Mayor Zohran Mamdani has promised to uphold town’s beliefs of racial justice and fairness past mere political platitudes. Apparently his first step might be rejuvenating the mayor’s Racial Justice and Fairness Workplace.
The impetus behind the racial fairness workplace will be traced again to the nationwide reckoning over George Floyd’s homicide in 2020. The town was charged up and demanded structural modifications be made on the administrative stage which may really tackle systemic points impacting Black and Brown New Yorkers.
Mamdani has tapped Afua Atta-Mensah, government director of Group Voices Heard, to be the subsequent racial justice chief fairness officer and commissioner. She has beforehand held roles together with chief of applications at group change, government director of Group Voices Heard, and director of litigation and coverage on the City Justice Middle. She says she is humbled and just a little nervous by the appointment, however above all laser-focused on succeeding the place the final administration stumbled.
“What I wish to be sure we’re doing is transferring with deliberate pace, to be speaking throughout all of the businesses, proceed to collect data, and to launch this in a way that’s digestible and clear with the attention in direction of implementation,” mentioned Atta-Mensah.
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In March 2021, former Mayor Invoice de Blasio greenlit the formation of the primary Racial Justice Fee (RJC) and appointed 11 commissioners, together with Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO and government director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Companies (FPWA), who was chair. Following seven months of public boards and interviews, the RJC printed a report and put collectively three poll proposals that handed in 2022. The proposals said that town’s structure would attempt for “a simply and equitable metropolis for all” ; create a everlasting workplace of racial fairness and chief fairness officer; and promised a “true value of dwelling” measure for important wants like housing, meals, or childcare.
The NYC Mayor’s Workplace of Fairness and Racial Justice (MOERJ) and the NYC Fee on Racial Fairness (CORE), which is a 15-member impartial oversight physique for MOERJ, launched in October 2023 below former Mayor Eric Adams.
However in August 2025, CORE filed a lawsuit towards the Adams administration for failure to stick to deadlines in releasing town’s mandated racial fairness plan the earlier yr. An indication that President Donald Trump’s push for rollbacks to variety and racial justice initiatives had been in full swing. Authorized reps for Adams on the time blamed the delays on a number of lawsuits threatening town’s federal funding if the report had been launched.
Mamdani’s staff pointedly promised to create and publish the preliminary racial fairness plan inside his administration’s first 100 days in workplace, which might be about mid-April.
“I feel this work will inevitably be troublesome, nonetheless, it needs to be completed,” mentioned Mamdani in a short sitdown with Amsterdam Information.
Honoring MLK
The administration’s dedication to racial justice is underscored by its concentrate on the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. This comes as Trump has focused Black historical past holidays, together with eradicating King’s birthday and Juneteenth from the Nationwide Park Service’s listing of free admission days. Trump additionally introduced one other try to withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities” beginning February 1, a problem that has beforehand been blocked in courtroom as unconstitutional.
Mamdani feels that Dr. King’s life and legacy are linked to the historical past of town. He recalled visiting Cornerstone Baptist Church in Brooklyn on the marketing campaign path, understanding that it was the place King spoke many years prior.
To have a good time the King vacation this yr, Mamdani spent Jan. 19 with politicians and group leaders recounting the works of one in all historical past’s nice advocates for social justice, learn how to defend his commemorative day, and expressing the need to implement the tenets of the Civil Rights Motion on the metropolis stage.
Mamdani added that the work of the racial justice workplace will concentrate on urgent points, such because the exodus of Black and Brown New Yorkers who can not afford to reside within the metropolis, addressing town’s gender pay hole and racial disparities in employment charges, constructing “really inexpensive” housing citywide, and upholding reparations laws on the metropolis stage.
“Oftentimes after we take into consideration Dr. King, we neglect various totally different components of his legacy, and one of many quotes that I maintain expensive when interested by him is, ‘what good is having the appropriate to take a seat at a lunch counter, in the event you can’t afford to purchase a hamburger?’” mentioned Mamdani, forward of attending the Nationwide Motion Community (NAN) King Day of Service Public Coverage Discussion board in Harlem.
“The significance of rights will not be simply that folks have them, however that they will additionally train them. And as he would typically clarify racial justice with out financial justices is like clapping with one hand. This is a chance so that each New Yorker can climb,” mentioned Mamdani.
His workplace has taken some steps ahead already, like rolling out 2-care and extra entry to 3k common childcare with the governor’s help; promising to guard peaceable protestors, particularly those who encounter native and federal authorities; and standing with putting New York State Nurses Affiliation (NYSNA) nurses on the picket line at Montefiore, Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, and NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals this week.
“I feel it solely makes our dedication extra pressing, frankly. A mark of your perception in a worth will not be when it’s straightforward to follow it, however when it’s exhausting. And what we see in Dr. King’s legacy isn’t just a imaginative and prescient for racial justice, not only a imaginative and prescient for financial justice, but additionally a imaginative and prescient for a rustic the place dissent will not be repressed, the place it’s really understood as a vital a part of the well being of a nation,” mentioned Mamdani. “ And I feel that we noticed, in his personal lifetime, the way in which wherein he needed to take care of that sort of oppression. And let immediately be a day the place we recommit ourselves to making sure that the appropriate to peacefully assemble is one that’s given to each New Yorker, irrespective of who they’re, irrespective of the place they arrive from, it doesn’t matter what it’s that they’re advocating for.”
MOERJ additionally incorporates different fairness places of work, comparable to NYC Her Future (NHF), the NYC Fee on Gender Fairness (CGE), the NYC Unity Challenge (UP), and the NYC Younger Males’s Initiative (YMI) in addition to multi-agency our bodies just like the NYC Pay Fairness Cupboard (PEC) and the NYC Taskforce on Racial Inclusion & Fairness (TRIE).
