Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Good afternoon, everyone. More than three years ago, New Yorkers did something that comes easy to us. We made our voices heard. In November of 2022, New Yorkers went to the polls and overwhelmingly supported a change to our City Charter, creating a new Mayor's Office of Equity and Racial Justice. The people of this city held a belief that City Hall holds as well, that New York should do everything in its power to build a city where racial disparities are identified and eroded, one where every person who calls the city home is treated fairly and equally.
It is no small thing to create a new Mayor's Office. It is a statement of intent, a mandate, and a mission delivered by the people, a purpose that demands fulfillment. And yet we know that that purpose has not been fulfilled in recent years.
A key component of that charter change was the requirement that a racial equity plan be produced every two years and that the Mayor's Office cooperated closely with the Commission on Racial Equality, or CORE, in this work. All those present alongside me and in front of me know that cooperation is not the first word many would use to characterize the past administration's approach to this vital work.
We will chart a new course from City Hall, one where racial equity is pursued with seriousness and intent, where agencies and offices will work collaboratively, and where deadlines will be met as opposed to ignored. To lead that work, I have turned to one of my most trusted advisors, a friend, someone who immediately inspires trust in the hearts of the many civic leaders who have been fortunate enough to work alongside her.
Afua Atta-Mensah has dedicated her adult life to serving the people of this city and to working on behalf of the New Yorkers so often forgotten in the corridors of power. Long before she served as my senior political director during our general election campaign, Afua began her career at the Legal Aid Society, where she fought on behalf of indigent tenants and to preserve low-income housing.
As a staff attorney at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project, she protected the Black and Hispanic families who are often the targets of unfounded allegations of neglect. Many New Yorkers know her from her more recent work as the executive director of Community Voices Heard, where she managed the efforts of our state's largest Black-led organizing institution, fighting back against HUD cuts and working daily to empower Black women who call this city home.
Afua is above all else an organizer. She organizes those she works alongside, she organizes with discipline and determination, and she organizes relentlessly on behalf of New Yorkers who often think of government as something that could only ignore them at best. As the newest chief equity officer and commissioner, I will turn to Afua to organize this office into a force of genuine political change.
And I want to thank Commissioner Sideya Sherman and her team for their work in building this office to where it is today. There are many New Yorkers still awaiting the racial equity plan that was promised to them and the incredibly important information that it would contain. Under Afua's leadership, I am proud to announce that a preliminary citywide racial equity plan will be crafted and published within the first 100 days of our administration.
I will close with this. For many years, New Yorkers have known race and identity only as a tool used to divide or to minimize our daily experiences across these five boroughs. We reckon with it in our schools, where Black and brown children contend with larger class sizes and worse outcomes, in housing where discrimination runs rampant, and in pay that is anything but equitable.
We need not accept the challenges or, frankly, the inertia and inaction of the past as if it is a blueprint of our future. We can do not only what voters have asked us to do, not only what the law requires us to do, but also that which we know to be right. We can create a New York that embraces every person who lives here, that works to knock down the walls of prejudice wherever they appear, and that celebrates the diverse fabric of our city. That will be the work that Afua leads, and let it be a daily endeavor that every New Yorker engages in as well. Thank you so much. And now, Afua Atta-Mensah.
Afua Atta-Mensah, Chief Equity Officer and Commissioner, Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am excited to stand once again in this very justice center where I practiced years ago, where I suited up each day to fight on behalf of New Yorkers facing eviction and displacement. Then the battle was in courtrooms. Today I return to this space to take on a new battle, one that seeks citywide accountability on behalf of all New Yorkers.
I am both honored and deeply humbled by the responsibility before us: to meet the charter's mandate by developing and implementing a comprehensive citywide racial equity plan. This work is ambitious by design. Reshaping systems that for far too long have erected barriers instead of building on-ramps for opportunity will not be easy.
But as the mayor has made clear, this administration is committed to doing big things — and to doing them boldly. I look forward to partnering with community leaders and working alongside the teams at the Office of Equity and Racial Justice and CORE to make this commitment real. Thank you.
Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO and Executive Director, FPWA: Good afternoon. As the first — I guess — everyday New Yorker, non-city official, I want to extend my congratulations to Chief Equity Officer and Commissioner Afua Atta-Mensah, and to the mayor, Mayor Mamdani, for making this pivotal appointment. I am known to many in New York City to don many hats of public service, and today I'm proud to don the hat as the chair of the first and only New York City Charter Revision Racial Justice Commission of 2021 to 2022, the first in the nation charged with addressing inequity and racial injustice in government functions through Charter Revision.
I'm delighted. I'm encouraged that in his very first weeks in office, Mayor Mamdani is prioritizing equity for all with the appointment of Afua Atta-Mensah, a lawyer, advocate, policy expert, and community leader whose on-the-ground boots and roots run deep on matters of racial justice. As the mayor stated, in 2022, New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly for equity and racial justice.
They moved forward in unprecedented numbers to pass ballot measures mandating that the City incorporated equity planning and a true cost-of-living measure based in dignity and economic security in all agency and office planning, policy, [and] practice work to ensure access, to ensure opportunity and agency for all, and particularly for people in communities who've long been marginalized by structural racism and economic deprivation and systemic inequity.
Pursuant to these charter changes, as the mayor said, this office was established and with it the Independent Commission on Racial Equity. They were established to ensure that the City makes good on the people's vote, on the people's will. And today, with the appointment of chief equity officer and commissioner — I can't stop saying it over and over.
