Majority Whip Hanks on African American burial sites bill
Majority Whip Kamillah Hanks delivers remarks on Intro 220-A, thanking scholars, advocates, and descendants who pushed the bill forward. She explains the bill gives the city responsibility to locate, document, protect, and recognize historical African-American burial sites, calling it one important step toward a larger promise.
Thank you, Dr.
Chair Williams, Speaker Menon, and my colleagues.
I also want to thank the scholars, the advocates.
descendants, community leaders, and everyone whose knowledge and persistence brought this work forward.
New York cannot tell its complete story while the resting places of people remain unseen.
These New Yorkers have lived here, worked here, built communities here, and helped build the city we inherit today.
Their lives deserve dignity.
Their resting places deserve dignity.
protection, and their descendants deserve to know what their history matters.
Intro 220A gives the city a responsibility to locate, document, protect, and recognize these sites guided by scholarship, oral histories, and community knowledge.
This bill is not the end of that work.
It is one important step towards a larger promise that will not erase a New Yorker from our shared memory.
And today we take that step together.
And I hope that my colleagues will vote for this bill today.
We will continue this work until every part of our history is seen, honored, and never forgotten.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.