An association of Baptist churches in Canada is calling for a boycott of the nation’s second-largest supermarket chain to protest the grocer’s appeal of a human rights panel’s finding that the store engaged in racial profiling.
The African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia voted during its 163rd annual session Aug. 19-21 at Emmanuel Baptist Church in the Halifax suburb of Upper Hammonds Plains to engage in the boycott of Sobeys, a Nova Scotia-based grocer with more than 1,500 stores across Canada.
Last year the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission found that Andrella David, a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church, was a victim of racial profiling when she was wrongly accused of shoplifting at a Sobeys store in 2009.
The human rights panel ordered Sobeys to pay David $21,000, provide her with a written apology and participate in training related to racial profiling and discrimination. The grocer appealed the ruling, prompting a protest in March organized with leadership by David’s church.
Lennett Anderson
The African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia, founded in 1854 by an escaped slave from Virginia, is one of 21 associations making up the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches. While the African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia represents just 19 churches, the Rev. Lennett Anderson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Upper Hammonds Plain, told CBC News he hopes to find support from the 450-church Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches when it meets for its annual assembly Aug. 25-28 in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Leadership of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches issued a statement in March recognizing “the ongoing reality and challenges of racial discrimination in Atlantic Canada” and urging all churches to stand together “for justice and for the fair treatment of all people in our society.”
Founded in 1905 to pool resources of three streams of Baptists in the Maritime Provinces, the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches is a member of the North American Baptist Fellowship, one of six regions comprising the Baptist World Alliance.