By MAYSOON KHAN, Associated Press/Report for America
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) __ New York state will create a commission tasked with
considering reparations to address the persistent, harmful effects of slavery in
the state, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
It comes at a time when many states and towns throughout the United States
attempt to figure out how to best reckon with 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 is hard to embrace is the fact that our
state also flourished from that slavery. It’s not a beautiful story, but indeed
it is the truth.”
The law, which was passed by state lawmakers in June, says the commission will
examine the institution of slavery, which was fully abolished in New York by
1827, and its ongoing impact on Black New Yorkers today.
“The battle for civil rights was not below the Mason_Dixon line. The largest
port of slave trade was in Charleston, South Carolina and Wall Street, New York,
“ said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at the signing ceremony. “So this today
starts a process of taking the veil off of northern inequality and saying we
must repair the damage and it can be an example for this nation.”
The nine-member commission will be required to deliver a report a year after its
first meeting. Its recommendations could potentially include monetary
compensation but would be non-binding. The panel’s findings are intended to spur
policy changes, programs and projects that attempt to remedy slavery’s harmful
effects.
The idea of using public money to compensate the descendants of enslaved people
is almost certain to draw a backlash from some, including some white people who
don’t believe they should have to pay for the sins of long-ago ancestors, and
other ethnic groups that weren’t involved 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 wouldn’t do. And I know she had to wrestle with it. And I know
her political advisors told her it`s too risky, “the famed civil rights activist
said. “But she did it because it’s right.”
The governor and the legislative leaders of the state Assembly and Senate will
each appoint three qualified members to the commission. They have 90 days to
make their picks.
“This is 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.
“It begins the conversation with one recognizing the issues 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 come at an “astronomical cost” to all New Yorkers.
“The reparations of slavery were paid 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`s unrealistic for states to meet the potentially expensive
price tag that could come with cash reparations.
California in 2020 became the first state to create a reparations task force.
The group handed 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 policies could be difficult, given
the state is facing a heavy budget deficit.
Other states, including Massachusetts and New Jersey, have considered studying
reparations, but none have yet 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 professor at the Harvard Kennedy School who teaches
civil rights and researches the economics of reparations, said state-led
initiatives similar to New York’s are crucial for reaching national
reconciliation and repair.
“States and municipalities cannot solve a national problem by themselves, but
they can be a means by which we reach 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 studying 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 the infrastructure of New York
City __ “including the wall that gives Wall Street its name.”
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
wealth that derived from exploiting the labor of enslaved people.
“We have to reckon with that,” Adams, a Democrat and former state senator, said
during a City Hall news conference.
