On August 17, City & State held a New York State education summit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan. The opening keynote was delivered by Dr. Betty A. Rosa, Commissioner of Education & President of the University of the State of New York. The presenters on various panels included among others:
John C. Liu, Chair, State Senate Committee on New York City Education
Michael Mulgrew, President, United Teachers Federation
Rita Joseph, Chair, New York City Council Education Committee
Toby Ann Stavisky, Chair, State Senate Higher Education Committee>
Eric Dinowitz, Chair, New York City Council Higher Education Committee
Shelley Mayer, Chair, State Senate Education Committee.
In addition, state and school district leaders along with industry experts populated the panels and the audience.
The purpose of this blog is not to summarize what was discussed, but to point out what was not. Where were local and state history in the daylong session?
I will confine myself to two history events that occurred just scant yards away from where the education summit was being held – Lafayette’s return to the United States beginning in 1824 and the Mente departure from the United States in 1841. Both events were not only local events but state and national events. The Mente are better known as the people from the Amistad after whom some New York State commissions are named; Lafayette has given his name to streets, villages, towns, and cities in the state as well as being the subject of statues and monuments. I just attended a Lafayette monument rededication in Fishkill, New York on August 27, for example.
LAFAYETTE
President James Monroe invited the Marquis de Lafayette to return to the United States in 1824 during a bitterly fought presidential election year. The August 17 date of the Education Summit was on the 199th anniversary of his arrival in New York. If the same event is held next year, it will be during the bicentennial.
The American Friends of Lafayette (AFL) is planning a nationwide celebration of Lafayette’s return in 2024-2025. There were only 24 states then so the task is not quite as daunting as it might seem at first glance. Next year, August 17, 2024, is a Saturday. If the summit is moved up one day to Friday, August 16, 2024, it will be meeting during the 200th anniversary parade from Castle Clinton, an historic site in its own right, to the City Hall. Perhaps City & State will schedule a break during the summit so the participants in the education summit, can participate in the parade as well.
During his 13-month visit, Lafayette traveled from Manhattan through what is now the Bronx to Westchester on his way to Boston by horse and carriage. He also traveled by steamboat on the Hudson. Finally, near the end of his visit, he traveled along the route of the soon-to-be-opened Erie Canal, another bicentennial event of local, state, and national significance sure to be overlooked in any education summit.
In short, the Lafayette Bicentennial is symptomatic of the absence of local history in the planning for the future.
AMISTAD
The Amistad name is well-known in state education circles. Indeed, it may be difficult to keep track of all the various commissions and legislative bills.
Amistad Commission – There is an effort by the Department of State to resurrect the defunct commission that has been inactive for years and the source of multiple blogs on my part castigating it for its shortcomings. I attended the second meeting of the new commission at Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers earlier this year and spoke with some people who attended the third meeting in Albany. These meetings seem to be more of presentations and not designed to elicit feedback from the community. I am not sure what its real objective or plan is for this Commission or if it ever will amount to more than the earlier attempt did. I could be proven wrong.
1. Amistad Relocation Legislation (S1032) – An apparently failed effort this past legislative session to transfer responsibility of the Amistad Commission from the Department of State to the Education Department. The Commission such as it exists does belong in the Department of Education and not the Department of State.
2. Amistad Curriculum Legislation (S5334) – An apparently failed effort this past legislative session involving the curriculum and more of a revision than a simple relocation of an existing commission.
3. Reparations (A7691) – An apparently successful bill passed in the waning hours of the current session and to be sent to the Governor for signing.
4. 1827 Bicentennial Freedom Commission – a bill which never was introduced, might get lost in the crowd if it was introduced, and might suffer some of the same staffing issues as the American Revolution 250th.
The history of the Amistad is closely connected to the Education summit as well. The ship itself arrived in Culloden Point in Montauk on August 26, 1839.On August 26, 2023, the Eastville Community Historical Society, the Southampton African American Museum, and the Montauk Historical Society dedicated a State Historic Marker to the people on La Amistad. They conducted the ceremony as part of a weekend of remembrance.
The next day, August 27, the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor hosted a panel discussion about the people of the schooner La Amistad, illustrated by scenes from Steven Spielberg’s landmark film, Amistad. This screening and forum was moderated by Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, executive director of the Eastville Community Historical Society, and reflected on the Amistad story both in its historical context and in relation to the echoes that are still felt today throughout our nation.
