New York lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill to examine the city's significant role in slavery and consider reparations for the descendants of slaves.
If signed into law, the City Council's package of bills would follow in the footsteps of several other municipalities across the U.S. that have sought to address the country's dark history, as well as a separate New York state commission that began work this year.
In 1827, New York City abolished slavery entirely. But businesses, including the forerunners of some modern banks, continued to profit financially from the slave trade, likely as late as 1866. The lawmakers behind the proposals noted that the harm caused by the institution continues to be felt by black Americans today.
“The reparations movement is often misunderstood as simply a call for compensation,” Councilwoman Farah Louis, a Democrat who sponsored one of the bills, said Thursday at the City Council. She explained that systemic forms of oppression continue to impact people through redlining, environmental racism and underfunded services in predominantly black neighborhoods.
The bills must still be signed by Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. The city expressed its support in a statement, calling the legislation “another important step toward addressing systemic inequities, promoting reconciliation, and creating a more just and equitable future for all New Yorkers.”
The bills would direct the city's Commission on Racial Equity to propose remedies for the legacy of slavery, including reparations. It would also create a truth and reconciliation process to establish the historical facts of slavery in the state.
One proposal also calls for the city to install an informational sign on Wall Street in Manhattan to mark the site of New York City's first slave market, which operated from 1711 to 1762. A sign was installed nearby in 2015, but Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said its location was incorrect.
The commission will work with an existing state commission that is also considering reparations. A report from the state commission, which held its first public meeting in late July, is expected in early 2025. The city effort won’t have to make recommendations until 2027.
The city commission was created as part of a 2021 racial equity initiative during then-Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, which also recommended the city track cost-of-living data and add a commitment to addressing “past and ongoing harms” to the preamble of the city charter.
“Your call and the call of your ancestors for reparations have not gone unheard,” Linda Tigani, executive director of the Racial Equity Commission, said at a news conference before the council vote.
An analysis of the financial impact of the bills showed that the research would cost $2.5 million.
New York is the latest city to explore reparations. Tulsa, Oklahoma, site of a notorious massacre of black residents in 1921, announced a similar commission last month.
Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to offer reparations to black residents and their descendants in 2021, including distributing some $25,000 payments in 2023, according to PBS. Eligibility for reparations was based on harms suffered as a result of the city’s discriminatory housing policies or practices.
San Francisco approved reparations in February, but the mayor later cut funding, saying the federal government should do reparations. California set aside $12 million for a reparations program that included helping black residents research their ancestry, but it was rejected by the state legislature this month.