Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Hosts Juneteenth Reception at Gracie Mansion
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Good evening, everyone. It is an honor to welcome you to Gracie Mansion — the people’s house — to commemorate Juneteenth together. Now, I’ll first ask, if you will grant me this, that we say it together: Knicks in? Knicks in? I wanna say thank you to the many artists, activists and community leaders here today. And I’d like to begin by acknowledging Dr. Pace, your sculpture "Triumph of the Human Spirit" in Foley Square has become a rallying point for so many who dare to imagine a better future. It is a powerful tribute to those long forgotten who lay buried nearby. I want to also thank the senior members of my administration, as well as a number of elected officials that we have here with us. I want to acknowledge our district attorneys, Alvin Bragg and Darcel Clark, who are here with us. New York State Assembly Member Chantel Jackson, who is here with us. Tamika Mallory, who is here with us. Reverend Stephen Green and Lady Braea, who is here with us. Arva Rice from the New York Urban League. L. Joy Williams from the NAACP. Raymond Codrington from the Weeksville Heritage Center. And Alicia Garza from Black Lives Matter. There are so many more who are here who have blazed a trail for this city and for this country and for this world, and I am so deeply appreciative of you taking the time to join us this evening. On Juneteenth, as you’ve heard so many say, but any elected official will tell you, we have to say it again ourselves. We commemorate the people of Galveston, Texas, learning of their freedom, as you heard, it was a full two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. More than 250,000 formerly enslaved Black Texans turned June 19 into a holiday of barbecues, rodeos, singing [and] red punch. When Black people were denied the right to gather in public places for the holiday, they were not deterred. They purchased private tracts of land and turned them into parks where they could gather together. I am struck by the determined joy this holiday insists on. That even after freedom was delayed time and again — even after rights were withheld and opportunity was restricted — Black Americans still found a way to stand together in solidarity, to create a day of celebration. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I am reminded that the story of American progress has never been a linear one. If nothing else, it has been a story of everyday people continuing to reach for our nation’s highest ideals — no matter what adversity lies in the way, no matter how many with power and means strive to keep liberty just out of reach. That story is one that was told here in our city too — in meeting houses and on street corners, in dockyards and on farmland. It is not lost on me that we stand together in a house that was built in part by enslaved labor. Nor do I forget that some of my predecessors, centuries ago, had enslaved people working for them themselves. Our city may have been relatively early to outlaw the practice of slavery, but we benefitted from it too. It is estimated that approximately 80 percent of Southern cotton passed through New York City. And yet, I am proud of our city’s legacy as home to some of the most powerful voices in the abolitionist movement — David Ruggles, Louis Napoleon, Sojourner Truth and so many more. New York City was the beating heart of so many daring operations for freedom — a crucial part of the Underground Railroad, a city where people risked their lives daily for others they had never met. I think too of Weeksville. Decades before the Civil War, stevedore James Weeks bought land in Brooklyn and turned Weeksville into a safe haven for free Black New Yorkers, sustained by their own shops, schools, nursing home, orphanage, newspapers and churches. And I think of the 4,000 Black New Yorkers who were not drafted into the Union Army during the Civil War — who were, in fact, denied the right to serve — but demanded to take part in the fight for freedom anyway. Many lost their lives so that others might taste the dignity that they had to fight so hard to know. On Juneteenth, yes, we celebrate — and we are reminded of how much work remains to be done so that all may know dignity. You have all heard me speak of the affordability crisis affecting our city, and yes, it affects every single New Yorker. However, we all know that the impact of this crisis has not been borne evenly. As the old saying goes: “When America catches a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.” Over the past two decades, rising costs have pushed 200,000 Black New Yorkers out of our city. It is meant that we have lost 19 percent of our city’s population of Black children and teenagers over the course of just 10 years. As City Hall works to enact an affordability agenda that lifts financial burdens off the backs of every New Yorker — as we deliver universal childcare, city-run grocery stores where food will be affordable [and] hundreds of thousands of permanently rent-stabilized homes — we do so knowing that for too long, neighborhoods that Black New Yorkers have helped to build like Canarsie, the South Bronx, Howard Beach and so many others have had to choose between being last in line, or not at all. The work is just beginning. Progress rarely arrives overnight. And yet as we stand together, I cannot help but think of the same few words that you have heard sung this evening and quoted again, the first verse of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”: “Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun. Let us march on ‘til victory is won.” As we march on together, let our feet be guided by the hope that we so often have to dig deep to find. Let our voices echo with the faith that has steadied those who came before — those who helped build this city and this nation, who found light even among the darkness. And as the sun continues its rise and breaks the horizon, let its warmth be felt not solely by those who have always felt it, but also by those who have been in its darkness. That is the work before us, and so, I am so thankful to all of you for being here. To so many of you for having blazed a trail that I could even dream one day of walking to become the mayor of our city. And as I think of this day and how it's often characterized as one of celebration, it must also be a day of recognition. A day recognizing all that is still to be done, because as this day celebrates freedom, I cannot help but think of the words of Martin Luther King Jr., decades ago, who asked, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?” So, as we talk about freedom, as we celebrate freedom, we know that we still have to do the work to ensure that that freedom can be felt, that freedom can be used, that freedom can be a reality here in the most expensive city in the United States of America. So, it is such a pleasure to be in this struggle with all of you, and I thank you for having led this for so long and for having allowed New Yorkers a chance to see what it can look like to live in a city where Black history isn't just something that has been written or is being written, but that it must also be a city where it can continue to be written. Thank you so much. Happy Juneteenth. ###
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