Gov. Kathy Hochul this past week signed legislation creating a state commission to study the possibility of making reparations to descendants of enslaved New Yorkers.
For supporters, getting the controversial, long-debated measure off the ground might be the easiest part of the process. Final legislative approval for the study panel came in June; it wasn’t until the bill signing on Tuesday that Hochul as much as hinted at her support for an inquiry.
The law calls for the creation of a nine-member commission to study slavery’s history and lasting effects in New York. A key task: recommending “appropriate remedies and reparations” for descendants of enslaved African people, including changes to state laws and policies.
All Things Considered host Sean Carlson recently discussed the commission, and the work ahead, with State Sen. James Sanders Jr., a Democrat from Queens and sponsor of the reparations law.
A transcript of their conversation follows. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Carlson: So I think a lot of folks might hear this and say, “wait a second, New York was part of the Union. Slavery was a decidedly Southern thing. Why is this inquiry even necessary?”
Sanders: Well, New York played an outsized role, an oversized role in slavery. New York City, at one point, had more slaves than any city in what became the U.S., with the exception of Charleston, South Carolina. New York City or New York State, since we had the financial capital, we insured all of the moving parts of slavery.
We insured the slaves. We insured the cotton that was coming up and the tobacco, the corn, all of those markets, we insured them. Not only did we do that, we banked them. We banked the profits. We lent the money to them. We insured the ships that were sent out not only to get the slaves, but to bring the goods to England.
In fact, it could be argued that without New York State, slavery as it was would not have lasted as long as it did.
So, what remedies and reparations…
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