The departure also is a New York story. On November 25, 1841, the Mende set sail back to Sierra Leone from New York. That date is the anniversary of Evacuation Day ending the British occupation of New York City in 1783. The plaza in front of the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, a short distance from the Education Summit, has been renamed Evacuation Plaza.
By coincidence, Fraunces Tavern, also located near the site of the Education Summit, recently opened a new exhibit on the Birch Trials. They are about the Black Loyalists who joined with the British evacuating New York and the United States for Canada and eventually to Freetown, Sierra Leone. At a recent history conference, I asked a presenter if she knew if the Mende had known about these arrivals from the United States, but she did not know.
Perhaps I should ask Frances Tiafoe the son of Sierra Leone immigrants, at the U.S. Open. Last year when I saw him play, I had no idea who he was.
But I digress. A teacher is sure to red-mark some of these comments.
It is not just that local history is all around us, it is all around the very place where the New York State Education summit is held. Maybe next year, there will be a place for local and state history in the education summit as well.
In 1827 Rev. Nathaniel Paul, a minister in Albany, New York, hails the final abolition of slavery in that state. His address given on July 5, 1827 in Albany marks that occasion. (https://www.blackpast.org)
Without the Covid-19 pandemic, there would have been an 1827 Freedom Bicentennial Commission passed this legislative session. The bill would have been passed by both the Senate and the Assembly. It would then have been sent to the Governor for signature. Between the summer and December, it would have remained on the Governor’s desk. At some point in December, he would either have signed the bill or sent it back for revisions. But because of the coronavirus, that is not what happened.
I can speak with some authority on this bill, because I suggested it. Back in 2019, I suggested to my State Senator Shelley Mayer, Chair, Education Committee, that there was a need for such a bill. She agreed. She spoke about it to the teachers at the Lower Hudson Valley Social Studies conference back in December when we could still meet in person. It would have been submitted this past legislative session.
I was asked to write the Purpose and Justification of the bill. Here is what I submitted:
PURPOSE GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to highlight the New York story of Africans and African Americans from their first arrival here with the Dutch in 1613 to the legal end of slavery on July 4, 1827. The story involves the intersection of African, European, and Indian Nations, peoples, and people here in New York State. To do so, the Commission will partner with the scholars, history organizations, schools, and community organizations that research, exhibit, tell, and teach this story. The events and activities carried out by the commission can foster learning and developmental environments for youth, adults and seniors of all backgrounds and cultivate opportunities to foster a better understanding of the development of our state through the continuous contributions of Africans and African Americans during this period.
JUSTIFICATION
The contributions that Africans and African Americans have made to the founding and creating of New York State are often overlooked. Besides the events in Virginia in 1619, the Amistad in Connecticut in 1839, and Juneteenth in Texas in 1865, there is a New York African story to tell. There are events that happened here. There are people who were born, lived, and died here. There are buildings and burials that are located here. There are sites which need to be preserved, markers, memorials, and statues which need to be maintained or created. There is curriculum which needs to be revised to integrate the African story in New York’s and the nation’s story. There is cultural heritage tourism to be developed and/or promoted and field trips to be taken. As the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the country approaches, it is important that the African and African American contribution to that event be told as part of the celebration. It is even more important in a state of as many peoples as our own that we come together on this bicentennial anniversary of freedom and celebrate the contributions African Americans have made from 1613 to 1827 since they first arrived on the shores of the east coast to the creation of this country and the end of slavery in the state.
The idea that it is necessary stems from the fact that African American contributions to the founding of our state and country are great and expansive and as such, we should establish a commission with a purpose to highlight and integrate them into our education, tourism, and cultural heritage. In addition, that it should be done in ways in which, entire communities can unify and commemorate an anniversary such as this one.
I borrowed some of the wording from the existing 400 Year Commission bill written in recognition of 1619. That event had nothing to do with New York. If we want to recognize the quadricentennial of slavery in New York, we should have a 2026 commission. There still is time to create one.