With the appointment of Chief Equity Officer and Commissioner Afua Atta-Mensah, Mayor Mamdani is declaratively advancing the people's will and his commitment to equity even as there are some efforts across this nation to do otherwise. The groundwork was laid these last few years to plan and develop the mandated true cost-of-living measure and plans for racial equity in every city agency.
But now — now under this mayor and this administration's leadership, we're paused to move forward — boldly forward — to make New York City a place where all can and all will survive and thrive. And I stand ready, Mayor Mamdani [and] Chief Equity Officer and Commissioner, to put on all of my hats to help ensure we do just that. Thank you.
Arva Rice, President and CEO, New York Urban League: Good afternoon. I am Arva Rice, president and CEO of the New York Urban League. I stand here today representing the New York Urban League, an organization that has spent over a century ensuring that the doors of opportunity are not just open, but wide enough for every New Yorker to walk through. I stand here today as a Harlemite who works to ensure that our community remains affordable for my neighbors.
And I stand here as a Black woman in leadership, happy to support another woman in her new role. My presence as a member of the Mamdani transition team and partner of the administration is a continuation of a sacred legacy. I am reminded of my predecessor, Judge Livingston Wingate, who, as CEO of the New York Urban League, walked the streets of the city alongside Mayor Lindsay during the 1960s.
When other cities were burning, they walked together because they knew that peace is only possible when it is built on a foundation of justice. Today we take a new step in that walk. The appointment of Afua Atta-Mensah as chief executive officer and commissioner is a signal that this administration is not just talking about fairness, it is building the infrastructure for success and implementation.
The role of a chief equity officer is to be the City's moral architect. It is about ensuring that every budget line, every housing development, and every city contract passes an equity test. Afua is uniquely prepared for this. From her work as a Fulbright Scholar in Ghana to her fearless leadership at Community Voices Heard, she has proven she isn't afraid to demand that leaders see the reality of the people. Literally challenging them to sleep in public housing to understand the stakes.
However, let me be clear, the New York Urban League’s support for this administration is rooted in radical accountability. We will be the mayor's greatest partner and also his most honest critic. We will hold this administration to a standard where equity results in a New York that is affordable for all, where a zip code does not determine a child's future, and where working families aren't priced out of the very neighborhoods they help build. Commissioner, congratulations on this historic appointment. We are with you, and now let's get to work.
Question: [Inaudible.]
Mayor Mamdani: This appointment speaks to the excellence in Afua Atta-Mensah's record and in her vision for what it can look like to fulfill not just the statutory requirements of this Mayor's Office, but frankly, the need across this city to advance an agenda of racial equity and justice. And I will tell you that it is essential that my administration doesn't just fight for New Yorkers, but also looks like the city that it seeks to represent.
And I am proud of the team that we have assembled. I am proud of not only its focus on working class New Yorkers, but also its embodiment of that very focus in its own personnel. And I see — in an appointment process that is only going to continue — the need to showcase that reason to believe in city government every single day to New Yorkers across the city.
Question: [Inaudible.]
Mayor Mamdani: I have nothing but respect and admiration for Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez. And I will always continue to appreciate the relationship that we have and the shared vision in making this a city that we not only live in, but are also proud of.
Question: I wanted to ask you, have you heard back at all from President Trump after you reached out to him? Or has he left you on read still?
Mayor Mamdani: We haven't yet connected.
Question: Yesterday, the federal monitor said Rikers was still riddled with dysfunction. Should the current commissioner stay on after that criticism? And will the city welcome the receiver?
Mayor Mamdani: We are deeply troubled by the conditions at Rikers Island. And we will work with the monitor to improve them. We are going through the report and we will also be going through the plan to not only come into compliance, but also to end solitary confinement at Rikers.
Question: Following up on Nydia Velázquez, she's set to endorse a different candidate in the race, different from you. Do you feel like that, you know, your involvement in these congressional races is different from maybe some other people? Is [it] maybe ostracizing more moderates in the party? Do you think that that puts you at odds with them?
Mayor Mamdani: I would say that Congresswoman Velázquez and I are both proud progressives in New York City. And I am very excited in my support, not only for Diana Moreno, who is running to be the assemblymember in the former seat that I held, as well as Claire Valdez in NY-7, and Brad Lander, who is also running for congress. These are candidates that I'm excited by, and I'm confident New Yorkers will also be excited by [them].
Question: Do you have any plans to go to Rikers? You've been in office for, you know, a week and a half.
Mayor Mamdani: Fifteen days.
Question: Right, fifteen days. I see it behind you. Fifteen days. Do you have plans to go to Rikers? And, you know, punitive segregation has been outlawed at Rikers for quite some time, but you're making the case that you want to get rid of something that already exists. Can you just square that for us?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, I say this also standing alongside my former colleague in the state legislature, where we have seen time and time again the intent of something we passed does not necessitate its actual implementation. And when it comes to solitary confinement, we have seen the absence of its implementation here — the absence of the eradication of it, rather — here at Rikers Island. And I absolutely will go to Rikers Island.
I went to Rikers Island as an assemblymember a number of times. And what I can tell you is that when you go to Rikers Island, you understand the scale of devastation that we are talking about. The last time I went to Rikers Island, an incarcerated New Yorker tried to take their own life in front of a former colleague of mine. That is what we are talking about.
And I have to say also that the importance of a chief equity officer, the importance of a commissioner such as Afua Atta-Mensah, is someone who can take that which is often simply written about on a page or read in an article and make it the focus of the work that we do. And I have seen Afua do that time and time again in the work that we have done together in the past. And frankly, I am excited at the prospect of everything that we can do in city government. Thank you all.
###