“We want Reparations! Gov. Hochul, sign the Bill!”

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large

Activists and New York elected officials are demanding that Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the Reparations Bill before the end-of-the-year deadline.
“It’s a de facto veto if she doesn’t sign it by December 31st. And then the whole process has to start again,” said activist attorney Roger Wareham. “The bill is not the answer to everything. But it was a step forward, and now she needs to do her part.”
“Governor Hochul needs to sign the Reparations bill into law and help select competent members to sit on the Commission that will study and recommend remedies that are due to Black People,” New York State reparations bill co-sponsor Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman told Our Time Press.
The enslavement of Africans for over 400 years has descendants in New York state demanding that Gov. Hochul sign the Reparations Bill that has been sitting on her desk for almost half a year. So say activists, who stated that in the summer, the state legislature redesigned then Assemblyman Charles Barron’s original bill by removing the stipulation that insisted on having community input in the formation of a reparation commission.

Succumbing to community pressure, this past June 2023, the New York State Assembly passed legislation to create the New York State Community Commission on Reparations. The A7691/S1163 bill, sponsored by Assembly Member Michaelle Solages and state Sen. James Sanders Jr., called for the establishment of a commission to study the historical and ongoing impacts American slavery has had on Black New Yorkers, with a component to consider reparations for the devastating legacy.
“There still is generational trauma that people are experiencing,” said Assemblywoman Michaelle C. Solages. “This is just one step forward.”
The bill plans to determine “remedies to examine the impact of slavery and subsequent discrimination and systemic racism against African Americans,” wrote Speaker Carl Heastie and Assemblymember Solages, “and to propose appropriate remedies and reparations in addition to exploring policy and legislative solutions.”
“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 previously.
In a statement to Our Time Press, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said, “We are hopeful that Governor Kathy Hochul will lend her support to this transformative legislation. I am grateful to Senator James Sanders for championing this cause and standing as a stalwart for positive change. As Senate Majority Leader, I am proud to have worked diligently to help guide this historic legislation to passage in the State Senate, and eagerly anticipate Governor Hochul’s action.”

Senator Cordell Cleare told Our Time Press, “The Reparations Commission Legislation is one of the most important bills I have ever co-sponsored or voted for.  If signed the Commission would attempt to address the impact of some of the most horrific crimes committed against humanity, including but not limited to 400 years of torture, exploitation, commodification, rape, kidnapping, murder and slavery, as well as a multitude of other denied rights and opportunities over dozens of generations.  The moral injustice of slavery and racism and their offspring caused layers of economic, health and educational hardship and disparities that exist until this day.  It is time to take a look at and come up with appropriate measures to begin to end the 400 year plus struggle.  This is an opportunity for Governor Hochul to turn the tide on this cumulative suffering and harm to Black People; reparations are long overdue; sign the bill.”   

“The bill is simply waiting for her signature. That’s all. Absent pressure from the community and the elected representatives who passed the bill, she’s not gonna do it,” Attorney Wareham told Our Time Press. “She’ll always be around Black people when she needs the votes, but right now, she is pandering to the racist, anti-reparations constituency upstate. One of her constituents asked her in the Bronx why she hadn’t signed it, and she said it was because she had 335 bills to go through. So, obviously this is not a priority for her. We are pushing people to call her. The Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus has an online petition. It’s unprecedented. Both houses passed the bill, and she’s been sitting on it for six months.”
On November 17, City and State wrote that the state Senate and Assembly approved 896 pieces of legislation, “632 have been acted on by the governor, leaving 260 that still require her signature…Bills that Hochul doesn’t act on before the end of the year [are] automatically vetoed after 30 days.”
By press time, Gov. Hochul did not respond to an Our Time Press request for a statement.
“I am a proud co-sponsor of the New York State reparations bill,” said Assemblywoman Zinerman, the Vice Chair of the New York State Black Legislative Task Force. “Since its passage, I have worked with local, national, and international reparations communities to raise awareness about the importance of this historic piece of legislation. Together, we envisioned and advocated for a ceremonial signing of the bill by Governor Hochul on Black Solidarity Day. The symbolism of the day would have telegraphed to the descendants of enslaved Africans that New York is ready to atone for its role in slavery, segregation, and the ongoing trauma of racism. It didn’t happen, and we say to the Governor, it is never too late to do the right thing!”
Current City Council Member and former Assembly Member Charles Barron said, “She could have easily said, ‘ I’ve got a lot to look at, but I am definitely going to sign this reparations bill. I think she’s disingenuous. I think she’s got a lot of white folks that she has to answer to upstate. We have to put pressure on her to sign that bill.”
In May, Missouri Rep. Cori Bush’s H.R. 414, Reparations Now Resolution, called on the federal government to pay reparations to the 40 million descendants of enslaved Africans in America. At least $14 trillion would be the price tag “to eliminate the racial wealth gap that currently exists between Black and white Americans.”

On January 16, 1865, Union General William Sherman announced that he would give ‘freed’ Black families 40 acres of confiscated Confederate land and a mule. He didn’t. That land and mule check would now look like $3 trillion in current dollars.
“Given how much of New York’s wealth was generated by the slave economy, how much New York perpetuated the slave economy, and how segregated New York remains to this day, it is only right that our state actively works to repair the damage it has done to the Black community,” said State Senator Jabari Brisport, who sponsored the State Senate S2416 bill, which mirrored then Assemblyman, Charles Barron’s Reparation Bill.
California formed its reparations task force in 2020. They estimated a $500 billion price tag in compensation “due to decades of over-policing, mass incarceration and redlining that kept Black families from receiving loans and living in certain neighborhoods,” said CBS news.

Meanwhile, the inaugural Accra Reparations Conference just wrapped up in Ghana. In July, Barbados hosted an international summit on reparations for the transatlantic slave trade with CARICOM, the African Union, and Latin America.
Attorney Wareham stated, “The reparations movement is international. You cannot separate reparations to Africans who were kidnapped, brought here, and enslaved from reparations to African countries that were colonized and exploited for their wealth – all of that built present-day America.
“We want our community to call Governor Hochul and tell her to sign the bill now. NYC (212) 681-4580 or Albany office (518) 474-8390.”