Almost a year ago, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an important piece of racial justice legislation into law, creating the state’s Community Commission on Reparations Remedies.
The board is tasked with studying the history of slavery in the state and what it might look like to provide restitution to the descendants of enslaved people who live here.
The committee was formed due in no small part to the racially motivated killing of 10 people at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo in May 2022, which also prompted the committee’s first meeting to take place here this week.
According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the commission has to draft a report including “remedies and recommendations to address these historic wrongs,” adding that that’s exactly what reparations are meant to be: “A way to make amends for slavery and the ongoing harm to Black New Yorkers. These harms go beyond dollars and cents. Today, Black communities face systemic racism in education, employment, health, housing, and over-representation in our criminal legal system. These present-day problems have their roots in slavery’s legacy.”
During Tuesday night’s meeting, Buffalo native Aymanuel Radford, a member of New Yorkers for Reparations, spoke to the crowd. “Those issues that I touched on—the racism issue, the environmental racism issue, and criminal justice—are issues that directly impact me and my community. It was important as a Buffalo resident that this being the first meeting of the reparations committee to share those issues and to be transparent about what I hope to be done by this committee,” he said.
Commissioner Tim Hogues said education will be a focus of the committee’s work through the series of public meetings that will take place across the state over the next year.
“We’re going to define what reparations should look like, if it’s in the form of money or if it’s in the form of policy change, but we haven’t defined that, and this is the process that we’re going through,” added Commission Chair Seanelle Hawkins.
The full committee meeting from Tuesday night can be viewed here; the next public meeting is scheduled for December 16 in Queens. More information on the committee can be found here.
It is worth noting that at least one speaker brought up racial injustice when it comes to environmental issues; that question is at the heart of opposition to the proposed tunnel and cap project for the Kensington Expressway. Both the New York State Department of Transportation and the East Side Parkways Coalition and its supporters are due in court next Monday, November 18, for another hearing. The project is currently under a temporary restraining order, meaning no work can be done on the $1 billion road project at this time.
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