Nonprofit Thursday Returns!

Fewer than two months I was privileged to be named the new executive director of CAAO, the Consortium of African American Organizations. Pronounced K-O, the organization was founded in 2002 to provide a collective voice for and support to Greater Cleveland’s African American professional organizations. Under the leadership of the inimitable Connie Atkins, the organization thrived over its first decade by finding ways to serve a variety of organizations, businesses, and professionals. Connie retired in December 2011 and is now executive director emeritus of what even before my official start date was one of my favorite nonprofits.

One of CAAO’s signature programs is just over the horizon: this Saturday will see CAAO conduct its tenth annual Leadership Retreat, which brings rising and established community leaders together to look at critical community and career issues that enhance their ability to achieve personal, professional and civic goals.

This year’s retreat addresses “Turning Roadblocks into Starting Blocks” and offers a stellar panel of some of Cleveland’s best and brightest: Ellen Burts-Cooper [Improve Consulting and Training]; Miranda Creel [PNC Financial Services Group]; Ly’Nette Cordaro [Cuyahoga Community College]; Emmanuel Glover [5/3 Bank]; Marvin Montgomery [sales and customer service trainer]; Mark Parks [MarCon Consulting]; and Kazell Pugh [[TLC Springwater LLC].

Patrice Blakemore of Blakemore Consulting will facilitate the program. She will guide panel discussions on navigating roadblocks, getting clients to pay, and positioning yourself for advancement.

The one-day event will be held on the tranquil Beachwood campus of The Gathering Place.

Before you bombard the CAAO office with your last-minute reservation requests, be alerted that the event is SOLD OUT. This happens pretty much every year, so be on the lookout for 2013!

CALLING ALL KARAMU ALUMNI

If you are an alumnus of Karamu House — either as an employee or having worked on a show — be advised that an effort is underway to revitalize its alumni association, please let me know and provide me with your contact information as soon as possible.  An initial planning session was held just recently and we hear the enthusiasm to rebuild the organization was palpable. This was perhaps due to the early buzz over Karamu's centennial celebration, now less than three years away,

If interested in the alumni association, send your contact info to peterlawsonjones@gmail.com. 

HISTORIC FOREST CITY TENNIS CLUB to Mark Centennial with Labor Day Tourney and Banquet

Members of the Forest City Tennis Club don’t have to wait until 2016 to celebrate their 100 Anniversary: their club was founded in 1912, perhaps the oldest African American social club in Cleveland.

On Labor Day weekend, while hosting the 67th Tri-City Tournament at the Jean M. Capers Tennis Courts in University Circle’s Rockefeller Park, the Club will also hold its 100^th Anniversary Celebration on September 2 at the Cleveland Marriott East in Warrensville Heights.
For more information, contact FCTC president Kevin Strickland at 216.536.5677 or kstrick@sbcglobal.net or visit www.fctclub.org.

CALLING FOR YOUTH PROGRAM INFO

Does your church, club, sorority, fraternity, social, auxiliary, civic or other nonprofit organization provide resources [scholarships, mentoring, field trips, college tours, etc.] to area African American boys and girls? If so, drop us a line at nonprofitnews@cuyahoganews.net. We are looking to establish a comprehensive listing of such services as a community resource.

POP UP PARTY AT THE PLAZA

Next Thursday, August 16, you are invited to be a guest of the Society of Urban Professionals at Perk Plaza at Chester Commons, on the northwest corner of East 12 Street and Chester Avenue. The event, from 5-8p, will feature live music, food trucks, and a beer garden. More info: atinker@thesoupnetwork.com.

BREAKING NEWS: John Michael Ryan Wins Dem Nod to take on Kasich Juvenile Court Appointee

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michael John Ryan won the nomination of the county Democratic Party this morning on the second ballot, defeating party insider Michael O’Malley, chief assistant to county prosecutor Bill Mason. Ryan won 223 votes on the second ballot to 170 for O’Malley.

