Governor Hochul: “Today, I challenge all New Yorkers to be the patriots and rebuke and not excuse our role in benefiting from the institution of slavery.”
Hochul: “The lesson I learned at a young age was sometimes moving the ball down the field takes more time, but the goal is always worth pursuing. I'm sharing this because I want New Yorkers to know the small steps in my development. Many of us grew up in very homogeneous communities – all Black, all Brown, all Asian, all white. And sometimes it's just difficult to expand beyond that, to embrace differences and experiences so foreign to us, so different. Understanding each other takes work, and we rarely get it right all at once. But I say this: it's essential that we try.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation to continue New York’s leadership on racial equity by creating a new commission to study reparations and racial justice. This commission acknowledges the horrific injustice of slavery and will be tasked with examining the legacy of slavery, subsequent discrimination against people of African descent, and the impact these forces continue to have in the present day.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning. Thank you very much. In a few minutes, I'll sign a bill authorizing the creation of a community commission to study the history of slavery in New York State. We'll study various forms of reparations and how we can help right the wrongs of the past. And I want to acknowledge some incredible leaders who helped bring us to this date.
I want to thank my partner in government, our Lieutenant Governor, Antonio Delgado. Thank you, Antonio.
Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, thank you for your leadership in the Senate. Speaker Carl Heastie, getting this through the Assembly. And our sponsors, Senator James Sanders and Representative Michaelle Solages. Michaelle Solages, thank you. Louise Mirrer, I want to thank you for welcoming us to this majestic place that reminds us that this is a state and a nation steeped in incredible history, some of it positive and some not.
And I want to thank Dr. Williams also, who's going to give us a perspective of how this issue has been addressed in other states. My Empire State Development Commissioner and CEO, Hope Knight, has joined us, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and all of our elected officials in state and local government.
I'm grateful for your presence here today, and Reverend Al Sharpton is on his way. Before I speak about this bill, though, I want to share with you about how we got here. And I'll share my own personal journey, my story of how I arrived at this point. But first, I want to talk about our shared journey as Americans and New Yorkers.
More than 400 years ago, the first slaves were violently kidnapped, stolen from their families and their homes. They're brought in chains to the shores of what eventually becomes the United States of America. And these enslaved peoples literally built much of our nation with their sweat, their blood, their sorrow, and right over here we have a statue of Thomas Jefferson. He wrote the Declaration of Independence at the same time. He owned over 600 slaves. Now, in New York, we like to think we're on the right side of this. You know, slavery was a product of the South. It's a confederacy. We're proud of the legacy of incredible warriors for justice and liberation, and the thousands of New York soldiers who went to fight these battles on the right side of history in the Civil War.
We're proud to be home of courageous leaders like Harriet Tubman, Conductor of the Underground Railroad buried up in Auburn, New York. Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist like John Brown, whose farm is way in the north country. We're proud to embrace the deliverance from slavery from the Underground Railroad itself, which ran from New York all the way to Canada, crossing over in Niagara Falls where I was yesterday, and that had the strong support of many and much goodwill from residents of this state. So, we. It's easy for us to pat ourselves on the back, right? We did all this. A lot of other states didn't step up. We had the leaders here. We took this on. We can say we're the heroes. We're the ones who fought against slavery. And indeed, many did.
What is hard to embrace is the fact that our state also flourished from that slavery. It's not a beautiful story, but indeed it is the truth. In 1847, Frederick Douglass, and I just left his exhibit moments ago, you should go visit this to see his journey. He spoke at Market Hall in New York City. And he declared that he would hold America up to the lightning scorn of moral indignation over slavery.
He called this the duty of a true patriot, because someone who really loves their country will rebuke it and not excuse its sins. Today, I challenge all New Yorkers to be the patriots and rebuke and not excuse our role in benefiting from the institution of slavery. According to the New York Historical Society, where we are today, as many as 20 percent of colonial New Yorkers, 20 percent of us, were enslaved Africans. A fifth of our entire population was in bondage. Beginning in 1630, some 15,000 people were, became, died and were buried in the African American, African burial ground, just feet from City Hall or from Broadway, and the Stock Exchange. Think about that. It's not talked about a lot. That's a problem.
New York has long been the center of American commerce – Wall Street, banking, shipping, insurance. The economic engines of our entire country. And they thrived because they can trade in commodities that were produced by slaves. And there was a slave market. Yes, here in New York, there was a slave market where people bought and sold other human beings with callous disregard. It happened right on Wall Street for more than a century. And even though it officially closed when slavery was abolished in New York in 1827, our state still remained a dominant player in the illegal slave trade. The practice continued, and our financial and business institutions prospered. Even when the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox in 1865, the end of that terrible, bloody conflict. It didn't mark the end of slavery's terrible wounds. It didn't end then. If it did, we wouldn't be having a conversation today.
