Black women celebrate, network around electoral successes

Just about fifty years ago, Nina Simone released To Be Young, Gifted and Black, a powerful, majestic ode to joy written in memory of her friend, Lorraine Hansberry, author of the Broadway smash, Raisin in the Sun, who died prematurely in 1965 at the tender age of 34.

The song was aimed at young people but it quickly electrified generations of black people of every age who were in the midst of discovering, internalizing and then proclaiming that Black was beautiful. It quickly became kind of a new national anthem for black Americans, one that lifted every voice that sung it, echoing the fervent joy and fierce determination of people who had nearly exhausted themselves in the Sixties bursting holes in America’s Berlin Wall of segregation, discrimination, and humiliation.

South Euclid councilwoman Ruth Gray, president of
National Congress of Black Women Cleveland chapter,
welcomes attendees, flanked by Kim Brown of  the
Black Women's Commission of Cuyahoga County
and county councilwoman Yvonne Conwell.

That sort of energy was in the house last night as more than 150 people assembled on the first floor of an old mansion in University Circle to celebrate a wave of electoral victories by black women candidates in local municipalities this past November.

Maple Hts. Mayor Annette Blackwell and
Essence Doucet of Shaker Hts. were on
hand to congratulate new public officials

Celebrated last night for their recent successful election campaigns were new city council members Davida Russell of Cleveland Hts., Shayla Davis  of Garfield Hts., Dana Anderson of Maple Hts., Cassandra Nelson & Kim Thomas of Richmond Hts., and Juanita Gowdy of East Cleveland, along with Ashley Thomas and Nichelle Daniels, each elected to the Garfield Hts. Board of Education. 

The event was initially planned as a post-election celebration for National Congress of Black Women members. However, a second group, the Black Women’s Commission of Cuyahoga County, signed up as co-sponsor, expanding the list of honorees. Other newly elected officials celebrated were Carmella Williams of Shaker Hts. City Council, village council members Cynthia Beard and Geavona Greene of Highland Hills, and Nakeshia Nickerson and Vivian Walker of Woodmere, and Stephanie Stedmire-Walls, East Cleveland school board.

Newly elected officials honored by Cleveland chapter of National Congress of Black Women [L to R]: Front row, Cassandra Nelson (white jacket)), Cynthia Beard, and Nichelle Daniels. Back Row: Aiyana Hamilton [representing Ashley Thomas], Kim Thomas, Carmella Williams, Juanita Gowdy, Shayla Davis, Dana Henderson, Davida Russell.

Two black women — June Taylor of Beachwood and Gigi Traore of Newburgh Hts. — were elected to their respective seats for the first time, although each had been serving by appointment to this year.

Members of Cleveland chapter, National Congress of Black Women

Many of the women in attendance had never met, a reflection of the county's byzantine political subdivisions. They were coming together from several of the many suburbs that ring Cleveland from north to east to south. This seemed to contribute to the sense of excitement the gathering held. The typical barriers that work against cooperation — differences in community, occupation, generation, social status, appearance, etc. — were minimized in the evening's enthusiasm. 

Leslie White-Wilson and Ray Freeman
share networking moment. White-Wilson
was elected 11th Congressional Delegate
to Democratic National Convention earlier
this month. Freeman is a member of the
Warrnesville Hts. school board, and the
National School Boards Association.

Several of the women in attendance appeared to draw inspiration from the reception's vibe. An attorney in the room was overheard saying that she would continue to run until she was elected judge. A Shaker Hts. data analyst said that while she has always paid close attention to state and national elections, she now realized the importance of local elections, vowing to become more involved.

The NCBW was founded in 1984 by Shirley Chisholm and C. Delores Tucker and has grown to more than 100 chapters. A local NCBW officer said that the Cleveland chapter, in only its fourth year, has already become the nation’s largest chapter with 63 members. South Euclid councilwoman Ruth Gray is chapter president, and county councilwoman Yvonne Conwell of Cleveland is first vice president.

The organization has an IRS 501c(3) tax exemption that requires it to be nonpartisan, a fact Gray acknowledged even as she gave a shout out to Shontel Brown, chairwoman of the local Democratic Party.  A spokeswoman said the group’s emphasis is on empowering black women in their respective communities, voter registration and education, and scholarship aid.

Following the introduction of each newly minted public official and the scrimmage of enthusiastic picture takers as they stood a front room of what is now part of Hawken School’s urban campus, attendees continued in cordial celebration, not just of the recent ballot successes, but in their newly discovered sorority of strength.

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CPT | South Euclid mayor booted off County Dems Executive Committee

Cuyahoga Politics Today

South Euclid mayor spanked in intraparty feud

South Euclid mayor Georgine Welo was disciplined by the County Democratic Party last week.

The action was taken by the Party Unity Review Committee [PURC] after Welo endorsed a Republican who is running against incumbent South Euclid councilwoman Ruth Gray, a fellow Democrat.

Party officials and elected Democrats are prohibited from “actively and publicly” supporting a non-Democratic candidate in a non-partisan race. South Euclid council races are non-partisan.

Gray filed a complaint on July 10 with then-party chairman Stuart Garson, after learning that Welo had endorsed Gray’s opponent, Kenneth Atchinson in this year’s November election. Atchinson has been a registered Republican for the past seven years, according to election records cited in her letter.