THE QUADRICENTENNIAL COMMISSION
The 1619 Quadricentennial Commission bill ironically was passed by the Senate and Assembly on June 19, 2019. That passage was not in recognition of Juneteenth, it just happened to be the final day of the 2019 legislative session. The bill then went to the Governor where it sat until December. Needless to say, this commission which had no funding and was for an anniversary which already had occurred in August 2019, already was behind schedule. A revised bill to give the Governor more power was passed in January 2020 with a new expiry date in June 2021. The commission was to have 15 members. I was informed in February, 2020, that these individuals had been selected. The main issue left was arranging for the proverbial photo-op. In March, of course, everything changed. To the best of my knowledge, nothing has happened since. Given that the commission has not been formed, it expires in less than a year, it commemorates an event already a year late, and the events that have transpired since then, it seems unlikely that this commission will ever amount to much.
JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY
My first blog on Juneteenth was back in 2016 (Forgetting July 4, 1827). My concern was that an event in Texas that had nothing to do with New York was being celebrated while New Yorkers were generally ignorant about 1827 when slavery legally ended here. Flash forward to 2020 and suddenly Juneteenth became a national story. As a result of George Floyd and a proposed campaign rally in Tulsa, everybody became aware of Juneteenth.
In New York, Juneteenth became a state-recognized holiday. The Governor issued an Executive Order stating so:
EXECUTIVE ORDER: DECLARING JUNETEENTH A HOLIDAY FOR NEW YORK STATE EMPLOYEES
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the Constitution of the State of New York, specifically Article IV, section one, and the laws of the state of New York do hereby recognize June 19, 2020 as Juneteenth, which shall be a holiday for state employees, who if not required to work, shall be entitled to leave at full pay without charge to existing accruals and for those employees who are required to work, they shall receive one day of compensatory time.
So this year when we could not gather in groups, have parades, and when many people were home from work, Juneteenth was a holiday for state employees.
ABOLITION COMMEMORATION DAY
1827 was finally recognized this year in a bill that “Designates the second Monday in July each year as a day of commemoration, to be known as Abolition Commemoration day.” The title of the bill is:
An act to amend the executive law, in relation to the designation of Abolition Commemoration day as a day of commemoration.
It, too, has a Purpose and justification sections just as I had written for the 1827 commission.
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
Establish a day of commemoration to be known as Abolition Commemoration Day in New York State which will be observed annually on the second Monday of the month of July. The commemoration day will solemnly remember the abolishment of slavery in New York State on July 4, 1827 and honor the bravery and sacrifices of abolitionists of the state; those known and those whose names will never be known.
JUSTIFICATION:
The United States has a long, complicated, violent and lucrative history in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Our nation, including New York State, has never fully acknowledged or atoned for the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, nor has the State honored those leaders who fought to abolish slavery with a day of commemoration. By designating a day of commemoration, New York will commemorate the Abolition Act that was passed by New York State legislators on March 31, 1817, which abolished slavery in New York State effective July 4, 1827.
While many enslaved Africans were ultimately taken to the southern colonies, New York State was a major importer of slave labor. In 1703, more than 42 percent of households in New York City had slaves – second behind Charleston, South Carolina – and slaves made up approximately 20 percent of New York City’s population. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, much of the State economy and institutions throughout New York State, were dependent upon and built on the backs of slave labor. Enslaved Africans lived their entire lives in captivity, never having experienced a moment of freedom, from birth to childhood, to adulthood and finally death. The wounds that were manifested for over 200 hundred years by oppressive government laws and regulations will never begin to heal until a meaningful, respectful, and earnest effort is made by the State of New York to start the healing process and honor those that fought for the abolishment of slavery.
The American abolitionist movement started as early as the 1600s and was first led by the Quakers and Mennonites who held a belief that all human beings were worthy of equality and respect. However, it wasn’t until several decades later that the abolitionist movement started gaining support in New York State. In New York, there were many voices who called for the abolishment of slavery, some called for a gradual end like those of the New York Manumission Society. While others called for an immediate end. The literary works produced by abolitionists helped grow and sustain the antislavery conversation and gain widespread public support. Abolitionists John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish established the first African American newspaper in the United States, “Freedom’s Journal,” in New York, which was also established during the same year slavery in New York was abolished.
