New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he is willing to consider reparations for Black residents, arguing that the city played a significant role in the history of slavery.
Mamdani, 34, campaigned on a promise to back descendants of enslaved people by addressing “historical discrimination” and working to repair “ongoing inequalities,” according to The New York Times.
In recent interviews, the mayor has said he would support direct cash reparations if New York City’s Commission on Racial Equity, which is currently reviewing the issue, ultimately recommends that approach.
“We often think about slavery and the complicity in slavery as being exclusively to certain geographic areas of the country. Here in New York City, we were very complicit,” Mamdani told The Root.
“So I look forward to whatever those findings are. I can’t give you an answer in advance of them, but I can tell you that this is critically important because this is also what it looks like to acknowledge what history truly was,” he added.
Appearing this week on Sirius XM’s Urban View, Mamdani said the city’s past is too often framed as though New York was distant from slavery and its consequences.
“What we see is if we are taking an honest and accurate approach to what New York City’s role was, you will see that complicity is something that cannot be debated,” he said.
Enslaved people were first brought to what is now New York City in 1626, according to the New York City Parks Department.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed support for cash reparations to black New Yorkers because the city was ‘very complicit’ in slavery
Mamdani said he would support cash reparations if the city’s Commission on Racial Equity recommended them. Pictured above New Yorkers protesting in July 2020
On Wall Street, between Pearl and Water Streets, a slave auction market existed between 1711 and 1762.
‘By the mid-18th century approximately one in five people living in New York City was enslaved and almost half of Manhattan households included at least one slave,’ the parks department said.
New York State abolished slavery in 1827, and complete abolition came in 1841 when the state abolished the right of non-residents to have slaves for up to nine months.
The New York City Commission on Racial Equity (CORE) was established in 2024 by the passing of Local Law 91, which requires the commission to create a public process for truth, healing and reconciliation.
According to the CORE website, the commission is required to submit a second report for a reparations study by January 1, 2027.
Earlier this month, civil rights groups in New York released a report demanding reparations for black residents, arguing that decades of deliberate racial inequality must be amended.
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) released a report titled, The Other New York: The Legacy of Slavery and the Case for Reparations Now.
‘This report lays out a clear and undeniable truth: racial inequality in New York is not accidental,’ the introduction states.
Civil rights groups in New York recently demanding reparations, citing the destruction of the predominantly black neighborhood of Seneca Village to build Central Park
The NYCLU and LDF released arguing for reparations to black New Yorkers. Pictured above is a protest for reparations in 2002
The NYCLU and LDF broke down the report into seven sections, examining the legacy of slavery on the state, historical housing policies that have negatively impacted black New Yorkers, unfair zoning ordinances, criminal justice disparities, segregated schools, voting discrimination and wealth discrepancy.
‘Reparation is the act of making amends for a wrong or injury,’ the report continued. ‘In order to build a thriving economy and a resilient multi-racial democracy, New York must repair past harm and break down barriers to opportunity for Black communities.’
The organizations argued that even though slavery is most associated with southern states, it still existed in New York and approximately 20,000 people owned slaves.
The report continues that after slavery was outlawed, black New Yorkers were intentionally confined to segregated and impoverished neighborhoods through discriminatory housing policies.
Seneca Village was cited as an example. The thriving enclave existed in the early 1800s but was later obliterated for the construction of Central Park.
The Daily Mail contacted Mamdani’s office for comment.
