New York’s reparations commission will hold its third meeting in New Rochelle and Syracuse on Tuesday as it prepares to study the lasting harms of slavery and discrimination on Black New Yorkers and recommend solutions.
The webcast meeting is in two distant spots because its nine appointees come from across the state, and three will meet at each of the two locations. Its purpose is to detail the panel’s steps for conducting the study, which is expected to take place over the next nine months and was funded with $5 million in this year’s state budget.
New York is the second state, after California, to create a panel to study ways to make reparations to Black Americans for the legacy of enslavement and discrimination. Several cities also have explored the idea or plan to do so. The New York City Council voted last month to have the city’s Commission on Racial Equity suggest remedies by 2027, working in cooperation with the state reparations panel.
Can members of the public attend Tuesday’s meeting?
The meeting starts at 11:30 a.m. and will be available online . Members of the public can attend at either location and speak during a comment session at the end. It’s being held at the Remington Clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Club of New Rochelle, in Westchester County; and at Coulter Hall at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse.
The commission — officially named the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies — held its first two meetings in Albany on July 30 and Aug. 27. Created by a law Gov. Kathy Hochul signed in December, it is charged with completing a report with recommendations within a year of its first meeting.
Who serves on the reparations commission and how were they chosen?
The commission members include non-profit leaders, scholars, an NAACP leader, a state official and a faith leader. They were named by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the two leaders of the state legislature: Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.
The panel is led by Seanelle Hawkins, president and CEO of the Urban League of Rochester, who was chosen as its chairperson by other commissioners at their first meeting in July.
Westchester member:New panel to study reparations for Black New Yorkers includes Westchester nonprofit leader
Its members also include LInda Tarrant-Reid, an author and nonprofit leader from New Rochelle. Tarrant-Reid, who has studied and written about Black history for 20 years, spoke to the USA Today Network about the panel’s impending work and the sorts of remedies it may consider in an interview in March, shortly after the members were appointed. She has since been named secretary for the commission.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.