Additionally, a number of abolitionist newspapers were published by African Americans, such as “The Elevator,” published in Albany, New York by Stephen Myers and backed by Horace Greely (sic), Garret Smith and other white abolitionists. Steven Myers and his wife Harriet Johnson also operated the Albany Station of the Underground Railroad, which helped fugitive slaves make their way to Canada and was known as the most-organized section of the Railroad. The great Frederick Douglass was also well-known for his publication, “The North Star,” as well as his famous speeches. Others, like Sojourner Truth used their voices to advocate nationally for the abolishment of slavery and to ensure that the contributions and plight of women was included in the narrative around emancipation. And while New York later came to be known as a free-state, many abolitionists like Harriet Tubman helped African slaves escape on the Underground Railroad throughout the country and specifically in New York State. Tubman and others also used their platforms in New York State to call for the abolishment of slavery throughout the United States.
There were also countless documented and undocumented uprisings by enslaved Africans who fought for their freedom and the many unsung heroes who spoke out against slavery when it was unpopular and dangerous to do so. For these people, New York State owes a great debt and must acknowledge their sacrifices that contributed to a more unified and stronger state. The abolishment of slavery was not the result of one person’s doing, rather it was a collective movement. Nothing can remove the generational damages created as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, a civilized state can do no less than set aside one day a year to honor the brave abolitionists and atone for having engaged in the process of maintaining an exploitative, abusive, slavish society for countless generations.
There is a lot of good material here. Certainly a lot more than I included in my one-paragraph narrative. It makes me wonder which politically-active slavery historian(s) might have written/contributed to it.
Before getting too excited, it is worth noting the commemoration days in the existing law which this bill amends. See how many you recognize.
January sixth: Haym Salomon Day
January twenty-seventh: Holocaust Remembrance Day
February fourth: Rosa Parks Day
February fifteenth: Susan B. Anthony Day
February sixteenth: Lithuanian Independence Day
February twenty-eighth: Gulf War Veterans’ Day
March fourth: Pulaski Day
March tenth: Harriet Tubman Day
March twenty-ninth: Vietnam Veterans’ Day
April ninth: POW Recognition Day
April twenty-seventh: Coretta Scott King Day
April twenty-eighth: Workers’ Memorial Day
first Tuesday in May: New York State Teacher Day
May seventeenth: Thurgood Marshall Day
first Sunday in June: Children’s Day
June second: Italian Independence Day
June twelfth: Women Veterans Recognition Day
June nineteenth: Juneteenth Freedom Day
June twenty-fifth: Korean War Veterans’ Day
Second Monday in July: Abolition Commemoration Day
August twenty-fourth: Ukrainian Independence Day
August twenty-sixth: Women’s Equality Day
September eleventh: Battle of Plattsburgh Day” and also to be known as “September 11th Remembrance Day
September thirteenth: John Barry Day and also to be known as “Uncle Sam Day in the State of New York
September seventeenth: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben Memorial Day
third Friday in September: New York State POW/MIA Recognition Day” except if such date of commemoration cannot be observed due to a religious holiday, such observances shall then be conducted on the second Friday of September
last Saturday in September: War of 1812 Day
fourth Saturday of September: Native-American Day
last Sunday in September: Gold Star Mothers’ Day
October fifth: Raoul Wallenberg Day
October eleventh: “New Netherland Day in the State of New York
October eighteenth: Disabilities History Day
October twenty-seventh: Theodore Roosevelt Day
November ninth: Witness for Tolerance Day
November twelfth: Elizabeth Cady Stanton Day
third Tuesday in November to be known as “New York State School-Related Professionals Recognition Day
November thirtieth: Shirley Chisholm Day
December third: International Day of Persons with Disabilities
December seventh: Pearl Harbor Day
December sixteenth: Bastogne Day
day of the Asian lunar calendar designated as new year to be known as “Asian New Year”
I confess that I was not aware that New York State had all these official dates of commemoration. It makes me wonder what exactly the State does on these days. It also makes me realize once again that we need a robust New York State Historian Department with the staff and resources commensurate with the responsibility of commemorating New York State history.
Before returning to 1827, let me mention once again the other event that frequently is mentioned in connection with this subject – Amistad. No, I am not referring to the failed New York State Amistad Commission. It lingers on as a defunct website that no one puts out of its misery. Instead I am referring to the active and robust New Jersey Amistad Commission which puts New York to shame.
