BUFFALO, N.Y. — In 2024, a commission will be tasked with taking a look at history.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has established a New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies while acknowledging the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery.
"New York has long been the center of American commerce, Wall Street banking," the governor said. "Our entire country thrived because they could trade in commodities that were produced by slaves. There was a slave market, yes, here in New York, there was a slave market where people bought and sold other human beings with callous disregard, and it happened right on Wall Street."
While announcing the commission, the governor made it clean that the past can not be fixed, but she said, "it does mean more than giving people a simple apology 150 years later. This bill makes it possible to have a conversation. A reasonable debate about what we want the future to look like."
The governor wants to so see if the committee can present a viable path forward in helping descendants of the state's slaves and address the harm and disparities that exist in education, housing healthcare the environment.
National Action Network president Al Sharpton gave credit to Hochul for being courageous.
"It took a courageous, young white woman from Western New York to say 'I'm going to do it' when all the urban men before me wouldn't," he said.
"I don't want to pretend I didn't have some concerns about this. Anyone thinks that racism and hatred toward Blacks no longer exists, tell that to the families of the 10 victims in the grocery store in Tops at the massacre in Buffalo."
Ras Jomo of Buffalo is an expert on culture called this commission "a shining example of what takes place when community, government, civil society, when people work together to make things better, and I think this as a a bright beacon and future for New York State."
He added: "Many people have only been thought to imagine a monetary response, but this commission is going to study the areas of harm, social health, mental health, education, housing, land opportunities, generational wealth and actually, how are these things remedied."