Ryan won a surprising plurality on the first ballot, which had five candidates. He garnered 150 votes, followed by O’Malley at 139, and John Lawson with 75. Two other candidates —  Terease Neff and William McGinty, with 18 and 11 votes — were by Party rule dropped from further consideration.

As members of the Party’s executive committee began to caucus for the second ballot among the remaining three candidates, Lawson stepped forward to announce he was withdrawing his name. Ryan was the clear beneficiary of Lawson’s decision, winning the overwhelming majority of Lawson’s first-ballot support.

Ryan delivered an emotional acceptance speech and asked for the Party’s assistance in taking on Kasich nominee Anjanette C Arabian Whitman in this November’s general election. Whitman’s first day on the Juvenile Court bench will be Monday, June 18.

The vacancy was created by the death of Judge Peter Sikora on April 18. For more background see here, here and here.

The process and the result have major implications for local county politics. We will talk about that in the next couple of days.

Change Coming — Slowly — to Local Democratic Party

Executive Committee members of Cuyahoga County’s Democratic Party are meeting tomorrow morning on Cuyahoga Community College’s Metro Campus to pick a candidate to run this November in an election to complete the unexpired term of the late Judge Peter Sikora.

Since Sikora’s died after this year’s primary elections, Ohio law provides that the party may select a candidate to run in the next general election to serve the balance of the unexpired term, which ends December 31, 2016.

Only a few years ago, tomorrow’s meeting would have been pretty much a formality. Party bosses Jimmy Dimora and Bill Mason would have lined up their candidates, and after some horse-trading here and there the result would have been determined before anybody showed up.

Some party regulars rue the new order slowly being installed by new party chair Stuart Garson, who was elected chair by that same process himself when party heavyweights — led by Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, and über-labor friend John Ryan in US Senator Sherrod Brown’s office, bypassed calls for an open process and put in Garson. The new chair was largely unknown among the rank and file. He was known as a prolific fundraiser, having raised campaign funds for a number of candidates, including Fudge.

An attorney whose practice specializes in representing injured workers in workers’ comp cases, Garson had no hands-on experience in the hard core ethnic politics county Democrats have long engaged in. In fact, he despises that sort of horse-trading, preferring the more sedate politics practiced in Cuyahoga’s tonier regions, where meritocracy is at least touted, even if not always observed, as the order of the day.

Over the objections of a number of party regulars, Garson has stood firm on a process that reduces the chaotic railroading prevalent in the Dimora era.

Tomorrow six or seven candidates will appear on a first ballot. If any of them receives 50% plus one of the assembled voters, he or she will be the party’s nominee. If no candidate gets a majority, only those who receive at least 15% of the votes cast will pass to the next round. It will likely take 3 or 4 rounds to determine the winner.

Mason candidate O’Malley has perhaps the most political experience and is the presumed frontrunner, but he is by no means assured to emerge as party nominee. Each candidate was required to answer a series of questions about his or her credentials, fitness for office, record of public service, stance on diversity, and other criteria. While there is no guarantee that executive committee voters read the responses, Garson is clearly working to put in place a process that over time should diminish style cronyism.

Competing for the party’s nomination in tomorrow’s vote:

John Lawson, Ed Lentz, William McGinty, Terease Neff, Michael O'Malley, and Michael John Ryan.

The winner will be heavily favored to defeat Republican Anjanette C Arabian Whitman, who was appointed to the seat last week by Gov. John Kasich.

Governor Appoints Rocky River attorney to CuyCo Juvenile Court

Rocky River resident Anjanette C. Arabian Whitman will join the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court a week from Monday after her appointment today by Gov. John R. Kasich.

Whitman replaces former Judge Peter Sikora who died April 18. She must run in November’s general election to retain the seat for the unexpired term ending December 31, 2016.

Whitman received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia,  earned her law degree from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, and was admitted to the Ohio Bar in May 2001. 

A sole practitioner, she has also served as an at-large member of the Rocky River City Council since 2008. Whitman is a member of the Rocky River Parks and Recreation Commission and the Rocky River Community Coalition. Since 2002, she has coached cross-country and track at Magnificat High School.

