Protestors demand no ‘back room politics’ in NYS reparations commission discussions

By Nayaba Arinde,
June 8, 2023,
Reprinted from the New York Amsterdam News (link to original).

Reparations Now

Reparations rally at the African Burial Ground Credit: Bill Moore photo

On Thursday 8, June 2023, New York State Assembly passed legislation to create the New York State Community Commission on Reparations. Speaker Heastie and Assemblymember Michaelle C. Solages announced “remedies to examine the impact of slavery and subsequent discrimination and systemic racism against Africans Americans, and to propose appropriate remedies and reparations in addition to exploring policy and legislative solutions (A.7691, Solages).

“The institution of slavery in our state and nation laid the groundwork for the racial, economic and institutional injustices that have plagued communities for decades,” said Heastie in a statement. “This is a historic piece of legislation that will confront the insidious history of slavery and the way its legacy continues to affect Black New Yorkers today.”

History Made – An Opportunity Missed

Current City Council Member, but former Assembly Member Charles Barron said it “represents a missed opportunity. The key point in the bill’s original form was the distribution of the power to appoint commissioners between the government and the community. In the original bill, the composition of the Reparations Commission to be created by the bill, would give one appointment by the governor, two appointments each for the Assembly and Senate Leadership and two appointments each for the three community Reparation organizations [N’COBRA, December 12th Movement and the Institute of the Black World.”

While commending community reparation activists for their continued work, Barron determined, “The Reparations Bill, in its current form, strips the bill of any community power to appoint commissioners…Loss of community control has had a devastating impact on communities of color… The battle for Reparations is a battle for human rights and must be led by its victims.”

Heeding the call for a quickly announced rally, a group of protestors came from as far as DC and New Jersey to support the demand for reparations for people of African descent at the African Burial Ground in Downtown Manhattan on Monday, 5th June, 2023.

With the current legislative session in Albany ending on Thursday, June 8th, , speakers Attorney Roger Wareham, December 12th Movement chair Viola Plummer; and City Councilman Charles Barron, encouraged the crowd to call on every elected official they knew, especially; Governor Kathy Hochul, speaker of the Assembly Carl Heastie, and the Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, to demand that three prominent reparation advocate groups be included in the upstate commission on reparations.

Kenniss Henry from the N’COBRA Washington D.C. chapter noted how the deluded white supremacist who shot and killed 10 Black people out shopping in Buffalo, May 14, 2022, had scrawled on his assault rifle “here’s your reparations.”

She contended, “The people in Buffalo are really struggling psychologically. What we can do to ease some of that pain is to send a message to our elected officials: You will not leave us the great people in the great State of New York with a reparations legacy that is not our legacy.”

“We want a commission that is represented by the community, and not by the state,” boomed Barron.

Reparations is a top-of-mind topic, with California’s news that they are considering giving reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans; and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush’s H.R. 414, Reparations Now Resolution, calling on the nation’s “moral and legal obligation” to redress the century’s long-term trauma, economic, social, and political damages with $14 trillion price tag.

Reparations remains a hot-button and under-reported issue for many New York State’s citizens of African Descent, Monday’s press conference speakers determined.

The question is whether the watered down “mechanism proposed to address the issue, The New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies, will be actually community controlled or another Albany controlled façade,” said Attorney Wareham.

The December 12th Movement International Secretariat continued that the State Senate version, S2416, sponsored by Sen. Jabari Brisport, replicates the bill originally introduced by then Assemblyman Charles Barron, which was passed by the Assembly in two separate sessions.”

Barron and Wareham stated that what makes this version of the Reparations legislation unique from those anywhere else in the United States – is the provision for a Commission which has a majority community-selected membership.

“Three community organizations, of which we are one, will select 6 of the 11 Commission members. The legislature will have the final determination and execution on the Commission’s findings and recommendations,”

The other version was the only one considered by both houses on Monday, S1163-tA places the selection of all commission members in the hands of the government – three by the Governor Hochul, three by the speaker of the Assembly Heastie, three by the Temporary President of the Senate Stewart-Cousins.

Barron wants The December 12th Movement, N‘Cobra, and Ron Daniels and the Institute of the Black World to pick at least two members of the commission each – totaling six members of the Commission.”

This way they would have the “opportunity to bring our experience to help develop a comprehensive program that will improve the quality of life for the state’s Black residents.”

“We are working in tandem with our Senate counterparts on a historic piece of legislation,” said Speaker Carl E. Heastie, in response to an Amsterdam News request for comment. “Throughout history, here in New York and across the country, African Americans have been subjected to racial, economic, and institutional injustices that have plagued communities for decades – a reality we must still acknowledge. To grow towards a better and more inclusive future, we must know our past. This bill, which is being championed by Assemblywoman Solages, would establish a New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies to continue to examine the institution of slavery and the impact slavery and discriminatory practices have had on living African Americans. We can be the change agents needed to create a better New York.”

In response to the AmNews, Stewart-Cousins’ Press Secretary Amanda Stout, said that the senator “will be advancing a different bill sponsored by Sen. Sanders and Assemblywoman Solages S.1163A.” instead of S2416.

The bill, The New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies, is being supported by State Senator James Sanders, and other state senate colleagues; Cordell Cleare, Leroy Comrie, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and Robert Jackson, and Assemblywoman Michaelle C. Solanges.

The bill reads in part “Relates to acknowledging the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the city of New York and the state of New York; establishes the New York state community commission on reparations remedies to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, the impact of these forces on living African-Americans and to make recommendations on appropriate remedies…make determinations regarding compensation.”

