New York state will create a commission tasked with considering reparations to address the persistent, harmful effects of slavery in the state, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
It comes at a time when many states and towns throughout the United States attempt to figure out how to best reckon with the country’s dark past, and follows in the footsteps of similar task forces in California and Illinois.
“In New York, we like to think we’re on the right side of this. Slavery was a product of the South, the Confederacy,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at the bill signing ceremony in New York City. “What is hard to embrace is the fact that our state also flourished from that slavery. It’s not a beautiful story, but indeed it is the truth.”
Under the law, which was passed by state lawmakers in June, the study commission will examine the extent to which the federal and state government supported the institution of slavery. It will also look at how New York, which fully abolished slavery by 1827, engaged in the transfer of enslaved Africans and the ongoing effects of the institution on Black New Yorkers today.
“The battle for civil rights was not below the Mason–Dixon line. The largest port of slave trade was in Charleston, South Carolina and Wall Street, New York,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at the signing ceremony. “So this today starts a process of taking the veil off of northern inequality and saying we must repair the damage and it can be an example for this nation.”
The nine-member commission will be required to deliver a report a year after its first meeting. Its recommendations could potentially include monetary compensation but would be non-binding. Its findings are intended to spur policy changes and lead to programs and projects that attempt to remedy the negative effects of slavery on Black New Yorkers.
The idea of using public money to compensate the descendants of enslaved people is almost certain to draw…
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