Six Thousand Churches, 19 Black Banks and a Goal of 50 Per Cent Home Ownership

• The AME Church partnered with 19 Black-owned banks in the US
• The Black Wealth 2020 plan aims for Black home ownership above 50 per cent
• It also targets more Black businesses and more saving with Black banks
• The bishops said the idea reaches the Caribbean and wider diaspora

One of America’s oldest Black denominations has put its weight behind Black-owned banks in a push to raise home ownership. The Voice reported that the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church had formed a partnership with 19 Black-owned banks in the United States.

The partnership, called Black Wealth 2020, grew out of an initiative launched in Washington, DC, in 2015 to implement an economic blueprint for Black America by 2020. Its goals include increasing Black home ownership to more than 50 per cent nationwide, growing the number of Black businesses from 2.6 million to four million, and raising their average turnover from $72,500 to $150,000. It also seeks to increase the amount saved with, and lent by, Black banks.

There are more than 6,000 AME churches in America, and the Voice reported that one Episcopal District that had partnered with Black banks had already seen a rise in the amount of money saved.

In a statement, the AME Council of Bishops said: “The African Methodist Episcopal Church is excited about the possibilities this partnership with black banks across the United States provides. In fact, the possibilities extend beyond the borders of the United States, but throughout the Diaspora. The African Methodist Episcopal Church has over 4,000 churches in Africa, the Caribbean, West Indies and Europe.”

The idea behind the partnership, that a church’s deposits and members’ savings can be steered towards institutions that will lend to them for homes, has a Jamaican parallel. Jamaica’s credit union movement grew partly out of church groups. For Jamaican churches and diaspora congregations, the question is whether their combined savings are working to help members get mortgages and buy land, or simply sitting where they do little for the people who deposited them.

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