NY reparations panel begins study of slavery’s impact

ALBANY (TNS) — A nine-member commission has the next year to study how reparations could be offered to descendants of enslaved people in New York. The panel is charged with issuing a report to the state Legislature on how, or if, reparations could be made. It’s the result of a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages, a Democrat from Nassau County. “Sometimes government is messy and in the beginning it might be difficult but we’re on our way there,” Solages said after an initial meeting of commission members last week broke down into some squabbling about leadership positions. “I just have hope for the future.” Sen. James Sanders, a Democrat from Queens, carried the bill in his chamber. “We have been gathered from the four corners of the Earth for a meeting 400 years in the making,” Sanders said. “But it’s also a humbling moment.”   SLAVERY IN NY’S PAST Slavery existed in New York, particularly in the 1700s when some of the state’s most famous names used the practice — the Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Bergens and others. That’s evidenced by a monument that was erected in lower Manhattan after workers excavating the site found a mass burial site where...