Almost 200 years after slavery officially ended in New York, the City Council passed legislation on Thursday authorizing a commission to study the devastating effects of human bondage and to develop a plan to make reparations for the harms caused.
New York City joins a growing effort in cities, counties and states around the country to study the effects of the enslavement of Africans and Indigenous Americans and how to make amends for the long-term social and economic damage still influencing society.
That harm, proponents of the bill said, manifests in everything from unequal involvement in the criminal justice system to poor health outcomes, lower homeownership rates and a lack of quality education options.
The effort by New York City follows a similar move in Albany, where lawmakers agreed last year to create a state commission to study reparations. Possible remedies in New York City include monetary restitution, but also other compensation such as public memorials, official apologies and improving access to education and health care; lawmakers said the state and city commissions would work in concert.
“Whether it be public spaces, financing, housing, health care or the workplace, we know there are still barriers that were created during generations of discrimination that started during slavery,” said Farah N. Louis, a councilwoman from Brooklyn who sponsored the legislation.
Allison Hedges Maser, a spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams, said that he supported the legislation and called it a step toward “addressing systemic inequities” and reconciliation.
“New York City has a moral obligation to confront its historical role in the institution of slavery, including harms and long-lasting consequences,” Ms. Maser said in a statement.
Twenty-five of the City Council’s 51 members, and the city’s public advocate, signed on as co-sponsors, but there was dissent around the legislation. Some Democratic Council members had questions about how to identify who would benefit from reparations.
Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the City Council, who represents Staten Island, was concerned about the notion of financial payouts and of accepting responsibility for slavery generations after it ended.
“I bear no responsibility for slavery,” Mr. Borelli said in an interview. “Unless someone could explain to me why I should bear some individual and societal guilt through my taxes, I’m going to be opposed.”
Ms. Louis said her legislation, which passed by a vote of 41 to 8, is about creating a panel of experts to examine the effects of slavery and to propose possible solutions, of which financial remuneration is just one. A report from the panel is due by January 2027.
“Does that mean we are going to hand everyone a check? No,” Ms. Louis said. “But starting the conversation is the most important part.”
Mr. Borelli said he was not opposed to other pieces of the legislative package, such as a bill by Crystal Hudson, a councilwoman from Brooklyn, to start a truth, healing and reconciliation commission. Another bill from Nantasha Williams, a councilwoman from Queens, would form a task force to examine the creation of a “freedom trail” across the city.
The Council also approved legislation from Jumaane Williams, the public advocate, that would require a sign near the city’s first slave market, near the intersection of Wall and Pearl Streets in Manhattan.
New York City’s history and economic success is intertwined with slavery. In the 1700s, the city had one of the highest rates of slave ownership in the country. Between 15 and 20 percent of the city’s population was enslaved.
Even after slavery was banned, New York companies profited by conducting business with those still involved in the international slave trade.
In 1861, after South Carolina became the first state to secede before the Civil War, Fernando Wood, then the mayor of New York City, suggested that New York also leave the Union so that the city could continue to benefit from the riches of the international slave trade.
That wealth did not transfer to enslaved Africans or their descendants, who still suffer from the legacy of slavery — even in New York, said L. Joy Williams, president of the Brooklyn N.A.A.C.P.
“We think of it as something foregone that happened centuries ago,” Ms. Williams said at a news conference outside City Hall before the vote.
“But right here in this city, there were enslaved people who could not chart a course for their own life and who belonged to another human being,” she added, noting that her grandmother’s grandmother was enslaved.
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