the Honorable Clarence Thomas.

Returning home to the East Bay, Michael opened a small law practice, specializing in the advocacy of Federal employees. He has worked closely for years with noted civil rights attorney John Burris, Esq. Michael has been a member of Epworth since 2017, serving on the Board of Trustees, and as a lay leader.

Divorced after a 31-year marriage, Michael is the proud father of a girl and boy of 41 and 39, respectively. He is currently working on a memoir, focusing on his life of being “the first Black...” and his lifelong relationship with “quotas,” then “affirmative action,” then “diversity,” and now ”DEI.”