Next Saturday, the county Democratic Executive Committee will meet at Cuyahoga Community College to choose a candidate to run against Whitman. This is the state process where a vacancy occurs too late for a candidate to be chosen by partisan primary process.

Lebron James & Nonprofit Thursdays

“The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.”

 — Mary McLeod Bethune

  • • •

I got home last night after a long and interesting day, flipped on the TV to catch Game 6 of the Celtics-Heat battle for the NBA Eastern Conference championship.  Wow!

It took less than two seconds of viewing to see there was a new LeBron James in the world. Focused. Determined. There was an urgency, a sustained energy, and an inner confidence in the man’s play that I had never seen before.

I guess my father was right. When I was about seventeen or so, I asked him “how do you know when you have become a man?” I found his reply Sphinx-like at the time: “You’ll know when you get there.”

LeBron James was a kid as a Cleveland Cavalier. He was incredibly more talented than his teammates, with immensely greater physical gifts, and a much higher basketball intelligence. He said a lot of the right things because he had learned them but they came more from his head than his heart. He didn’t own them.

Not until last night.

Not until, facing elimination from the post-season for the third time in recent years [twice as a Cavalier], he had to screw his courage to the sticking point, adopt a no-excuse attitude, and perform.

And perform he did. He never let up, never came off the court, never hesitated even for a moment, and by dint of his performance led his team to victory in his best game ever. The difference was not his accuracy, which was uncanny, but his attitude.

LeBron reached adulthood last night.

  • • •

NonProfit Thursday

PARADE THE CIRCLE

We are a day late this week but as we constantly tell the wife, eighty percent of success in life is showing up. And better late than never.

[Note: eighty percent is not always good enough.]

But we can’t omit reporting on some stuff coming up this week. To begin with, there’s tomorrow’s Parade the Circle. Since my children are long since grown and gone, I’ve never really been a fan of the event, and not even sure if I have ever attended. But, somehow, learning recently that 75,000 people now attend this free event annually, my curiosity has been spiked. 

If you have similarly been in the dark, or want to learn more, check here and/or here.

The free, rain or shine event kicks off at 11AM and runs until 4PM.

 • • •

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF NEGRO WOMEN

NCNW has one of the most illustrious pedigrees of all the ethnic affinity groups in our community. It was founded in 1935 as an “organization of organizations” by Mary McLeod Bethune [1875-1935], an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a confidante of his wife Eleanor. 

Bethune was succeeded as the Council’s leader by her protégé Dorothy Height, a powerful force in her own right, on par with but often overlooked as a notch below the so-called Big Six civil rights leaders: John Lewis (SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee); Whitney Young (National Urban League); A. Philip Randolph; Martin Luther King, Jr. (Southern Christian Leadership Conference); James Farmer (CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality); and Roy Wilkins (NAACP). 

Bethune’s story is a remarkable one. She was the 15^th of 17 children born to freed slaves; several of her older siblings were born into slavery, though she herself arrived after Emancipation. She opened a school for girls in Daytona Beach, Florida when she was only 29 herself. That school, which opened on $1.50 and faith in God”, and had five girl students ages 8 to 10, has evolved into Bethune-Cookman College.

Bethune famously crafted a Last Will and Testament as a part of her enduring legacy to black people. Its last bequest:

I leave you, finally, a responsibility to our young people.

The world around us really belongs to youth; for youth will take over its future management.

The entire document, which you can read here, is worthy of reading and incorporating into your life.

The Cleveland NCNW holds its annual Legacy Luncheon tomorrow at the Manor Party Center, 24111 Rockwell Ave, in Euclid.

Cleveland’s own Jean Murrell Capers will be honored. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey S. Carr is the luncheon speaker. For information call 216.253.8913.

 • • •

BOOKS THAT CHANGED OUR LIVES

Finally, I was a panelist on a recent Civic Commons radio show about books that changed our lives. Also on the panel were Richmond Heights councilwoman Miesha Headen and Michael Gill, editor of Collective Arts Network Journal. Halfway through the show you can hear me a bit from my selection. You can find the podcast here.

