NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Members of the New York City Council will ask the city to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from the City Council chambers in City Hall, Council Speaker Corey Johnson said Thursday.
During a virtual hearing on Thursday, Johnson said councilmembers including Inez Barron, Debi Rose, Adrienne Adams, Daneek Miller and Donovan Richards have been pushing for the state’s removal for “years.”
The council will be sending a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s Public Design Commission requesting the removal, he said.
“We need the Public Design Commission, which the mayor has control over, to greenlight that, and so we are ready to move that statue out of the Chambers as quickly as they’ll facilitate making that happen,” Johnson said.
Rose, who represents part of Staten Island, said the removal is “long overdue.”
“The evil of slavery is more than a chapter in American history books. The legacy of systemic, brutal dehumanization of human beings, sanctioned and practiced by men and women like Thomas Jefferson, still lives with us today,” she said. “This is why we protest, this is why we kneel, and this is why we must say ‘Black Lives Matter.’”
“As a member of the City Council, I work with my colleagues to rid our society of this legacy and make this a more fair, equitable city,” she added. “Doing so under a statue that commemorates a man who enslaved human beings is unacceptable for many of us, and it is truly painful.”