The commission will have 12 months to issue a report with recommended actions to provide reparations to Black New Yorkers, to address the long-standing effects of the legacy of slavery.
Across the nation, 22 localities have approved a reparations commission or task force, and 11 states have introduced legislation to create one. They include a program in Evanston, Illinois, providing $25,000 to qualifying applicants as a response to the city’s history of anti-Black housing policies.
New York commission member Jennifer Jones-Austin did not specify what their recommendations could entail, but indicated that they would consider the results of similar initiatives in other places. “It’s only when the work is done and we develop a sense of how extensive the harms are and how the harms manifest, can we make recommendations for the actual reparations that could result,” she said.
