Will New York Make Reparations a Reality?

As New Yorkers celebrate Juneteenth this month, it’s important to reflect on one of the holiday’s enduring lessons: delayed freedom has lasting consequences. This lesson continues to resonate 161 years since the first Black Independence Day as New York delays crucial racial justice efforts, leaving the state’s commitment to racial equity unfulfilled.

Three years ago, New York established the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies to study the legacy of slavery and its continued impact on Black communities. Reparations are a way to make amends for slavery and the ongoing harm to Black New Yorkers, and establishing the commission was a first step towards righting historic wrongs.

The commission was poised to release a draft of its long-awaited reparations report this summer. But the recently passed state budget included a provision granting the commission a two-year extension to release its report. Now we are left wondering how this delay will impact Black New Yorkers currently facing ongoing harm.

New York’s Ties to Slavery

Over the past three years, community members across New York State, from Buffalo to Harlem, have attended public hearings providing testimony on the legacy of slavery in their families and speaking about the ongoing harms they have faced as a result of systems built on slavery. They have opened their churches to the commission, submitted written testimony, and provided evidence that, in some instances, is shocking and, in others, all too familiar.

Having attended many of these hearings, I can unequivocally say that slavery was an institution in New York. It left an indelible mark on the lives of Black people that persists to this day.

In Queens, for instance, we heard from a descendant of a woman who was once denied admission to Forest Hills High School because the school did not accept Black students. She would later help with the effort to integrate the same school in 1945.

In Harlem, a descendant of enslaved Africans testified that his great-great-great-grandfather was struck by a car and denied treatment at Harlem Hospital. He died on the streets nearby, which is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. His family has preserved this story across generations, ensuring what happened is not forgotten.

In Newburg, we heard firsthand from a victim of urban renewal – the mid-20th century policy of demolishing hundreds of Black neighborhoods throughout the country. He explained that his father lost his business as a result of these practices. He’s one of the many people whose families paid the price for policies that uprooted thriving Black communities.

These incidents are part of an intentional system; one that extracted wealth, restricted opportunity, and shaped the inequality that still defines New York today. But many New Yorkers already know this. The question is not whether harm exists, it’s whether the state is prepared to act.

The state’s decision to spend an additional three years before it takes any action to address these harms raises a lot of questions about when Black New Yorkers will receive reparations. Meanwhile, the impact of discrimination continues to harm Black individuals and communities across the state. This delay is not just a bureaucratic inconvenience. It is a disservice to those who have suffered the profound and lasting consequences of inequality.

Learning from NYC’s Mistakes

This is not the first delay in the fight for racial equity for Black New Yorkers. New York City offers a cautionary example. In 2022, New York City voters approved amendments to the City Charter to create a racial equity office, plan, and commission. The Charter required the mayor to release a detailed racial equity plan by early 2024 so that it could be part of the City’s budget process and “help bring our City’s spending priorities in line with what the community needs most.”

Now, after a two-year delay and a lawsuit filed by the New York City Commission on Racial Equity, the city has finally released the preliminary racial equity plan. Not only is there no funding attached to the plan, but it also fails to meaningfully address racial disparities.

The plan doesn’t explain how its recommendations will actually reduce inequality. And it includes few metrics or targets for measuring success. To truly make progress, it is essential that agencies set explicit objectives and track their outcomes, to ensure accountability.

We aren’t the only ones who have noticed these flaws in the equity plan. The New York City Commission on Racial Equity raised similar concerns.

State officials cannot make the same mistakes.

The reparations report from the state commission – whenever it’s finally released – will undoubtedly provide ample evidence of past and present harm to Black New Yorkers. Will the legislature respond to the report’s findings with clear, measurable actions to help repair historic wrongs? That’s an open question, and the answer will depend on lawmakers’ political will.

New York has studied, exposed, and documented injustices committed against Black Americans. Now state leaders must decide whether they are ready to truly make amends for those harms.