{"id":24395,"date":"2025-10-31T18:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/24395\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T18:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:31:11","slug":"can-mamdani-make-reparations-a-reality-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/24395\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Mamdani Make Reparations a Reality in New York City?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reparations for slavery and historic discrimination against African Americans once seemed like a pipe dream. But momentum for it has been building<\/a> in the past five years in cities across America, including New York City, which has deep ties to slavery and has become an important testing ground of whether America is ready to make amends.<\/p>\n

A mayoral win on Tuesday by Democrat Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate and a reparations proponent, could propel the issue there, making New York one of the first cities in the U.S. to atone for its original sin of slavery. That victory could inspire the dozen-plus smaller cities seeking to rectify other historic racial injustices, creating a domino effect that expands the movement.<\/p>\n

But the authorities charged with examining whether such correctives could work in NYC are facing challenges that may foreshadow the problems that Mamdani, if elected, would face in pursuing reparations. Opposition from the Trump administration and its allies, as well as the price tag of Mamdani\u2019s broader social justice agenda, could break the local movement\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n

Where Mamdani and his opponents stand on reparations<\/p>\n

Mamdani was the only candidate who signed a pledge in May to champion reparations policies<\/a> as mayor, and he has repeatedly defended that pledge publicly<\/a>. Last week, he said that he would follow the recommendations of the city authorities tasked with studying this issue to decide whether that would entail a payout or a program.<\/p>\n

\u201cReparations continue to be important because they\u2019re a recognition of our city\u2019s and our country\u2019s history in terms of what not only we have denied Black New Yorkers, but also what we have taken from them time and again,\u201d he told reporters and Capital B last week. \u201cWe establish these commissions for a purpose, and I think it\u2019s important that we actually deliver on their findings.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City used enslaved African labor during its origination as a Dutch settlement in the early 1600s. When Britain took over the colony in 1664, \u201cslavery grew harsher and more comprehensive,\u201d writes<\/a> Harvard University historian Tiya Miles. By the early 1700s, New York City had one of the largest slave populations of any city or settlement among the colonies, with nearly 40% of households<\/a> using enslaved labor.<\/p>\n

Even after the state of New York fully enforced emancipation in 1827, Wall Street continued to play a central role in the country\u2019s slave trade.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamadani has repeatedly publicly defended his support for reparations. (Skip Dillard)<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s unclear how New York City could afford reparations for slavery.<\/p>\n

Neither of Mamdani\u2019s opponents in the mayoral race \u2014 former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, the Republican Party nominee \u2014 have spoken about reparations on the campaign trail. But they have lampooned his claims that he will make the city more affordable via free buses, city-subsidized grocery stores and rent freezes.<\/p>\n

A recent analysis<\/a> from The New York Times found that those plans could cost New Yorkers at least $6 billion annually. But that excludes the cost of reparations, which alone could add billions to that tab. Duke University scholar William \u201cSandy\u201d Darity estimates that New York would have to pay out $400 billion to close the racial wealth gap there, which he says is the best measure of an effective reparations program. By contrast, the city\u2019s current total budget is $116 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe left keeps trying to ride this tired hobby horse\u201d of reparations, said Horace Cooper, chairman of the Black conservative network Project 21 earlier this year in a statement<\/a>. \u201cHey lefties, get serious and join the effort to \u2018Make America Great Again.\u2019 In the process, blacks will prosper.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a 2024 poll<\/a> conducted for the group New Yorkers for Reparations found that 48% of respondents supported \u201ccomprehensive New York state reparations,\u201d including financial compensation, with 32% opposed. The same poll, found that 39% of voters would support candidates who favor reparations.<\/p>\n

\"Philip<\/p>\n

Philip Wesley White, 43, a high school teacher who lives in midtown Manhattan, supports reparations but is also skeptical that it is possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he can make some steps forward on this,\u201d said Philip Wesley White, 43, a high school teacher who lives in midtown Manhattan, speaking of Mamdani. \u201cI think it should happen, based on what\u2019s happened to us both during and after slavery, absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