The Amistad Commission Virtual Summer Institute Professional Development Course
The Amistad Commission – NJ Department of Education is excited to launch our inaugural on-line class, our virtual Summer Curriculum Institute Course for Educators and Administrators. Please join us.
This summer’s online course will include virtual experiential learning, primary and secondary resources, lectures, multimedia presentations, curriculum development, and teaching strategies, lesson plan writing and methodology structuring sessions, we will assemble NJ K-12 teacher, content specialist, administrators, and community stakeholders together enlisting expert scholars in the varied topic areas of each lecture.
As a condition of acceptance and full attendance teacher-scholars may: • earn up to 40 professional development credit (CEU) and • design curriculum materials. In addition, all teachers completing the training must develop lesson plans and structure content for their classrooms and agree to serve as their school and/or district resource. The Amistad Commission highlights and trains teachers every Summer on the usage of the Amistad Commission on-line textbook and model curriculum in support of the legal mandate for the teaching of American History infused with the African narrative, the web-based curriculum resource for k-12 classrooms; “An Inclusive Journey Through American History” which is available free of charge to every NJ school (www.njamistadcurriculum.net). All teachers registered for the on-line course are expected to turn-key all information and resources within their respective districts as a condition of their course admittance.
The New Jersey example reveals what can be done if one goes beyond designating days and appointing commissions for show.
The Underground Railroad Consortium of New York State is pursuing an 1827 commission also.
If New York State ever got serious about celebrating its own history we need commissions of substance and resources for:
2024: 100th anniversary Indian Citizenship Act
2025: 200th anniversary Erie Canal (which already is underway)
2026: 400th anniversary of beginning of slavery in New York
2026-2033: 250th anniversary of the American Revolution (which already is underway)
2027: 200th anniversary of the end of slavery.
August 28, 2020, marks the 8th anniversary of the Path through History Conference held in Albany to launch that initiative. You are keeping track aren’t you? I am holding the paperweight from that event plus a NYS Executive Mansion napkin I took as a souvenir from the reception held there. In his plenary address, Ken Jackson said New York State was doing a lousy job touting its own history. What’s changed in eight years?
On September 8, I had the honor of boarding the Amistad docked in Yonkers, New York. The event was a last minute one arranged in part through the African American Westchester 400 (AAW400) and the City of Yonkers. I am a member of that committee. Although the 400th anniversary of the event is over, the work continues to tell the story of the African contribution to the creating and building of our country, our state, and our county.
1. When I reviewed the situation in the spring of 2019 of the commission created by law in 2016, the status was dismal. At that point, nothing had been done, deadlines were not being met, and the prospect of funding to organizations to hold programs had not been realized. Not surprisingly, that condition persisted throughout the spring and summer.
2. The events that did occur through the commission operating through the National Park Service tended to be in Virginia at or near the site where the first Africans to the British colonies arrived. There was no national presence. The closest action at the national level probably was the Sunday Magazine section of the New York Times dedicated to 1619. That garnered attention. With the related curriculum materials and articles/podcasts, the New York Times likely is to be the most prominent player in the national arena on the subject of 1619.
Yes, it could have happened through the federal commission but it did not. One wonders if the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution which also has a federal commission will repeat this scenario.
States also had the opportunity to act. In New York, an act establishing the 400 Years of African History Commission passed the state Assembly and Senate. It has not been signed into law although in theory it still could be signed by Governor at any time even though the legislature is not in session. According to the stipulations, the commission is scheduled to submit a report yesterday on October 1 summarizing its planned activities, funds received and spent, and recommendations.
The mission of the state commission if created was similar to the national commission. It was to promote awareness and education of the African presence in the United States since 1619. Although New York was mentioned by name in the proposed legislation its purview was the entire United States. Funding was to be available for communities, organizations, and research. None of this has happened so far at the state level and now that the anniversary has passed, it remains to be seen if anything will happened. No specific government funding was included anyway.
These developments reminded me of the creation of the Amistad Commission here in New York in 2005.
New York State’s Amistad Commission is charged with researching and surveying the extent to which the African slave trade, American slavery and its aftermath and legacy is included in the curricula of New York state schools; and make recommendations to the Governor and Legislature regarding the implementation of education and awareness programs into schools curricula. The Commission will focus on the contributions of African-Americans in building our country, American History including Abolitionists, Civil Rights movements and other developments to create a greater awareness about the nation’s involvement in slavery to inspire acknowledgement and informed dialogue.
