We proudly stand united as dedicated members of the Capital Area Urban League and concerned citizens, rallying alongside countless others. Our mission is clear: we implore all New Yorkers, organizations, and fellow Americans to join our cause and fervently call upon Governor Hochul to swiftly sign the Reparations Bill NOW!

Aleida, Lloyd, and Scott.
Reparations & Restitution Roundtable
The Capital Area Urban League (CAUL)

See excerpts from Senate Bill S1163A

JUSTIFICATION 

AN ACT to acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the City of New York and the State of New York; to establish the New York State Community Commission on reparations remedies, to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against people of African descent, and the impact of these forces on living people of African descent and to make determinations regarding compensation; and providing for the repeal of such provisions upon expiration thereof The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact:

Contrary to what many believe, slavery was not just a Southern institution. Prior to the American Revolution, there were more enslaved Africans in New York City than in any other city except Charleston, South Carolina. During this period, enslaved Africans accounted for 20% of the population of New York and approximately 40% of colonial New York's households owned enslaved Africans. These enslaved Africans were an integral part of the population that settled and developed what we now know as the State of New York.

The first enslaved Africans arrived in New Amsterdam, a Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, around 1627. These enslaved Africans did not belong to individuals but worked for the Dutch West India Company. These first enslaved Africans cleared forests, prepared land for agriculture, and built an infrastructure of roads, buildings, and walls of timber and earthwork, including the wall that gave Wall Street its name.

During the following years, more enslaved Africans were brought to the New World for the purpose of expanding the settlement. 

Slave labor built and maintained ships used for trade between North America, Europe, they also worked in private homes and on plantations. Life was repressive for enslaved Africans in New York. 

The New York City Common Council passed several restrictive laws designed to curtail the rights and freedoms of enslaved Africans.

Beatings, mutilations, and executions were common. Enslaved Africans refused to submit to the slave existence. The conditions of their lives gave rise to rebellions, Moreover, a powerful abolitionist movement developed. Nonetheless, the end of slavery in New York did not come easily or quickly.

 In 1799, the New York State Legislature passed "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery." This legislation … provided little relief in the short term. Rather, it provided for only a gradual manumission. All children born to enslaved women after July 4, 1799, would be freed, but only after their most productive years: age 28 for men and age 25 for women. Enslaved Africans already in servitude before July 4, 1799 …remained enslaved for the duration of their lives. In 1817, the New York State Legislature enacted a statute that gave freedom to New York enslaved Africans who had been born before July 4, 1799. However, this statute did not become effective until July 4, 1827.

Although New York had given Black men the right to vote in 1827, it retained property requirements and included new restrictions on the right to  vote. 

Following the Civil War, conditions for Black Americans in New York remained poor. Segregation became particularly common in both education and housing. The New York Court of Appeals upheld the segregation of schools in Kings County. Research has shown that up to the present day of this writing, New York still is the most segregated state for Black students. 

Discrimination in housing has also been a persistent and constant issue in New York since the Civil War. 

In addition to the housing inequality that came with wealth inequality, landlords have engaged in discriminatory housing practices.

This pattern of geographic isolation would continue to impact Black Americans in New York continuously throughout the years, including through the state-sanctioned discriminatory "redlining" practices in the 1930s, and in the segregationist urban planning implemented by individuals like Robert Moses in later decades. Importantly, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), an institution that refused to insure mortgages in or near African American neighborhoods, subsidized builders in NY who were creating subdivisions and developments in the suburbs, with the proviso that none of the homes be sold to African Americans.

The consequences of slavery in New York State is not an echo of the past, but can still be observed in daily life. Systemic racism has cemented a legacy of generational poverty, and we still see today instances of voter suppression, housing discrimination, biased policing, food apartheid, and disproportionate rates of incarceration.

New York State's status as an economic and cultural hub of the world has been built and shaped by slavery. The contributions of enslaved Africans provided the resources upon which trade and commerce in New York were built. 

However, New York State also has the largest income disparity in the country, and that large disparity is in large part the legacy of our slave system. 

This legislation is necessary because the slavery that flourished in New York State constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans' life, liberty, citizenship rights, and cultural heritage, and denied them the fruits of their own labor. 

A sufficient inquiry has not been made into the effects of the institution of slavery and all other forms of discrimination on present-day society in New York.