Nine commissioners are slated to meet for the first time next week to start an 18-month study of potential reparations for descendants of enslaved people and the impacts of New York’s role on the slave trade.
The state’s Community Commission on Reparations Remedies will meet on July 30 in the state Capitol in Albany and outline their work, which will continue for the next year and a half before the group submits a final report to the Legislature by the end of 2025.
Slavery remained legal in New York until 1827, but the state insured slave owners in other parts of the country for many more decades. Commissioners who will study reparations include experts from historically Black colleges and universities, civil rights and poverty experts, faith leaders and others, who were appointed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie earlier this year.
“They all have a unique expertise, which is very exciting to see, that they come from different lenses, whether it’s public, private [or] academia, they all have a unique perspective to bring to the table,” Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages said Thursday.
Several commissioners were not available to comment or did not respond to requests to be interviewed Thursday.
The commission does not have a formal timeline dictating how often the group will meet, or where.
Solages sponsored the bill to create the commission, which Gov. Hochul signed into law last December. This year’s state budget included $5 million to conduct the study, which will focus on three areas of history: Impacts of original enslavement, segregation and Jim Crow and ongoing racism.
Commissioners will not be paid for their time, and will conduct the study as volunteers, but will be compensated for travel for hearings or related meetings.
The commission will explore ways to close the income inequality gap for Black New Yorkers that stems from slavery, and practices like redlining and mass incarceration. New York’s commission will determine several ways reparations could be made in Black communities but does not rule out financial compensation.
Solages said the conversation will start the healing process for Black communities who have been long disenfranchised by different social and political systems.
“I believe they’re going to come up with a report that really highlights what we can do to really begin this healing process and to talk about how we can take apart these systems that were really created to suppress individuals in New York state,” Solages said. “Whether it’s redlining, unfair housing policies, you know, economic practices, there are systems that exist today that we need to dismantle to ensure that we have an equitable and just New York.”
The final report to be delivered to the Legislature will be the basis of many pieces of future legislation.
After tense conversations at a public forum about reparations earlier this year, commissioners have their work cut out for them, getting heated over which New Yorkers should be eligible for the benefit. Some Black people argue reparations should only be for direct descendants of slaves brought to the United States in the 18th Century against their will — not immigrants who came to the country later on.
Solages, who also chairs the state Black Puerto Rican Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, said those difficult conversations are what the commission is for, and Tuesday’s meeting will be historic.
“We’ve been talking about centuries upon centuries of disenfranchisement of Black Americans and so when we convene, it’s going to be historical,” Solages said. “This is actually a reflection point to say that we are not our past, but our future, and that we can have a better future for all.”
New York’s commission will mark the third task force in the nation tasked with studying potential reparations for the impact of slavery, following in the footsteps of the state of California and the city of Boston. California’s task force that studied reparations determined the cost would be about $500 billion.