Former slaves and their children and their children and their children across our nation have been haunted for generations by racism and disenfranchisement. Millions of people, even though free on a piece of paper, were still trapped by Jim Crow, stripped of their rights, even including the right to participate in our democracy, the right to vote. And others were stalked by death by men in white robes, the Klan and the lynch mob. It didn't stop in the early days. Redlining, housing discrimination, segregation, economic oppression. All were designed to keep black and brown Americans from reaching that first rung on that letter of success, the ladder of opportunity. And many were kicked down when they finally got there.
It's an ugly truth. But as patriots, as Frederick Douglass said, he must bear witness to it. Now in New York, it was no different. Some of you may know the story. In 1892, Port Jervis was a quaint little hamlet, about 9,000 people, just a few hours by train from here. People traveled up there to get fresh air and fish for trout. It was idyllic. It was mostly white. And on one June morning, a gentleman named Robert Lewis, a black man who drove a carriage for a hotel, was dragged down the street by an angry mob. He was beaten and hung from a tree after being accused of attacking a white woman, although it was actually herboyfriend who had been involved.
Let me repeat this: this happened not in the Deep South, not in Tulsa, it happened right here in New York. So, this is an American story, it's a New York story, and we all share in it. And even after the long, hard road of the Civil Rights Movement, it wasn't until 2009 that Congress even apologized for the institution of slavery.
Now, if someone had kidnapped, beaten, enslaved, or murdered a member of my family, I think I would have wanted an apology at bare minimum. Let me say this. I know the word reparations brings up a lot of conflicting ideas for people. A lot of people instinctively dig in when they hear it without really thinking about what it means or why we need to talk about it.
I'm the daughter of social justice Catholics. My parents, not politically active, but very socially active. They taught their six children about Dr. Martin Luther King when we were very young. And his message of nonviolence and the fight for equality. Parents themselves are involved in the civil rights movement. And they tried to integrate our blue-collar community where most people worked at the steel plant, hard work by day, through the night. This blue-collar community back in the 1960s, my parents were trying to be part of a program to integrate, allow black families a chance to escape the city and move out. It was a conservative town, didn't go well. My parents ended up comforting one family who had a cross burned on their lawn in the town I grew up in. They came to our house. I was a little kid; I remember a lot of tears. But despite the criticism my parents received at that time, they knew it was the right thing to do. Those are the values I was taught. Just do what's right.
When I attended Syracuse University, I met students from all over the world. Every race, every ethnic group, every religion. People had very little in common with my background, growing up in that town. I became a student activist, fighting to stop our university from investing in companies doing business in South Africa because it propped up apartheid, a system where the black majority were ruled by the white minority. Black and white students banded together. And I'm proud that we convinced the university to do what was right, and they did.
Another cause I championed was, as a student, 18, 19 years old, was to honor the first Black Heisman Trophy winner. Incredible athlete. Went to school at Syracuse. Ernie Davis. Anybody know Ernie Davis? 44. He played for Syracuse, had a great career, but died, struck down by illness so early in his days as a professional ball player. He had no recognition on our campus, the first Black Heisman Trophy winner. I tried to change that and get the stadium named after Ernie Davis when I was a student. As you can tell, I didn't win that battle. But I was successful in getting the football field itself, the Ernie Davis Legends Field, renamed in his honor.
The lesson I learned at a young age was sometimes moving the ball down the field takes more time, but the goal is always worth pursuing. I'm sharing this because I want New Yorkers to know the small steps in my development. Many of us grew up in very homogeneous communities – all Black, all Brown, all Asian, all white. And sometimes it's just difficult to expand beyond that, to embrace differences and experiences so foreign to us, so different. Understanding each other takes work, and we rarely get it right all at once. But I say this: it's essential that we try.
Witnessing my parents work, their values, that powerful sense of empathy, all that made me who I am. And I see that on display in our communities all over. People from around every part of the world coexist. And all of us embrace uniqueness, which comes from being called a New Yorker.
We never forget we have a proud history in our harbor, the Statue of Liberty. So many impoverished immigrants sailed past it seeking a better life, including my own grandparents. And as we practice acceptance and welcome others, I think about what Dr. King said, great line. “We all came in different ships, but we're all in the same boat now.” Isn't that the truth? Now my grandparents were able to escape great poverty and sail here on the upper decks to pursue their dreams. They had nothing, but they were on the upper decks. They could get some fresh air.
The slaves were forced to come, chained in the belly of the ships. And they weren't welcomed with the opportunity for hard work and a paycheck. They just did the hard work. They didn't get a union card like Grandpa did that lifted us into better circumstances so he could work with his hands, work hard. They didn't get the union card and a paycheck; they got shackles and a lash. And while New York does have an incredible legacy as a cradle of freedom, if we brought all those who are on this journey, the early abolitionists and the people who fought and civil rights, whether they were Black or white, we all brought them to today in 2023, almost 2024, what would they see today?