Connect the Dots!

Coincidence? 

Citizens who are not registered are not eligible for jury selection. Nor are they eligible to vote for candidates who decide issues like "Stand Your Ground" laws, how your children's schools are funded, matters of crime and punishment, and how strong are the regulations that restrain rapacious financial manipulators from predatory raids upon your tax dollars. 

Make sure you and your neighbors are registered, educated on the issues, knowledgeable about the candidates, and active in the political process.

And take a young voter along.

Zack Reed on Health Care; Marcia Fudge and the Black Vote

Notwithstanding some off-the-field issues that have garnered him unwelcome headlines, Zack Reed has long been one of Cleveland City Council’s more thoughtful and energetic members. So it was no surprise that Reed was one of just a handful of area legislators at the White House African American Policy Forum held at the Cleveland Public Library’s main campus on Thursday.

Most of the forum dealt with economic policies that had particular resonance with urban and minority communities: small business initiatives, home ownership preservation, job training, etc.

The luncheon keynote speaker was Kenneth Munson, regional director of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Munson spoke to several of the positive provisions of the Affordable Care Act [ACA], including elimination of pre-existing health conditions as a basis for denying, restricting, or over-charging for health insurance; expanded coverage for young adults; and tying physician payments to the quality of care they provide.

While the state of the economy is likely to be the prime issues of the presidential election, I suspect that reminding the millions of voters whose families have already personally and directly benefited from health care reform that the ACA is a signal accomplishment of the Obama administration will become an increasingly key component of the president’s re-election strategy.

So I credit Councilman Reed for tackling the issue on his Sunday night call-in radio show, which airs at 8PM on WTAM-AM/1100. Reed’s guest will be Dr. Arthur Lavin, co-chair of Doctors for Health Care Solutions [DOCHS], which represents itself as a group 600 Cleveland- area doctors who care for more than half a million Clevelanders.

Reed bills tonight's show as a “debate”. He chuckled when I asked who would be representing the other side of the debate. “My listeners”, he said, noting that a large number of his radio audience seem to be Tea Party sympathizers, apparently a characteristic of the station’s overall audience.

We plan to tune in and check the show out. Meanwhile, you can get a heads-up on the DOCHS position by reading this op-ed piece, which appeared in today’s Plain Dealer and generated considerable controversy over at cleveland.com.

•••

Cleveland Congresswoman Marcia L Fudge, D-11, chaired a session this past at a summit on voting rights co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and the Conference of National Black Churches. Fudge presided over the panel session that addressed with energizing constituents and congregants to vote. Let’s hope she was taking notes, because the turnout in her district — Ohio’s most reliable Democratic constituency — is certain to be critical to the President’s reelection chances.

The Fudge-led panel included MSNBC commentator and Cleveland native Jeff Johnson, as well as the redoubtable Los Angeles congresswoman Maxine Waters. If we are not mistaken, viewers can see Cleveland minister Eugene Ward asking a question about the potential for civil uprisings based on the depressed and depressing conditions afflicting many communities nationwide.

While Fudge discounted this likelihood, she did display a certain feistiness in promising to call out those black preachers who choose to sit on the sidelines rather than work to energize black voters.  You can view the session here on C-Span. 

If you don't want to watch the whole session just to catch the Congresswoman on her horse, write us at AGSMedia441ATgmail.com and we will clue to the appropriate segment.

• • •

Finally, we're still working on Part II follow up to Friday's post on the Cleveland NAACP. Look for it after the organization's meeting on Tuesday, June 5.

Today’s Cleveland NAACP, Part I

We start by acknowledging that we are conflicted about writing this piece. Our conflict is rooted in being personally involved in activities connected to the organization that make us want to share information that some might prefer go unreported at this stage.

At stake are issues of transparency and change and confidentiality. In the background is the running argument in my household over definitions of “journalist” and “blogger”. I faced a similar conflict in this space once before, related to the corrupt former leadership of the local Democratic Party.

