Musings on the Minor Bar Association Trailblazer Awards
Cleveland Community Police Commission
seeks executive director
-->
 |
| Judge Randolph Baxter, US Bankruptcy Court [Ret.] |
Today the Norman S Minor
Bar Association hosted its annual Trailblazers luncheon at a posh downtown
hotel. Today's luncheon was a celebration of the wildly successful careers of three
extraordinary African American attorneys: Randolph Baxter, Paul Harris, and Yvette
McGee Brown.
 |
| Yvette McGee Brown Partner, Jones Day |
Judge Baxter served with distinction for more than a quarter
century as a US Bankruptcy Court Judge. Judge McGee Brown rose to the highest
echelons of her profession when she was appointed to serve on the Ohio Supreme
Court. And Paul Harris has over the years emerged as one of the most
influential behind the scenes leaders in Cleveland's professional and civic
circles as corporate counsel at KeyBank.
 |
| Paul Harris, KeyBank |
The resume of each of these lawyers is impeccable, and filled with
community service beyond their outstanding legal accomplishments, a larger
record of which can be found here. Indeed,
while Judge Baxter has been retired for some years, Judge McGee Brown and Mr.
Harris will no doubt continue to be active community leaders for some time,
Harris here in Cleveland and McGee Brown in Columbus where she is now a partner
in Jones Day, one of the world's leading law firms.
The Norman S. Minor Bar Association is itself to be saluted for
continuing its unblemished record of highlighting the best and brightest
careers that black lawyers are forging against the odds.
And make no mistake; even the law profession itself recognizes how
daunting the prospects are for black attorneys to succeed. Just this year both
the Cleveland and Ohio bar associations addressed rampant discrimination within
their own ranks. Leadership within each of these organizations has stepped
forward to address the ways in which America’s original sin continues to infect
personnel decisions in law firms and corporate offices.
I was a guest at several sessions addressing these issues at this
year's annual Ohio State Bar Association meeting in Cincinnati. Hundreds of
attorneys from around the state were held at rapt attention for the sessions I
attended. One featured the incomparable Nathaniel Jones, a retired federal
appellate court judge of the Sixth District based in Cincinnati. Judge Jones
deserves a post of his own and we will soon deliver on that responsibility, especially
because a part of his remarkable journey left indelible tracks here in Cleveland.
The most lasting takeaway from the State Bar meeting was the
presentation on implicit bias. Some may have recognized that phrase when Hillary
Clinton used it this month in her presidential campaign while responding to a
question about police practices. The oppositional heat her mere use of the
phrase generated was irrefutable proof that implicit bias resides as a virulent
force in the body politic.
My real concern here, enmeshed in today's worthy celebration of
noteworthy careers, is how these successes seem in some ways increasingly estranged
from the communities that made them possible.
Community has been a focus of ours these past few weeks. Much of
this recent conversation has focused on Glenville — the warm, rich, diverse and
vibrant neighborhood of my youth. What happened to it? Why did it happen? Most
importantly, what can be done to renew it?
To the latter point, Glenville's community development corporation,
the Famicos Foundation, held its second annual fundraiser last night, where it
unveiled a master plan[1] into which more than 500
of its estimated 20,000 residents had input. As we surveyed the nearly 200
supporters in attendance, we recognized several black attorneys of our
acquaintance — Vanessa Whiting, Sheila Wright, Mona Scott, among them. While Ms.
Whiting is in private practice, and a fierce and devoted warrior in the ongoing
struggle for racial and social justice, we didn't see one attorney there who
might routinely address the legal issues of ordinary community residents. [2]
The absence of black attorneys whose practices are rooted in the
community is starkly emblematic of larger issues. Back in the 1950s and early
1960s, when America was great (chuckle, chuckle) black attorneys in
high-powered corporate legal circles were more rare than hen's teeth. But there
was an abundance of black lawyers in the community, with offices in plain sight
up and down Cedar Ave., East 55th, and East 105th. Former Congressman Louis
Stokes noted in his just-published posthumous memoir how proud he was to open
Stokes and Stokes with brother Carl on St. Clair Ave., immediately east of East
105 St. Ironically, that office was short-lived: not long after it opened,
Lou's jaw dropped when the already-legendary Norman S. Minor himself stopped in
unannounced to invite the brothers to join him in establishing Minor, Stokes
and Stokes.
The record shows there never have been more talented lawyers of
any hue than the community-based Norman Minor and Lou Stokes. As opportunities
slowly began to open in the legal profession in the late Sixties, black
attorneys, including black women attorneys, began to show their extraordinary
professional competence on a wider stage, even while regularly battling
outright hostility, to say nothing of implicit bias, from colleagues, judges,
and corporate clients. The experiences of early pioneers like Paul White (Cleveland’s
first black law director and subsequent Baker Hostetler partner) Owen Heggs (Jones
Day), Andrew L. Johnson, (first black president of then 4,000+ member Cleveland
Bar Association), or Leonard Young (Ferro Corporation) were fraught with
aggressions both macro and micro directed their way.