“Backroom politics is what they call it.” Protestors refused to change their demands.

Wareham reminded the folks gathered, and those peering out of windows surrounding the historic African Burial Ground National Monument on Duane Street, “If we talk about reparations we have to talk about how Africans get to this country. We have to talk about the labor that was exploited. That we were actually capital.That different from probably from everybody else in the world we’ve never received repair for the damage that was done, and continues to be done to this very day. Even this burial ground came out of struggle.

“If it were not for Sonny (Abubadika) Carson this burial ground would be another federal building. And it was a struggle – people putting themselves in front of the bulldozers that brought us here. That’s why we’re here today to struggle around the repairs.”

”The New York State reparations bill – as you know around the country, different people, states, townships have been moving to address the issue of reparations.New York State is way, way, way behind.”

Wareham noted that when he was in the Assembly, (current) City Councimember Barron put forth a bill that is different from any one that has been put forward.

Barron took the mic, “In this state, where there are 3 million people of African ancestry: whether you come from Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Central America, North America, African people deserve reparations in this state for our labor. We built this city. We built this country.”’

“That’s right,” the crowd responded.

“Right here in New York City, in the Burial Ground are African people, 427 of our remains are buried there, and thank God for Abubadika Sonny Carson who stopped the excavation and made sure they were respected. Throughout downtown New York 20,000 of our remains right now are down here.

New York City was the second largest slave holding city in the country, and was 2nd only to Charleston, South Carolina. It was your brothers and sisters who rose up in 1712, right here in New York City and said ‘We don’t want to be enslaved anymore and burnt down the governor’s mansion. The white community said to the the white power structure then ‘You’re gonna do something because these Africans are angry?’ So they said all right we’ll have a gradual emancipation.

Africans from Africa, from the Caribbean, and from here “fought to end slavery in New York City, and every last one of us deserves reparations.”

Always with the historical facts and stats, Barron told the people gathered at the African Burial Ground, that in 1799 they had the Gradual Emancipation Act. “They said ‘Your males, we’ll only hold them for 27 years. Your females, we’ll only hold for 25 years.’ They didn’t accept that. They said ‘We are going to keep organizing until we are free.’

“They said they didn’t want these folk to keep attacking us, so in 1827 New York City abolished slavery because of the struggle of our people. So we put that all in our bill to tell the history of New York City. The Big Apple – ain’t never gave you a bite. So we put our bill together and we said that we wanted it to be different from any other bill in the country.”

Barron said in the California reparations bill, five of the appointees of their commission are picked by their governor, four by the state assembly, and so their proposals will be from the “handpicked Blacks,” not community-involved reparation advocacy organizations, which is what they are demanding for New York.

N’COBRA, The December 12th Movement, and Ron Daniels’ Institute of the Black World are “Brothers and sisters who have been in this reparations movement for over 30 years to pick at least 2 members of the commission each. So we would have six members of the commission

The Brooklyn elected reiterated that they got 100 assembly members to support that concept in 2021 when he was in the assembly. It passed the assembly. In 2022 when he left the assembly and went to the City Council, Michaelle Solages, assemblymember and Senator Jabari Brisport, pushed it again, and it got another 100 votes and was passed.

Now in 2023, Barron said, “It had already passed the assembly, Jabari successfully got 25 senators to say if it comes their way they will vote for it in the Senate. We were only 7 votes short in the senate and here comes the sabotage. Now all of a sudden, the leader of the assembly Carl Heastie, and the leader of the senate Andrea Stuart-Cousins and some other Blacks up there decided they wanted another type of bill. They wanted a bill that would give the governor – a white woman 3 votes [on the commission], and our groups no votes.”

In typical “no-holds-barred” Barron fashion, he asked the lively assembled, “How do you have a Black leader of the assembly, a Black leader of the senate, Black electeds in the assembly and the senate say we want this white woman governor to have three votes, and three from the assembly, and three from the senate, and none from our community groups?”

Fired up, Barron declared, “I said ‘Hell no that’s not going down.’ We say we will determine the compensation for reparations, not the state that enslaved us in the first place. Those who oppressed us, those who enslaved us and representing that, cannot determine the compensation. That’s gonna be determined by those of us who have been working at [reparations advocacy] hard.”

Barron told those gathered to call up every elected reachable to push the bill with the community-involved reparations compensation discussions at the state level before January 8th.

Posting up behind the ‘They stole us, they sold us, they owe us – Reparations Now,’ banner, “Ready to go to war?” international activist Viola Plummer, asked the very participatory crowd. “Here in New York State – because here was the epicenter of slavery. We must face them head on. We’ve got to let them know we’re mad as hell. The war against us is now going to be two-fold, us against them…and we are prepared after all of these centuries and promises to go to war for our ancestors.”

N’COBRA’s Kenniss Henry said it is about making sure that the Commission is so situated, “To determine what the remedies need to be to repair 400 plus years of pernicious history and current day vestiges and we must be the ones to decide what those remedies are. No one else can do that. Not the appointees from the governor, not the appointees from anyone else.” “If their sellout bill passes we will still take our victory lap because they will still have to deal with our community. Our bill and our movement has forced this state to deal with reparations in the first place. We are going to continue our struggle,” Barron told the Amsterdam News on the eve of the vote. “Whatever commission comes through they are going to have to deal with the masses as we intensify our struggle. Our demand for just reparations will not be co-opted.”