As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, here’s an ugly open secret to consider about one of its original states: More than 20,000 New Yorkers owned Black people at the height of slavery in America.
I say “open” secret because this shameful history has been documented publicly for generations.
Yet this nation we’re so caught up in celebrating this year continues to whitewash — pun absolutely intended — its appalling past to the point that any attempt to set the historical record straight is attacked by its very own government.
“It’s time for New York to embrace its history instead of running from what some feel are uncomfortable conversations,” Todd Cox, associate director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund said in a statement last week. “New York was a willing participant in the most degrading, dehumanizing and despicable economic enterprise of slavery.”
Cox’s observation accompanied a new report the LDF released last week along with the New York Civil Liberties Union on how the state can right its wrongs.
Its solution is easily one of the most controversial subjects in America.
“The Other New York: The Legacy of Slavery and the Case for Reparations Now” analyzes the impacts of slavery and its legacy of discrimination against Black New Yorkers.
The NYCLU and LDF have teamed up to call for immediate reparations amid delays from the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies, which won’t issue its recommendations to Gov. Hochul and the state Legislature until 2029.
The commission was appointed in 2023.
According to the new report, the evils of slavery still shape the lives of Black New Yorkers today in discriminatory housing policies, environmental racism, redlining, police brutality, mass incarceration, chronically underfunded and segregated schools and voter suppression.
Specifically, the report determined that:
— The median wealth of Black New Yorkers is $18,870, nearly 15 times less than the median wealth of white New Yorkers, which is $276,900, and that New York State has a wider racial wealth gap than the United States as a whole.
— New York’s housing history reveals a deliberate and systemic effort to exclude and displace Black communities, denying them the stability and generational wealth that homeownership provides. Nearly 90 years after redlining and urban renewal, formerly redlined communities remain some of the highest poverty neighborhoods in New York.
— Zoning laws reinforced the racial hierarchy established under slavery, forcing Black people to live in industrial areas with increased pollution, leading to disproportionately high asthma, cardiovascular disease, premature delivery and premature death.
— Schools serving predominantly Black students have been severely underfunded and disproportionately affected by environmental hazards, crumbling infrastructure and lead poisoning.
“Reparations are a debt that is owed. Enslaved Black people built the foundation of New York’s economy, but Black families in our state still face racism that has been codified into our laws and budgets,” said Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, director of the NYCLU’s Racial Justice Center.
“New York State was not a bystander to slavery — it created, enacted and protected the institution of slavery. Reparations must be extended to all Black New Yorkers descended from those enslaved by New York State, and to all Black New Yorkers still living under the systems slavery built.”
None of us will be here when the next 250 years rolls around, but we can all play a part in making that quincentennial better than the semiquincentennial that just passed.
While the fireworks shows, beach bashes, cookouts and holiday concerts this month reminded us that there is much to celebrate, it is important to recognize that the last 250 years neither started nor ended under the best of circumstances.
In every one of the last 250 years, many Americans could have legitimately asked, “Independence for whom?”
“Black New Yorkers deserve more than another study,” said Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU’s executive director. “They deserve reparations now.”