But White also represents the kind of person that reparations advocates have often encountered \u2014 someone who supports reparations, but has doubts that it\u2019s possible. Only 24% of Black New Yorkers \u2014 and 21% of the same poll\u2019s respondents overall \u2014 said they believed reparations would actually happen.<\/p>\n

The numbers represent a \u201chope gap,\u201d says Trevor Smith, executive director of the BLIS Collective, which is helping lead reparations campaigns in New York and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of Black folks don\u2019t believe reparations are possible, and so I think we\u2019re really focused on, not so much about which candidate supports reparations,\u201d says Smith, \u201cbut rather making reparations seem possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did New York get this close to reparations?<\/p>\n

The U.S. reparations movement spans decades, spearheaded by groups such as the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America<\/a> and the National African-American Reparations Commission<\/a>. But in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests, more youth-organizing groups such as Get Free<\/a>, the BLIS Collective<\/a>, and the Justice League NYC<\/a>, joined the movement.<\/p>\n

In September 2024, the movement yielded fruit in New York City, when the City Council authorized the city\u2019s<\/a> Commission on Racial Equity to study reparations. The council also established a \u201cTruth, Healing, and Reconciliation process\u201d to examine the city\u2019s role in slavery.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s reparations legislation came from the cumulative work of these racial justice groups, which coalesced under the banner network New Yorkers for Reparations<\/a> and includes legacy civil rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of New York, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the National Action Network.<\/p>\n

The work in New York City and in the state has been largely funded by recently formed philanthropies such as the Decolonizing Wealth Project<\/a>, which has doled out millions to help racial justice groups meet their reparations goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to make reparations a political priority for Gen Z and millennials, and we do that through creating narrative power, people power, and then, of course, political power,\u201d said J.J. Briscoe, 24, a Get Free organizer based in New York City.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cOur<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to make reparations a political priority for Gen Z and millennials, and we do that through creating narrative power, people power, and then, of course, political power,\u201d said J.J. Briscoe with the youth organizing group Get Free. (Courtesy of Get Free)<\/p>\n

Where have reparations been gaining ground?<\/p>\n

The momentum for reparations in New York City comes amid several years of concrete wins by reparations advocates across the U.S.<\/p>\n

These efforts have largely taken place in states outside of the former Confederate South, in places where Black people weren\u2019t enslaved. Their strategy has been to push for local reparations programs that are narrowly tailored to address not slavery, but specific harms in specific places. Most are targeted at 20th century racial injustices such as Jim Crow, redlining, urban renewal, and race riots.<\/p>\n

In the past year, there have been several breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

In February, community developers broke ground<\/a> in Portland, Oregon, on a roughly 2-acre plot that was once the commercial and cultural hub of a historic Black neighborhood. The land was gifted to Black community leaders by the city, which had seized and razed it in the 1970s under the guise of urban renewal. It is estimated that the property, owned by the Williams and Russell Community Development Corp., will be worth $120 million after development.<\/p>\n

In July, officials in Alameda County, California, started a fund to compensate surviving residents<\/a> of an area formerly known as Russell City that was completely bulldozed off the map, displacing nearly 1,400 Black and Latino residents in the 1960s after it was declared \u201cblighted.\u201d The fund was seeded with $250,000 from the city of Hayward, California, and $650,000 from the county, which will be administered from a local foundation.<\/p>\n

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, after decades of failed attempts to win reparations for the 1912 Greenwood \u201cBlack Wall Street\u201d massacre, Mayor Monroe Nichols \u2014 the city\u2019s first Black mayor \u2014 announced a \u201cRoad to Repair<\/a>\u201d program in June. It mostly entails reclaiming land for survivors and their descendants. Under this plan, reparations will be fundraised via a private charitable trust \u2014 a process that has won buy-in from local Republicans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where reparations stand in New York\"People<\/p>\n