We have come a mighty long way. Today, we are no longer surprised
to learn that Robyn Minter Smyers has been selected to lead Thompson Hine, that
Rhonda Ferguson is chief legal officer at Union Pacific, or that the
aforementioned Paul Harris is KeyCorp general counsel. We have no doubt they
earned their positions and the perks attached thereto. Undoubtedly they heeded
the injunctions of the ancestors to be twice as good.
But something has also undoubtedly been lost when black
neighborhoods are no longer home to the legal descendants of Norman Minor, Lou
Stokes, Perry B. Jackson, Jean Murrell Capers, Lillian W. Burke, John W.
Kellogg, Al Pottinger, Stanley Tolliver, and a host of others. Glenville
councilman Kevin Conwell touched on this last night when he talked about the
paucity of day-to-day role models in the community.
The absence extends to professionals of all stripes. Commercial
thoroughfares in black communities were once full of physicians, accountants,
and dentists. I
remember the much-beloved Marvin Fisk actually living above his
dental office at 8923 Cedar Ave. Dr. Fisk served his profession and community
well enough to be recognized with an annual award given by the Ohio Dental
Association.
 |
| Marvin M. Fisk, DDS [1916-2003] |
I'm not a Luddite. I don't wish a return to the glorious days of
somebody else's mid-century America. I don't even pine for the glorious days of
the Kansas City Monarchs and the Cleveland Grays of the old Negro Leagues, though
I would love to have seen Satchel Paige on the mound, Josh Gibson at or behind
the plate, and most especially Cool Papa Bell on the base path.
Nonetheless, something has clearly been lost. The path to
desegregation, integration and inclusion has parallel tracks labeled
corporatization and monetization and globalization that have collectively
assaulted our Glenvilles, Houghs, Centrals, Fairfaxes, Mt. Pleasants and
Lee-Harvards. Independent doctors have all but disappeared; virtually all are
now on the payroll of our local medical behemoths. Solo legal practitioners
operate from home or have flexible virtual space in suburban office parks.
Dentists may retain the best balance in terms of independence, community
connections, and compensation.
Mike Nelson, current president of the Cleveland NAACP is perhaps
the last African American to have run for significant non-judicial political office
from a private law practice base. Almost all black judicial candidates run from
the cover of a job. Common Pleas Court Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams was a
notable, and successful, exception. Is the quality of our political
representation diminished by the reluctance of our highly trained legal talent
to get into politics?
We only intimate here the challenges ordinary central city
residents face in securing affordable professional services to help navigate
their lives. Transportation can become a major obstacle when you can no longer
walk or take a simple bus ride to a lawyer, doctor, accountant, dentist or realist’s
office.[3]
How do we bridge the aching chasm between our professionals and
the ordinary Willies and Willie Maes whose protests and votes and marches and
demonstrations and riots helped open the doors so that our prodigious natural
talent could attain a broader platform?
What are your thoughts and observations?
I invite you to share your responses, ideas, and comments here.
Those of you who do respond — I appreciate each and every response — typically
do so by direct emails that we think have so far escaped Politburo attention.
And I always reply. But these issues require a robust public discussion that we
hope you will join.
• • • # • • •
Cleveland Community Police Commission
seeks executive director
The Cleveland Community Police Commission emerged out of citizen
advocacy and a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice and the City
of Cleveland announced in May 2015. The Commission is made up of ten civilian
representatives and one representative each from the Cleveland Police
Patrolmen's Association, the Fraternal Order of Police and the Black Shield.
The Cleveland CPC has a broad charge
to:
• Develop and make recommendations for comprehensive police reform.
• Represent community voice and
interests and develop recommendations that reflect an understanding of the
values and priorities of Cleveland residents
• Publicly report to the City and
community and provide transparency on police department reforms
To assist in carrying out this
charge, the Commission will hire an executive director. The application
deadline is Nov. 8.
The Job description can be found here.
• • • # • • •
[2] John Anoliefo, executive
director of Famicos, did announce his agency's free legal clinic and its
valuable work in helping people caught up in our system of justice to get a
solitary blemish expunged. More than 600 people have benefited from this
service, which I think he said is open to all. Call 216.791.6476 for more information.
[3] The term Realtist may seem a typo to some. It
relates to the fact that black real estate agents were excluded from membership
in the all white realtors association and even un able to access the
comprehensive listing service of properties available for sale, just another
way segregation and subjugation were reinforced. The Realtors went so far as to
copyright the word Realtors, forcing black agents to invent a new term —
Realtist — for their organization.