The PURC ruled unanimously in Gray's favor last week, kicking Welo off the party’s executive committee, and rendered her ineligible for party office or party endorsement for the next election cycle. Their action means Welo cannot receive the party’s endorsement if she runs for reelection in 2019.

Gray’s complaint cited other instances where members of the South Euclid Democratic Club have backed Republicans over qualified Democratic black women. Gray also referenced efforts to undermine South Euclid Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams Byers, contending, “There is a pervasive pattern and practice of animus against African American female Democrats in South Euclid.”

The current political turf battles in South Euclid have given rise to reports that freshman councilman Jason Russell may toss his hat in the ring for the post of city leader, a nongovernmental position currently held by councilman Marty Gelfand.

Gray, who ran against Welo for mayor in 2015 and lost, is seeking reelection to her fourth term on city council. She is also president of the Cleveland chapter of the National Council of Black Women, a growing presence on the local political scene.

A call to Mayor Welo was not returned for press time.

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Django, the Drug War, and Black History Month

My blood tends to run a little faster every year when the calendar flips to January. It’s not so much the Cleveland winter — global warming is taking care of that; rather it’s the one time of year when our community kinda sorta celebrates blackness, or at least says it’s ok to talk about it in a positive way. The period lasts about six weeks or so, from the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day through the end of Black History Month, and then it’s “ok, recess is over, back to normal.”

I’m not referring to “our community” as either just black folks or white folks. It’s almost as if an unspoken pact exists between in-laws. Most everybody around here tiptoes around race. We know the subject is explosive; we know it’s problematic. We know it’s the Eight Ton Gorilla in the family room. Which is why we stay in the kitchen and visit the family room only on special occasions, and even then according to carefully scripted rules of engagement. So during MLK day we talk about the content of our character but not about our national propensity for warmongering and sustained violence at home. And during BHM African Americans can salute our ancestors and how they overcame the Middle Passage, Slavery, and Jim Crow, without any discussion or analysis of why we are not doing anything about 21^st Century New Jim Crow in education, criminal justice, or the economy.

This year feels a little different to me. Thank you Django! It seems everywhere I turn people are talking about the movie, and therefore talking about ticklish aspects of our history. If there were an Oscar category for most provocative film, Django would be a hands-down winner.

Of course a lot of our discourse on race is echoed in views long ago forged into cast-iron. Many times when we think we want to talk about race we can’t get past skin. So an ESPN commentator questions the racial bona fides of Washington ‘Skins quarterback Robert L Griffin III — is he a ‘down’ brother or a ‘cornball brother’? — because RGIII: a) has a white fiancée and b) disdains simplistic comparison to other mobile quarterbacks who happen to be black, aspiring to one day achieve the status of the best QBs ever. (The commentator, Rob Parker, was first suspended and then let go. This was an appropriate result, not because Parker crossed some forbidden line but because his analytical frame is too flat for him to be a social commentator in any medium.)

Jeffrey Blanck, Reno NAACP president

In a similar vein is the reaction of many across the country to the headline that the Reno NAACP elected the first white president in its 66-year history. Many blacks greeted this news with groans from a familiar grab bag of perpetual victimization and helplessness: ‘white folks gotta run everything’, ‘couldn’t they find a black man’, ‘black people always think white is right’, etc. They were oblivious to the story of the NAACP’s interracial founding, its guiding principles, or the decades of civil rights advocacy that justified the fellow being entrusted with the honor of serving as branch president.

These examples of call to mind the succinct and wise counsel my friend Julian Earls likes to share with young, aspiring black folk: “Every black person is not your friend, and every white person is not your enemy.”

Agentic African Americans

Still, this season seems different to me because I see local African Americans who are not making automatic skin responses but choosing instead to be agentic in the struggle to address core community issues. Microsoft Word doesn’t seem to like “agentic”, giving it the red underline; it is a fine word, and I use it here to describe people who do not accept victimhood but are “active agents in their own deliverance”.

That quote is from another friend Trevelle Harp. Trevelle is a community organizer who heads the Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope [NOAH]. In two weeks his group will present the Cleveland-area premiere of “The House I Live In”, which last year won top documentary honors at the acclaimed Sundance Film Festival. The powerful film questions why the United States has spent over One Trillion Dollars on drug arrests since the beginning of the Nixon Administration, only to become the world’s leading jailer of its own people, while drugs remain cheaper, purer and more available than ever.

To quote Eugene Jarecki, the film’s director, a prime result of the “drug war” is that “We have more black men incarcerated today, in one form or another, than were enslaved at the end of slavery 10 years before the Civil War ended.”

The special screening will be Saturday, January 26, at the East Cleveland Library, 14101 Euclid Ave. Admission is free and doors open at 1 PM. The film will start at 1:30 PM. A moderated discussion will follow the screening.

NOAH under Harp has concentrated its efforts on the East Cleveland community. Its organizing approach involves training and developing local leadership, identifying common issues, finding collaborative and strategic ways to address those issues while systematically strengthening the institutions in our regions. They are on a perpetual search for agentic partners.

South Euclid councilwoman Ruth Gray is advancing a second example of agentic approach. Concerned about her community’s failure to offer sufficient resources to its youth, she has convened a forum next week to address this issue. I will talk about this effort more on Monday but I encourage you to put the event, “Youth in Peril”, on your calendar. It will be held Wednesday, January 16 from 7-9 PM at the South Euclid Community Center, 1370 Victory Drive, in South Euclid OH 44121.