NEW YORK is to consider paying reparations to African American people for historic racial discrimination.

Earlier this week the city’s Governor, Kathy Hochul, officially authorised a commission to look into the state’s role in sustaining historic racial discrimination against African Americans. The announcement makes New York the second US state to launch a reparations commission.

“It doesn’t mean fixing the past, undoing what happened,” Hochul said at the signing ceremony, according to Reuters.

Hochul also added the idea of reparations will “mean more than giving people a simple apology 150 years later”.

She said that recent anti-Black hate crimes in New York said showed that “White supremacy is alive and well”.

Civil Rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton, was at the signing ceremony. He said the commission should be seen as a start in the long process of healing and repair. The event took place at the New York Historical Society in Manhattan.

Momentum

Black equality campaigners believe the growing momentum for reparations in the US is a vital step to addressing the legacy of slavery in America, which includes racial inequalities across housing, criminal justice, employment and wealth.

According to the Racial Wealth Gap in New York report, the median household net worth for White New Yorkers is $276,900 (£219,349).

This figure is nearly 15 times greater than the median household net worth of Black New Yorkers which is just  $18,870 (£14,942). The report also found that while 63 percent of White New Yorkers own their home. The figure for Black New Yorkers is only 24 percent.

Racism in America’s housing policies was noted as a reason why there is a great racial divide with home ownership in the US.

The report said: “Given that homeownership has historically been the primary means for American families to build wealth and enter the middle class, the decades of racism which have marked our nation’s housing policies have had lasting impact on Black families’ ability to build wealth.”

In 2020, California became the first US state to create a reparations task force which would consider reparations for African Americans.