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Mamdani Open to Slavery Reparations in NYC

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) has suggested he is open to pay reparations for slavery in the city. “We often think about slavery and the complicity in slavery as being exclusively to certain geographic areas of…

Sandra RhodesJul 29, 20262 min read

New York City Reparations U.S. News Zohran Mamdani

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) has suggested he is open to pay Reparations for slavery in the city.

“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, and so I look forward to whatever those findings are,” Mamdani said in an interview with The Root released Tuesday.

“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 said.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has pushed progressive policy during his time in politics, and his possible support for

Reparations

would continue this trend.

Since slavery ended in the U.S., there have been efforts to create Reparations have been ongoing. Advocates for Reparations have noted Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, known as “40 acres and a mule,” an 1865 directive that never reached fruition.

If New York City proceeds with Reparations, it might face legal trouble from the federal government.

The Justice Department attempted to intervene in a federal lawsuit against a Chicago suburb’s housing Reparations program for Black residents, calling it “racially discriminatory” and unconstitutional.

According to the department, the program went against the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Fair Housing Act.