New York needs to “fix” itself by preventing black people from being expelled from their neighborhoods, Mayor Eric Adams said in a speech on June 10 on Sunday.
Speaking in Central Park, Adams compared the modern eradication of people of color from neighborhoods in the United States – including the five neighborhoods – to slavery.
“When I was in Ghana last year, [I] saw how families were displaced, torn apart and transported to America through slavery in ship hulls, living in dungeons, spending months and months living in their human waste with their babies taken from them, and saw them scattered and displaced, “he said. he said.
“It’s no different here,” Adams told the crowd during Central Park’s Youth Festival.
“We can’t look in the rearview mirror and say we should have done better when we’re here right now,” he said. “Let’s do better now. Let’s acknowledge the presence of people to be part of the community they have built. “
The mayor named the village of Seneca, which was founded in 1825 in the western part of what is now Central Park and became home to more than 200 free black people – who were expelled about 30 years later to make way for Manhattan’s iconic green space. .
“Imagine being displaced over and over and over again,” Adams said. “When this village was torn down to build this park, we shifted the energy of the village of Seneca. He never came back.
Speaking in Central Park, Adams compared the modern eradication of people of color from neighborhoods in the United States – including the five neighborhoods – to slavery. Michael Noble Jr. for The Washington Post via Getty Images
“Let’s not mention the village of Seneca when we create another destruction of the village of Seneca,” he said.
“We have to think about it while we run here, while we look at this beautiful space [Frederick] Olmsted built, while looking at how great this Central Park is in downtown Manhattan, we relocated some families here. We destroyed lives, “the mayor said. “There were families here long before Starbucks. They were here and provided the basis. “
Black communities in the area have been forced to relocate and rebuild in other neighborhoods, such as Harlem, downtown Brooklyn and Bedford Stavesant, Adams said, adding: “And now what’s happening? We are displacing them again. ”
New York needs to “fix” itself by preventing black people from being expelled from their neighborhoods, Mayor Eric Adams said during a June 16 address.Twitter/@NYCMayor
“No one wanted this land. This land was not attractive. No one wanted Manhattan, “Adams added, referring to less prosperous decades of New York history. “These churches left here to have to go and build elsewhere like Harlem, downtown Brooklyn.
Adams, New York’s second black mayor, noted that black Americans have been forced to flee neighborhoods in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta in recent decades – communities he laments have been met with “destruction.”
“We start over and over again and wonder why we see some of the crises we face in black in brown communities,” he said. “Every time they managed to gain a foothold, they were displaced again. Once you start building something, it breaks. ”
Adams – who announced in April that leave would be paid to municipal workers on June 16 – encouraged about 40 people present not only to reflect on the past, but also to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“Let’s educate our children so that they know that there were people who were here who built this city we call New York,” he said.
June 10, one of the oldest holidays in America, marks the official end of slavery in the United States on the date in 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the last remaining Confederate supporters that they had lost the Civil War. so all slaves are needed be released. In June 2021, Juneteenth became the 12th federal holiday.
Adams kicked off the weekend at the Hampton Synagogue on Saturday.
Earlier Sunday, the town hall announced that the town hall and several other buildings would be lit in red, black and green on Sunday and Monday nights – the color of the pan-African flag – in honor of the holiday.
“On June 16, we are proud to say that black history is American history,” Adams said in a statement. “Today is a time to remember and celebrate the countless contributions of black Americans to our country, while acknowledging the many sacrifices and hardships our community faces.
“I hope that all New Yorkers will join me in recognizing the freedom that black Americans have been denied for too long.”
The municipal buildings that will be illuminated in red, black and green are the Bronx Borough Hall, The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, Queens Borough Hall, Staten Island Borough Hall and the DSNY Salt Shed Complex.
In addition, the colors will be displayed at a number of Big Apple landmarks, including Madison Square Garden; Rockefeller Plaza 30; Empire State Building; Javits Center; One World Observatory and the National Memorial Museum on September 11.
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