The New York City Council on Thursday passed several bills to examine the city's historical role in slavery and systemic racial injustices.
The Council approved the creation of the Commission on Racial Equity (CORE), which will study the ongoing impacts of slavery in the city and recommend changes to prevent future harm. The bill, co-sponsored by Brooklyn Council Member Crystal Hudson and Queens Council Member Nantasha Williams, asks the commission to organize public meetings and issue a report in about two years.
Their work would be coordinated with the New York State Community Comission on Reparation Remedies.
The Council also approved to establish a reparations task force, which will investigate the city's role in perpetuating slavery and racial injustices and suggest reparative actions, including monetary compensation or symbolic gestures like public apologies. This bill, co-sponsored by Brooklyn Council Member Farah Louis and Williams, would study and propose eligibility criteria for receiving reparations.
“The legacy of slavery and systemic racism has impacted all facets of our society today, and it’s important that our city recognizes and takes steps to redress these longstanding harms,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in a statement after the vote.
In addition, a task force would consider creating a citywide New York City Freedom Trail and a Lower Manhattan Freedom Trail, while signage would be placed near the intersection of Wall and Pearl Streets in Manhattan to mark the site of New York's first slave market.
L. Joy Williams, the president of the Brooklyn NAACP, said the bills were decades in the making.
"On the land we are standing on right now and in the surrounding area, people of African descent were brought to these shores and sold and trafficked and were worked to build this city," Williams said at a press conference ahead of the City Council vote.
People think slavery is something that is far gone, something that happened centuries ago, she said.
"We often forget that it is not that far removed, that my grandmother's grandmother was enslaved," Williams noted.
Louis said generations of oppression is in need of study.
"Black women, in particular, continue to be disadvantaged in both public and private sectors, facing systemic inequities that hinder their progress and well-being. Addressing these compounded injustices is essential to forming a more just municipality and society,” she said.
The harm slavery caused Black Americans continues to be felt today, Hudson said.
"Our nation’s inability to properly redress such a historic wrong allows this deep injustice to continue to manifest itself in distinct, tangible ways––be it the prison-industrial complex, predatory lending, redlining, or inequality in our school systems,” she added.
Crown Heights resident Iyafin Olatunji, who was there in support of the Council's vote, said she had no animosity towards anyone, but reparations for Black Americans were "past due."
"I want to get reparations in my lifetime," the 94-year-old said.
Not too many generations removed, there were people who were enslaved and people who could not chart a course for their own lives and belonged to another human being, Williams said.
"What we are saying with this process is that we acknowledge that we repair, and we have a commitment to never do it again," she said.
The bills now head to Mayor Eric Adams' desk to be signed into law.
