New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced their appointments to a state commission tasked with studying potential slavery reparation, the governor’s office said Thursday.
The panel, created by legislation passed at the end of last year, will look into the state’s history of slavery and how to repair its lasting impacts on descendants of enslaved New Yorkers. Slavery remained legal in New York until 1827.
The commission is comprised of nine members with three members chosen by each the governor, state Assembly speaker and majority leader of the state Senate. The members would have to submit a report of their findings and recommendations to the Legislature no later than one year after the date of the commission’s first meeting.
“As Americans, we have a solemn responsibility to reckon with our history and that includes understanding the painful legacy of slavery in New York,” Hochul said in a statement. “We have assembled an extraordinary group of highly-qualified individuals to serve on the new Commission, and will review their final recommendations.”
Those apppointed by Hochul are:
- Jennifer Jones Austin: the CEO and Executive Director of FPWA, an anti-poverty policy and advocacy nonprofit with 170 member organizations; its work is centered on economic opportunity and upward mobility.
- Timothy R. Hogues: the Commissioner for the Department of Civil Service and President of the Civil Service Commission
- Linda Brown-Robinson: the immediate past president of the Syracuse Onondaga NAACP
Those apppointed by Stewart-Cousins are:
- Darrick Hamilton: a university professor, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School.
- Linda Tarrant-Reid: An author, historian, freelance journalist, photographer and community activist. Although most of her career has been focused on literary pursuits, she is currently administrating grow! Eat, a project to grow fresh produce to distribute free-of-charge to the food insecure in Westchester County
- Seanelle Hawkins: the president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Rochester, an affiliate of the National Urban League
Those appointed by Heastie are:
- Ron Daniels, a founder and president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a progressive, African centered, action-oriented Resource Center dedicated to empowering people of African descent and marginalized communities
- Lurie Daniel Favors, Esq, the executive director at the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College. She is an author, activist and attorney with a long-standing commitment to racial and social justice
- Rev. Dr. Deborah D. Jenkins, a founding pastor of Faith @Work Christian Church, Coop City, sustaining the ministry for almost 19 years with over 30 years of youth development experience
The panel will assess slavery’s lingering socioeconomic impacts on Black and brown people and analyze how descendents of slaves still face disparities in health care, education and employment compared to white New Yorkers.