New York is considering paying reparations to the descendants of slaves under new plans approved by the City Council.
The proposals – which are aimed at acknowledging and addressing the impact of slavery in New York City – are yet to be signed into law by Democratic Mayor Eric Adams.
According to the City Council, New York City had one of the highest rates if slave ownership in the country during the 1700s, before abolishing it in 1872.
However, businesses across the city, including the predecessors of some modern banks, continued to benefit financially from the slave trade up until 1866 with the lawmakers behind the proposals noting that the harms caused by the institution are still felt by Black Americans today.
One of the proposals would also require the city to install a sign on Wall Street in Manhattan to mark the site of New York’s first slave market which operated between 1711 and 1762.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said: ‘The wealth of Wall Street banks was built on the backs of the human beings sold on that very spot, and we have a moral obligation to accurately acknowledge not only this slave market’s tragic history, the pain of enslaved people in our city, and the role slavery had in New York’s economy, one which has echoed painfully across generations’.
Council Member Farah Louis, a Democrat who sponsored one of the bills, told the City Council on Thursday: ‘The reparations movement is often misunderstood as merely a call for compensation’ .
She added that systemic forms of oppression still affected Black American’s today, including through the underfunding of crucial services in predominantly black neighborhoods.
‘Does that mean we are going to hand everyone a check? No,’ Louis said, reports The New York Times.
‘But starting the conversation is the most important part.’
City Hall signaled the mayor’s support in a statement calling the legislation ‘another crucial step towards addressing systemic inequities, fostering reconciliation, and creating a more just and equitable future for all New Yorkers.’
But not all city council members were on board with the new bill.
Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the city council, who represents Staten Island, criticized the plans.
‘I bear no responsibility for slavery,’ Borelli said.
‘Unless someone could explain to me why I should bear some individual and societal guilt through my taxes, I’m going to be opposed.’
The new bills would direct the city’s Commission on Racial Equity to suggest remedies to the legacy of slavery, including reparations.
It would also create a truth and reconciliation process to establish historical facts about slavery in the state.
The commission would work with the existing state commission, which is also considering the possibility of reparations.
A report from the state panel, which held its first public meeting in July, is expected in early 2025, however, the city effort wouldn’t need to produce recommendations until 2027.
The city’s commission was created out of a 2021 racial injustice initiative during Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration from 2014 to 2022.
Although it was initially expected to consider reparations, instead it led to the creation of the commission, tracking data on the cost of living and adding a commitment to remedy ‘past and continuing harms’ to the city charter’s preamble.
‘Your call and your ancestor’s call for reparations had not gone unheard,’ Linda Tigani, executive director of the commission, said at a news conference before the council vote.
A financial impact analysis of the bills estimated that the studies would cost $2.5million.
New York is the latest city to study reparations after Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced a similar commission last month.