I was not active in the party at all, just a run-of-the-mill registered Democrat. But when I could no longer accept the continued incumbency of [now-established felons] Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo as party leaders, I started asking questions, beginning with my local Democratic city leaders, and then others, until I finally connected with a group of like-minded party members. We eventually formed a group called Cuyahoga Democrats for Principled Leadership and agitated from within for reform. Our successes were modest but important.

When I wrote about CD4PL I disclosed my involvement up front in a footnote. There were some in that loose-knit group who would have preferred that none of our blogger members write about our activities. But it all seemed to work out in the end, not only for the CD4PL and the Party. Real Deal readers are perhaps like many blog followers who seem to appreciate an engaged perspective, especially when appropriately disclosed up front.

Longtime Real Dealers know that I have commented on the local NAACP morass on several occasions, perhaps most notably regarding  the organization’s November 2010 election of officers. [See here, here, and here.] 

In some ways, the problems of the former county government and the Cleveland NAACP stem from the same root causes: malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance abetted by long term incumbency, archaic organizational structure, lack of transparency, grossly shoddy procedures, self-serving wheeling and dealing, wholesale mismanagement, the disparagement of hard-working professional staff. The list goes on, but I will add only one other key element: gross constituent apathy, gross constituent apathy, and gross constituent apathy.

If you are a member of a community and you are not working to be part of a solution to the community’s issues, you are a part of the problem.

• • • 

Like many local African Americans, I stopped supporting the Cleveland NAACP as it transitioned from being one of our civic institutions whose organizational dysfunction was within tolerable limits to a fiefdom where one man’s word was the law. [Note: Neither locally nor nationally has the NAACP ever been strictly a ”black” organization: its founders were black and white, its leadership and its membership was long integrated, its stated mission for over a century always rooted in the deepest principles of the US Constitution and the noblest ideals of the Declaration of Independence. But at least locally, as black people became more assertive during the turbulent 1960s, many white people either fled or were driven out of hitherto integrated organizations like the NAACP and Karamu.][1]

Of course, as our parents told us repeatedly, ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away and often makes them worse. And for twenty years, the Cleveland NAACP, once a mighty force that in its heyday reportedly boasted 25,000 card-carrying members, lost sight of its mission, its soul, and its moral force. It was a black problem, but the whole community suffered from the lack of a strong progressive voice, in the same manner as it has suffered from its dysfunctional political party dynamics. [I could insert another Cliffsnote here about the county Republicans and white flight but, again, that’s grist for a trilogy and this is but a blog.]

When someone finally deigned to run against George Forbes for NAACP president in 2010, I wrote a few pieces [linked above] calling for Mr. Forbes’ defeat. That he was even running for an unprecedented tenth term was farcical. No one had ever served even five consecutive years before Forbes, and here he was going for twenty consecutive years of control. 

For some time he had been using his political skill to orchestrate scenes where he would threaten to resign, only to be urged to continue “leading” the Branch by windowless followers who could not conceive of the depths to which the black community would fall without the Kingfish, er, King/Father to protect us.

These charades became such a part of his stock and trade that the Plain Dealer reported them as fact in the aftermath of Forbes’ reelection in 2010. And they created such a fantasy that when Forbes finally walked away by newspaper notice in late April, some board members remained disbelievers.

 The resignation — announced offhandedly via the Plain Dealer, which quoted Forbes as saying he had actually resigned from effective December 31, 2011 — was akin to the captain of that Costa Concordia cruise ship who snuck away after running the luxury cruise ship aground. Each left behind a trail of wreckage.

Forbes’ resignation was accepted by the Branch’s executive committee [i.e., its trustees] earlier this month, and prompted postponement of the Branch’s centennial Freedom Fund Dinner, originally set for June,  until September 8.

All of that is background for what promise to be better days ahead for the Cleveland NAACP. Branch elections are scheduled for this November. As we move around town, we sense renewed interest in the organization. New people, young people, former members, are becoming alive to the importance of a strong, viable Cleveland NAACP.

