*A forthcoming city report could determine whether New York moves closer to offering cash reparations to Black residents.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he would consider direct payments if the New York City Commission on Racial Equity includes them among its recommendations, the Daily Mail reports. The commission must submit its next reparations study by Jan. 1, 2027.
Mamdani has not endorsed a specific plan, but he said the city must first acknowledge its own history.
“We often think about slavery and the complicity in slavery as being exclusively to certain geographic areas of the country. Here in New York City, we were very complicit,” he told The Root.
Scroll to continue reading
New York’s connection to slavery stretches back centuries. Enslaved Africans arrived in the city in 1626, and a slave market operated near Wall Street from 1711 through 1762. By the mid-1700s, approximately one-fifth of the city’s residents were enslaved. Nearly half of Manhattan households included at least one enslaved person, according to the New York City Parks Department.
Mamdani said he would not decide the issue before reviewing the commission’s conclusions.
“I can’t give you an answer in advance of them, but I can tell you that this is critically important because this is also what it looks like to acknowledge what history truly was,” he said.
The Commission on Racial Equity was created in 2024 to establish a public process centered on truth, healing and reconciliation. The debate has also gained support from civil rights organizations. The New York Civil Liberties Union and Legal Defense Fund recently released “The Other New York: The Legacy of Slavery and the Case for Reparations Now.”
The report argues that racial inequality resulted from intentional policies and cites the destruction of the predominantly Black Seneca Village community among the injustices requiring repair.
MORE NEWS ON EURWEB.COM: Alameda County Reparations Plan Advances, Critics Say: ‘California Was Never a Slave State’
We Publish Breaking News 24/7. Don’t Miss Out! Sign up for our Free daily newsletter HERE.
Leave a Reply