People gather for the start of a reparations rally at the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York in 2021. (Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Atlanta, Decatur, Georgia, Baltimore<\/a>, Philadelphia<\/a>, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, Missouri<\/a>, Olympia, Washington<\/a>, College Park, Maryland<\/a>, and Asheville, North Carolina<\/a>, are some of the other cities in various stages of reparations processes.<\/p>\n

The big prize for reparations, though, would be New York City. It not only has the largest Black population of any U.S. city, but it also has the most diverse, given its large pockets of Caribbean, Afro-Latino, and African residents.<\/p>\n

However, its diasporic diversity also makes New York among the most challenging places to execute reparations \u2014 a large share of its Black population are immigrants who moved there long after slavery ended. The city will have to decide whether it will employ a narrowly tailored definition of reparations that redresses only those who can prove direct descendancy to enslaved victims, or if it will adopt a broader definition that captures Black residents with no direct connection to New York enslavement.<\/p>\n

But that decision is likely miles away, because the work has been stalled largely due to the failure of Mayor Eric Adams, the city\u2019s second Black mayor, to help move the city\u2019s reparations plans forward. (Adams ended his bid for a second term in September, after a poor showing in the polls.) The city\u2019s Commission on Racial Equity sued the mayor<\/a> in August, saying he was refusing to comply with a mandate to release to the public a racial equity plan prepared by the commission.<\/p>\n

The commission is tasked with developing the reparations study in collaboration with the mayor\u2019s office. But CORE Executive Director Linda Tigani said in her July testimony<\/a> before the city\u2019s Commission to Strengthen Local Democracy that their work has been \u201champered\u201d by this inaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from betraying the thousands of New Yorkers who voted to embed racial equity goals into government operations and dismissing the vision of a just New York expressed by our community partners, this failure represents a disdain for the rule of law inconsistent with a healthy democracy,\u201d Tigani said.<\/p>\n

The Adams administration rebutted the allegations, with City Hall spokeswoman Liz Garcia saying the lawsuit \u201cis incredibly misguided, short-sighted, and jeopardizes the wellbeing of the vulnerable communities it claims to protect.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Trump\u2019s executive orders will impact reparations<\/p>\n

The biggest threat to New York\u2019s reparations efforts may come from the Trump administration, which has been on a rampage to destroy programs that beckon discomfiting racial histories<\/a> and eliminate race-based policies. His administration has inflicted punitive measures against cities, states, and universities for implementing racial equity initiatives, making this one of the worst political climates for reparations.<\/p>\n

Two jurisdictions in North Carolina recently fell into the Trump administration\u2019s crosshairs for their reparations efforts. In September, the U.S. Justice Department warned<\/a> Ashville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, that they could be investigated for carrying out their respective reparations programs, which address racial disparities in areas such as criminal justice, education, and housing.<\/p>\n

While Mayor Adams has been reluctant to buck Trump administration orders, Mamdani has made \u201cTrump-proofing<\/a>\u201d the city a cornerstone of his campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pledge Mamdani signed \u2014 created by the racial justice organization Get Free \u2014 calls for the next mayor to \u201cchampion policies that create real equality by rectifying historical discrimination and repairing ongoing inequalities.\u201d It also calls on mayoral candidates to \u201cuse every tool at their disposal\u201d to fight off MAGA attacks on civil rights.<\/p>\n

Polls have Mamdani up as much as 25 points<\/a> over Cuomo, his closest contender, as of the week before the election. Mamdani is also maintaining a double-digit edge<\/a> with Black voters over Cuomo.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter who\u2019s the candidate, this is a moral objective from our standpoint,\u201d said Smith, the BLIS Collective executive director. \u201cReparations needs to be something that is on the top of any mayor or governor\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Can Mamdani Make Reparations a Reality in New York City?<\/a> appeared first on Capital B News<\/a>.<\/p>\n