New York is to consider paying reparations to the descendants of slaves, under plans approved by the city council.
The proposals still need to be signed into law by Democratic Mayor Eric Adams.
However, they would create a truth and reconciliation process to establish historical facts about slavery in the state and direct the city’s Commission on Racial Equity to suggest remedies to the legacy of slavery, including reparations.
New York fully abolished slavery in 1827. But businesses, including the predecessors of some modern banks, are believed to have benefited financially from the slave trade up until as late as 1866.
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.
“The reparations movement is often misunderstood as merely a call for compensation,” council member Farah Louis, a Democrat who sponsored one of the bills, told the city council.
She said that systemic forms of oppression still affected people, including through the underfunding of services in predominantly black neighbourhoods.
“Does that mean we are going to hand everyone a check? No,” Ms Louis said, according to The New York Times. “But starting the conversation is the most important part.”
New York’s annual J’ouvert street party – pictured here earlier this month – commemorates the end of slavery
Credit: GETTY IMAGES
However, Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the city council, who represents Staten Island, criticised the plans.
“I bear no responsibility for slavery,” Mr Borelli said in an interview. “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 Commission on Racial Equity would work with an existing state commission that is already considering the possibility of reparations for slavery. A report from the state commission is expected in early 2025, and the city commission is expected to make recommendations in 2027.
The city’s commission was created out of a 2021 racial justice initiative during then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. 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.
It is estimated that the studies will cost $2.5 million (£1.9 million).
New York is the latest city to consider reparations. Tulsa, Oklahoma, the home of a notorious massacre against black residents in 1921, announced a similar commission last month.
Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to offer reparations to black residents and their descendants in 2021, including distributing some payments of $25,000 in 2023, according to PBS. The eligibility was based on harm suffered as a result of the city’s discriminatory housing policies or practices.
San Francisco approved reparations in February, but the mayor later cut the funds, saying that reparations should instead be carried out by the federal government.
California budgeted $12 million for a reparations program that included helping black residents research their ancestry, but it was defeated in the state’s legislature earlier this month.
Allison Hedges Maser, a spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams, told The New York Times that he supported the legislation and called it a step toward “addressing systemic inequities” and reconciliation.
“New York City has a moral obligation to confront its historical role in the institution of slavery, including harms and long-lasting consequences,” Ms. Maser said in a statement.