The commission has 12 months from its first meeting to produce a report with recommendations for reparations for black New Yorkers to address the long-term impacts of the legacy of slavery. New York is one of nearly two dozen cities and states that have introduced legislation to do so.
Governor’s Office/Flickr
Governor Kathy Hochul and local leaders will sign legislation establishing the reparations task force in late 2023.
The New York Reparations Commission met for the first time on July 30, a few months after Governor Kathy Hochul officially announced its creation.
With eight of its nine members present, the committee unanimously elected a chair, Dr. Seanelle Hawkins, who is currently president of the Urban League of Rochester and has a long career in nonprofit leadership. The committee was unable to agree on a vice chair, so the matter was adjourned to a next meeting, to be held within 30 days.
In an interview with City Limits, Commissioner Jennifer Jones-Austin explained that the group needs to implement “the coordination structure” for its work before an official meeting.
Its task is time-sensitive: from the date of its first meeting, the commission has 12 months to produce a report with recommendations for action to provide reparations for black New Yorkers and address the long-term impacts of the legacy of slavery.
Trevor Smith, a young organizer with New Yorkers for Reparations, is at the forefront of the grassroots effort to build public support for reparations and for the New York State Commission itself.
“When the recommendations are released, legislators still have to write bills and get them signed based on the recommendations,” Smith said. “So there has to be a lobbying apparatus to push legislators to actually turn those recommendations into law.”
Jones-Austin did not elaborate on what the commission’s recommendations might include, but suggested they would consider the results of similar initiatives in other cities.
“Only when the work is completed and we develop a sense of the extent of the damage and how it manifests itself can we make recommendations for actual reparations that might result from it,” she said.
Across the country, 22 municipalities have voted to establish a reparations commission or task force, and 11 states have introduced legislation to create one. The first task force was established in California, and a controversial housing reparations program is currently underway in Evanston, Illinois.
Evanston’s program is a response to the city’s history of anti-black housing policies. Qualified applicants are provided $25,000. Recipients can use the funds in a variety of ways, such as mortgage assistance, home improvements, a down payment on a home, or a direct cash payout. The program has been praised as an effective way to combat the effects of the wealth gap caused by racial inequality, but it has also been sued by a conservative group.
In New York State, the racial wealth gap is larger than the national average. The white population is nearly 15 times wealthier than the black population. According to a report from the city treasurer, the median household net worth of white New Yorkers is $276,900, far higher than that of black New Yorkers, which is $18,870.
“The racial wealth gap is the best single economic indicator of the cumulative intergenerational effects of white supremacy,” said Dr. William Darity, an economist and scholar at the Sanford School of Public Policy who studies inequality by race and class.
However, Darity believes that individual states’ efforts to make reparations will be “incomplete” because they do not have enough resources to pay the amount owed.
His research puts the total reparations owed to Black Americans at $16 trillion, which he believes should be paid by the federal government. The figure is derived from the roughly $800,000 difference in household wealth between Black and white Americans, as shown by the 2019 census.
“I think people in certain communities and states believe that they can get something they can call reparations — that’s a no-brainer,” Darity told City Limits. “And so they’re pursuing that instead of getting into the much more difficult fight of reshaping Congress and getting other elected officials to get Congress to take the necessary action.”
While still in its early stages, New York’s Commission on Reparations has gained more momentum than similar efforts at the federal level. A bill commonly known as “HR 40” would establish a reparations commission to study the effects of slavery on a national level and provide an accompanying list of solutions. The bill was first introduced to Congress in 1989 by Representative John Conyers and has not yet received enough support to pass.
The fact that New York has succeeded not only in establishing its own commission but also in hosting its first meeting represents a significant step. However, if the status of previous measures is any indicator, there is no guarantee of a clear path to implementing this policy.
Screenshot/Anastasia Tomkins
A livestream of the state’s reparations commission during its first meeting on July 30.
As Gothamist reports, racial equity reforms passed by New York City voters in 2022 have been delayed in implementation. The reforms were intended to make racial equity an integral part of the city’s decision-making processes, according to the Racial Equity Commission that drafted them.
These included plans to revise “cost of living” metrics and set racial equity goals across all city agencies every two years. Deadlines for implementing these measures were missed and then extended. A preliminary “citywide racial equity plan” is due to be submitted this fall, according to a revised timeline on the website of the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Ethnic Justice, which was created to implement the reforms.
The issue of reparations as an aspect of racial justice reform can be controversial and is often divided along racial lines. A 2021 Pew Research Center poll found that 77 percent of Black Americans support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people, while only 18 percent of white Americans say so.
“None of us lived through the era of institutional slavery, but the effects of those evils actually continue to this day. We see it in the wealth gap, we see it in other forms,” said Pastor Duke Kwon, co-author of the book “Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair.”
“The effects of this original sin continue to exist today, and with them our calling and moral obligation to make amends for these original sins,” he said.
As the fight for reparations continues, the gap between rich and poor in New York is widening. Young New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 30 are more likely to experience poverty than other groups, with people of color disproportionately affected. And a recent report from the Community Service Society (a City Limits funder) found that up to a quarter of New Yorkers with student loan debt are experiencing serious economic hardship. Again, the study reveals significant racial disparities.
By all estimates, it is virtually impossible for black citizens to save or invest enough to reach the financial level of white citizens without redistributing resources. Yet legal challenges to racial equality initiatives are becoming increasingly common.
“This is a time for us, the civil rights movement, for the people directly impacted and our allies, to keep pushing forward,” said Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, director of the NYCLU’s Racial Justice Center. “We must keep fighting for reparations. I think it’s more important now than ever to keep that momentum going and keep fighting for what’s rightfully ours.”
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