Honor Victims of Slavery

400-year period and was unprecedented in the annals of recorded human history; and WHEREAS, As a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade, the greatest movement of Africans was to the Americas, with 96 percent of the captives from the African coasts arriving on cramped slave ships at ports in South America and the Caribbean Islands; and WHEREAS, From 1501 to 1830, four Africans crossed the Atlantic for every one European, making the demographics of the Americas in that era more of an extension of the African diaspora than a European one; the legacy of this migration is still evident today, with large populations of people of African descent living throughout the Americas; and WHEREAS, For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the tragic transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history; and WHEREAS, Slaves resisted in a variety of ways but the two most common types were refusal to eat and suicide; and WHEREAS, Over the centuries, some African peoples, such as the Kru, came to be understood as holding substandard value as slaves, because they developed a reputation for being too proud for slavery, and for attempting suicide immediately upon losing their freedom; and WHEREAS, The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declared that: all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thence forward, and forever free; and WHEREAS, Every year on March 25th, the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honor and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system; the International Day also aims at raising awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to memorialize Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to proclaim March 25, 2017, as Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the State of New York; and be it further RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted to The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor of the State of New York.