From the Underground Railroad to the State Capitol: Rev. Dr. Robert Turner’s Joyful 40-Mile March for Reparations in New Jersey
- Umar Muhajjir (aka Stephen)
- Jul 23
- 3 min read
July 23, 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 14, 2026
Contact: Rev. Dr. Robert Turner, Empowerment Temple AME Church| Empowerment Temple |"Pastor Turner Walks 40 Miles from Underground Railroad Site to Trenton, Spotlight Petition Demanding Passage of Two Reparations Bills #40milesfor40acres"
Pictured below with Rev Dr. Robert Turner is NJ's own leader of the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey, Lawrence Hamm, who serves as the organization’s Chairman. Hamm is a Newark native and long-time civil rights activist, having co-founded the People’s Organization for Progress in 1982.
LAWNSIDE, NJ / TRENTON, NJ — Rev. Dr. Robert Turner, pastor of Empowerment Temple AME Church and a Commissioner with the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), completed a 40-mile walk today from the Peter Mott House — a
documented Underground Railroad site in Lawnside — to the New Jersey State Capitol in Trenton. The walk, the 46th in his ongoing "40 Miles for 40 Acres" campaign, drew attention to an active petition — citing New Jersey's status as the last northern state to abolish slavery — that calls for passage of two bills now before the Legislature.
The walk was preceded by a community talk on the evening of Monday, July 13, at the historic Burlington Quaker Meeting House & Center for Conference in Burlington, NJ — a site where Friends have gathered for over 300 years. Rev. Turner discussed his book, Creating a Culture of Repair, and the history behind Walk #46; members of the press were invited to meet with him beforehand. The petition, which is still gathering signatures, points to New Jersey's standing as home to the largest documented Black-white wealth gap of any state — $662,500 in median household wealth for white families compared to under $20,000 for Black and Latino families — along with a homeownership gap (76.6% white versus 41.3% Black) that has barely moved in a decade, and the nation's worst Black-white incarceration disparity, with Black residents incarcerated at 12.5 times the rate of white residents despite comprising only 15% of the state's population.
It calls on the Legislature to pass A1665, establishing a New Jersey Reparations Task Force, and A5253, the Truth, Reconciliation, and Repair Act of New Jersey, which moves beyond study to a framework of acknowledgment, accountability, and redress. The petition notes that reparations task force legislation has been introduced and failed in New Jersey five times — in 2005, 2019, 2022, 2024, and now again as A1665 — even as more than fifteen municipalities, including Newark, Orange, and Essex County, have already passed local resolutions in support.
"We do not walk alone. We walk with a movement," the petition states, organized in solidarity with a coalition that includes the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Salvation and Social Justice, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) of New Jersey, the New Jersey Reparations Council, NJ Faith Allies — Say The Word, Faith in New Jersey, the New Jersey Coalition of Religious Leaders, UU FaithAction NJ, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church — itself born in New Jersey as an act of resistance to racial injustice. "Acknowledgment without accountability is incomplete," said Rev. Turner.
"The path to genuine repair runs through Trenton." The petition will continue collecting signatures in the weeks ahead before being formally delivered to legislators.
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