Black and Brown Americans in segregated cities sometimes choke with dirty air. Black Americans still oppressed by elevated rights, rates of poverty, death, disease, illness. Suffering the highest rates of infant child and maternal mortality. They would see descendants of slaves still lagging behind white families and attaining generational wealth, home ownership, and higher education. They would come from the past and see today and say, “Your work is not done.” And yet, we take comfort in Dr. King's words again. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it does bend toward justice.”
As a leader of this state, I believe it is our obligation to help that arc bend toward justice. This bill is a continuation of the work that began. When New York began slavery back in 1827, we've had a lot of steps along the way, some backwards, some forwards, many profound failures. But by signing this bill today, I'm authorizing the creation of a commission, a committee to study what reparations might look like in New York. Let's be clear about what reparations means. It doesn't mean fixing the past, undoing what happened. We can't do that. No one can. But it does mean more than giving people a simple apology 150 years later. This bill makes it possible to have a conversation, a reasoned debate, about what we want the future to look like. And I can think of nothing more democratic than that.
And to those who think that even having this conversation is unfair or wrong, I say it would be wrong not to have it, because to bend that arc of justice, we have to be willing to talk about the hard things, right? To debate them and argue them. It's alright. We owe it to each other and our fellow New Yorkers to have a candid, good faith conversation.
I don't want to pretend I didn't have some concerns about this. I know many have. Here's what I do know, to anyone who thinks that racism and hatred toward Blacks no longer exists, tell that to the families of the ten victims in the grocery store in Tops at the massacre in Buffalo, who once again, once again, will be staring at empty chairs over their Christmas dinner. And Crystal Peoples-Stokes, our Majority Leader from the Assembly, who is here, knows this. It's her district. Ten minutes from where I live. Reverend Al was there. Many of our leaders came up to try and comfort a community. But that empty chair still exists, because white supremacism is alive and well in this country and we must be the ones who call it out and stop it. That's what I'm talking about.
And I've spoken about my upbringing in that gritty steel town that I love so much. It shaped who I am. But I cannot turn away from them either. And I think about the immigrants and the children of immigrants who've come here since the end of slavery. They will say we had no involvement in slavery, we came after. Our families had nothing to do with it. None of our relatives were slave owners. And there's a part of me that worries about leaping into this conversation because of the racial division and strife it could sow. People say, what does this have to do with us in 2023? We, we, we abhor slavery. We wouldn't have done that. We oppose Jim Crow in our mind. We study this. It's wrong. Our ancestors weren't there when all this happened.
But here's what we have to talk about the difference. We're a nation and a state of immigrants who sought out the promise of the American dream. They came here because they wanted to. They thought there were better days that lie ahead by making that journey here. Millions and millions who fled oppression and violence or great poverty from countries like Ireland, like my grandparents, or Poland, like my husband's parents. And more recently, from every corner of the planet, they're finding their way here.
These huddled and tired masses came here to seek a better life. They came here to raise their families in safety. To practice their religion freely. To start a small business, get an education. And indeed, our own founding fathers came here for freedom and opportunities. But therein lies the difference.
The slaves, people who are enslaved, didn't come here willingly to pursue a dream, but they came in bondage to live a nightmare. And we have to ask, do those of us whose family came here to pursue a dream not have a role to play in ending that nightmare? Yes. Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
The truth is, we are all held back when millions of our neighbors struggle to lift their families up generation after generation, struggle to give their kids a good education, quality healthcare that they deserve, struggle while fighting the indignities of racism.
Now if this committee can present a viable path forward to helping the descendants of New York slaves and addressing the harms and disparities that exist in education, that exist in housing, that exist in healthcare, that exist in the environment, that, my friends, will lift all of us up. It'll strengthen our economy. It'll strengthen our communities. It'll strengthen the bonds that bring us closer together. That's what can happen.
If we can reduce poverty and give people access to good paying jobs and help them lift themselves up, that's what we're talking about. That's an investment in all of us. Because, when these individuals have a chance to survive, black and brown communities have the same chances as the white communities, that’s what we're talking about. They'll live longer, healthier lives.
So, here's what we're talking about. Working together so the children of today are not weighed down by the shackles of the past. That is the message we are talking about here today.
Now, I’ve spoken a long time because I need you to know what's in my heart. Before we bring up Reverend Al Sharpton, I want to share a parting story with you.
In June of 2020, not that long ago, hundreds of residents of Port Jervis, you heard me talk about Port Jervis a few minutes ago, they came together and marched. They are members of the Friends of Robert Lewis Committee. They spoke about their efforts to elect a memorial plaque, which we ended up doing last year.
They did that so his lynching would not be covered up and forgotten, so that this terrible crime would not be buried in our history. And Ralph Drake, who is white and founded the committee, said, there’s no hero in this story, but the town must be that hero in confronting its legacy. The town must be the hero.
The people came together. They were the heroes. And today, this is our opportunity. New Yorkers, all of us can be the heroes and do the hard work of acknowledging the ugly truths of the past and do our part to keep Dr. King's dream alive and help bend our moral universe a little bit closer to justice by our actions here today.
Thank you very much.