What to know
- New York state will create a commission tasked with considering reparations to address the persistent and harmful effects of slavery in the state, under a bill signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
- “In New York we like to think we’re on the right side of this. Slavery was a product of the South, the Confederacy,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at the bill-signing ceremony in New York City. “What’s hard to accept is the fact that our state also flourished because of that slavery. It’s not a beautiful story, but it is indeed the truth.”
- The governor and legislative leaders of the state Assembly and Senate will each appoint three qualified members to the commission. They have 90 days to make their elections.
NEW YORK — New York state will create a commission tasked with considering reparations to address the persistent and harmful effects of slavery in the state, under a bill signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
It comes at a time when many states and cities across the United States are trying to find the best way to confront the country’s dark past, and follows in the footsteps of similar task forces established in California and Illinois.
“In New York we like to think we’re on the right side of this. Slavery was a product of the South, the Confederacy,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at the bill-signing ceremony in New York City. “What’s hard to accept is the fact that our state also flourished because of that slavery. It’s not a beautiful story, but it is indeed the truth.”
The law, which was passed by state lawmakers in June, says the commission will examine the institution of slavery, which was completely abolished in New York in 1827, and its ongoing impact on black New Yorkers today.
“The battle for civil rights was not below the Mason-Dixon line. The largest slave trading port was in Charleston, South Carolina, and Wall Street, New York,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at the signing ceremony. “So today begins a process to remove the veil from the inequality in the North and saying that the damage must be repaired and that it can be an example for this nation.”
The nine-member commission must submit a report one year after its first meeting. Their recommendations could potentially include monetary compensation, but would not be binding. The panel’s conclusions are intended to promote changes in policies, programs and projects that attempt to remedy the harmful effects of slavery.
The idea of using public money to compensate descendants of enslaved people is almost certain to provoke a backlash from some, including some whites who don’t believe they should have to pay for the sins of long-ago ancestors, and others ethnic groups that did not participate in the slave trade.
Sharpton said he expected Hochul to pay a political price for convening the commission.
“I want to give credit to this governor for having the audacity and courage to do what others would not do. And I know she had to struggle with that. And I know her political advisors told her it was too risky,” the famous civil rights activist said. “But she did it because it’s the right thing to do.”
The governor and legislative leaders of the state Assembly and Senate will each appoint three qualified members to the commission. They have 90 days to make their elections.
“It’s not just about who we’re going to write a check to and what the amount is,” said Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the first Black person to hold the position.
“The conversation begins with someone recognizing the problems that affected black people and descendants of slaves in this state,” he said.
State Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt said in a statement that he believes New York’s recommendations will have an “astronomical cost” for all New Yorkers.
“Slavery reparations were paid for with the blood and lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans who fought to end slavery during the Civil War,” he said. He added that it is unrealistic for states to meet the potentially costly price tag that cash reparations could entail.
In 2020, California became the first state to create a reparations task force. The group delivered its two-year report to state lawmakers in June, who then introduced a bill that would create an agency to carry out some of the panel’s more than 100 recommendations, including helping families with genealogical research. . But turning those proposals into policy could prove difficult, as the state faces a steep budget deficit.
Other states, including Massachusetts and New Jersey, have considered studying reparations, but none have passed legislation. A Chicago suburb in Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to make reparations available to Black residents through a $10 million housing project in 2021.
Cornell William Brooks, a Harvard Kennedy School professor who teaches civil rights and researches the economics of reparations, said state initiatives similar to New York’s are crucial to achieving national reconciliation and reparations.
“States and municipalities cannot solve a national problem alone, but they can be a means to achieve a national solution,” he said.
The U.S. Congress apologized to African Americans for slavery in 2009, but a federal proposal to create a commission to study reparations has long stalled.
The legislation establishing the New York commission notes that the first enslaved Africans arrived at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, then a Dutch settlement, around the 1620s and helped build New York City’s infrastructure, “ including the wall that gives its name to Wall Street.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday expressed support for the measure, noting that some venerable institutions in New York, as elsewhere, are tied to the wealth derived from the exploitation of slave labor.
“We have to take that into account,” Adams, a Democrat and former state senator, said during a news conference at City Hall.
Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California contributed to this report.
2023-12-20 02:15:24
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