In 2005, New York’s Legislature created an Amistad Commission to review state curriculum regarding how American slavery is taught. All people should know of and remember the human carnage and dehumanizing atrocities committed during this period of American history and consider the vestiges of slavery in this country. It is vital to educate our citizens about our nation’s involvement in slavery to nullify the pervasive myth that Northerners, especially New Yorkers were innocent of slavery. The intention is to explore how slavery is interpreted to our students and the public and seek informed, balanced approaches. We will focus on historical content as well as pedagogy on how to teach slavery, with the hope that it be presented with sensitivity in learning environments and will contribute to the principles of justice, and dignity in a civilized society.
New Jersey, Illinois and New York have each created commissions to review how African American history and 250 years of slavery is taught in America’s classrooms.
That commission was the subject of a blog The New York State Amistad Commission: Do Black Lives Matter? In 2016 after I learned about it. I was critical of the commission for its inactivity and its focus on the United States as a whole. It seemed to be downplaying the African and therefore slavery presence in this state while seeking to tell the story of slavery in other states, meaning the South. One obvious datum demonstrating its shortcomings was its designation of its co-chair. At the time when I wrote the post, the Commissioner of Education named on the website was no longer in that position. He had left two years earlier. I checked again just now and he is still listed on the site EVEN AFTER HIS SUCCESSOR HAS RESIGNED! Does New York even need a new commission when it already has the dormant Amistad Commission? Or should it finally remove the Amistad Commission from the state website and start over?
I was reminded of the Amistad Commission both by the arrival of the Amistad on September 8 and an announcement I received earlier in the summer from the New Jersey Amistad Commission. As the New York website notes, New Jersey was one of the handful of states which also established such commissions. Apparently it is still going strong as evident by the announcement of this summer program. As you read the notification below please note the references to the THIRTEENTH annual teach institute and the normal TWO regional institutes. In other words, it has been a continuous active presence since its founding at the same time as the New York Amistad Commission.
The New Jersey Amistad Commission is proud to present its Thirteenth Amistad Commission Annual Summer Institute for Teachers to be held August 19-24, 2019. This year, the two regional institutes are combined into one large curriculum development and pedagogy consortium for administrators, and classroom teachers. Our aim is to teach additional methodological and pedagogical techniques using special topics in history, pursuant to our mandate to infuse African American history into the K-12 curriculum (NJ Rev Stat § 52:16A-87-89 (2013)).
This summer’s Institute is timed to correlate with the international recognition activities commemorating the 400-year anniversary of the first documented arrival “20 odd” captured and enslaved Africans to the Jamestown settlement on August 24, 1619. It is a five (5) day residential program designed to give New Jersey educators unique access to prominent colonial history scholars onsite Historic Jamestowne, Jamestown Settlement, Colonial Williamsburg and Tidewater Virginia.
These historic places offer visual and interactive history, unearthed archaeological exhibits and re-enactments that tell a hard story about the beginnings of involuntary servitude in America. The experience is designed to facilitate educators’ meaningful study and better understanding of this period in history.
The aim of the institute is to make the most of this experience in historic places by supplementing existing methodological and pedagogical techniques, using hands-on or experiential learning, stimulating creativity, reacquainting users with primary and secondary resources, providing lectures, multimedia presentations, teaching strategies, lesson plan writing and alignment of curriculum to New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (NJCCCS) and Amistad Curriculum.
A significant aspect of the professional development curriculum training is enabling educators’ experts use of the Amistad web-based multimedia curriculum resource, An Inclusive Journey Through American History (www.njamistadcurriculum.net).
There is no comparison between the success of the New Jersey program in contrast to the complete and total failure of the New York State Amistad Commission. At this point, there is no constructive purpose in trying to approve the current proposal in New York for the 400 year anniversary commission. Instead of focusing on events in Virginia, Texas with the Juneteenth, and the Amistad, we should be focusing on events here in New York. That is why I am working with my local state senator to create the Bicentennial Freedom Commission in recognition of the end of legalized slavery in New York State on July 4, 1827.
