Lawmakers in New York City recently passed legislation to examine the city’s substantial involvement in slavery and to consider reparations to enslaved individuals’ descendants.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, still needs to sign the bundle of laws approved by the City Council into law. He did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.
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Slavery was completely prohibited in New York in 1827. However, businesses—including the ancestors of some modern banks—kept making money off the slave trade until around 1866.
Democratic Council Member Farah Louis, who is the sponsor of one of the measures, informed the City Council, “The reparations movement is often misunderstood as merely a call for compensation.” She clarified that services in communities with a high concentration of Black residents are underfunded, and redlining and environmental racism are examples of how systematic forms of oppression still affect people this present day.
The measures would mandate that suggestions for redress, including reparations, to address the history of slavery be made by the city’s Commission on Racial Equity. To establish historical facts regarding slavery in the state, it would also develop a truth and reconciliation mechanism.
A requirement of one of the ideas is that the location of New York’s first slave market be marked with a sign to be placed by the city on Wall Street in Manhattan.
The committee would collaborate with an already-existing state body that is also thinking about paying back slaves. Early in 2025, the state panel is anticipated to provide a report. It would take until 2027 for the municipal endeavor to offer suggestions.
Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, the city’s commission was established as a result of a 2021 racial justice program. Although reparations were intended to be a consideration at first, it resulted in the commission’s formation, which tracked living standards statistics and included a promise to address “past and continuing harms” to the first clause of the municipal charter.
“Your call and your ancestor’s call for reparations had not gone unheard,” Racial Equity Commission executive director Linda Tigani stated during a press conference before the council decision.
The studies are estimated to cost $2.5 million based on a financial impact study of legislation.
The city that is most recent to research reparations is New York. A commission of the same nature was announced this month in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the scene of a historic slaughter against Black citizens in 1921.
Reparations for Black people and their descendants were first offered by Evanston, Illinois, in 2021. Part of the payments, totaling $25,000, were distributed in 2023, as reported by PBS. The qualifying criteria were based on the harm brought about by the discriminatory housing practices or policies of the city.
The mayor of San Francisco withheld the monies after the city council decided in February that the federal government should oversee carrying out reparations. A reparations program that involved assisting Black citizens in researching their history was allocated $12 million by California, but it was defeated in the state legislature earlier this month.