 • • •

A strong local chapter could certainly play a vital role in such areas as our lopsided and inequitable local systems of criminal justice, education, and economic development.

Our Sunday post will report on some healthy signs of the local’s rejuvenation and will hopefully include an interview with new president James L. Hardiman, who is serving out the balance of the last Forbes term.

---

[1] That’s a quick and dirty Cliffsnote of a more complex historical issue and social phenomenon. But this is a post, not a book.

Obama, Opus and Ooops, I shouldn't have done that!

Yesterday was an exciting day here in Cleveburg. To begin with, we spent several hours at the White House African American Policy Forum held today on the main campus of the Cleveland Public Library. Several high-ranking officials of the Obama administration participated, and the keynote speaker was Cleveland’s own Don Graves Jr., executive director of the President’s Jobs Council.

We will be reporting more fully on this event but after it ended about 3 PM, we set about working to honor, however belatedly, our promise last week to report on the Cleveland NAACP.

We completed Part I of our two-part focus on the organization but we fear it to be perhaps a little over the top. So we will sleep on it, revise as necessary and publish it by 3PM today.

After completing our draft, we headed out to Opus, a place we noted last week. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there last Wednesday, taking in the strains of the Kevin Muhammad-Lafayette Carthon-Robert Hubbard Trio. We didn’t arrive until the final set but the way they cooked on "Green Onions", the evening’s final tune, had the bartenders ready to call the Shaker Heights Fire Department to report the roof on fire.

We were eager to return, this time with the wife, in anticipation of more live music. But of course we were crossed up by the holiday week, because yesterday was Thursday, not Wednesday. The recorded music was wonderful, however, with such fabulous musicians as Louis Armstrong, Herbie Hancock, Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes coming through the speakers. 

As we enjoyed the food, the music and the general ambience, hands-on owner Brian Gresham was busy laying down a dance floor in the front half of the restaurant. It turns out that Thursday is Opus Salsa Night! Kat  Baum and Maeghen Kandrin from La Danse Cleveland were treated Opus patrons to a basic salsa lesson. The missus and I became two of nine dance students following some excellent instructions. Quick Quick Slow! Quick Quick Slow!

Kat

Maeghen

One of the best parts of going out in impromptu fashion is running into old friends. There were just enough of them at Opus to add an extra special feel to the place. We also made some new acquaintances, including Anderson C. Hill II of Orlando, in town for several public appearances related to the 15^th anniversary of his book, In Search of the Truth.

We haven’t read the book yet but our short conversation with its author revealed Hill as a forthright man with a first-person story to tell about the rise, fall and rebirth of a big-time lawyer who allowed himself to be seduced by the twin demons of greed and power. We understand there are at least a few Clevelanders mentioned in his tale of fall and redemption.

Hill will be in Beachwood tomorrow, June 2, from 11AM until 1PM at Fairfield Inn & Suites, 3750 Orange Place. From 3-5PM he will be at Lee Road Baptist Church, 3970 Lee Road, in Cleveland’s Lee Harvard community. Personally autographed copies of his book [[$14.95] will be available at each appearance.

Music in the Air Tonight

There are not enough opportunities around here to hear outstanding local jazz musicians in Greater Cleveland on a consistent basis, so we are especially excited about going to Opus Restaurant, 20126 Chagrin Blvd. [216.991.OPUS], where noted musicians Lafayette Carthon, Kevin Muhammad and Robert Hubbard will begin holding forth about 7PM.

We don’t know who the leader is or if these guys have even gigged together before. What we do know is that Hubbard is a premier drummer, Muhammad is stalwart on the upright bass, and Carthon was a local piano prodigy around these parts some time back.

There is no cover, no minimum, and, we hear, excellent food [you do have to pay for that]. We’ll be there as soon as we can and stay as long as they play.

Nonprofit Thursdays: The Growing Edge

All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born;

All around us life is dying and life is being born.

The fruit ripens on the tree;

The roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth

Against the time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms,

   green fruit.

Such is the growing edge.

                                                                        — Howard Thurman

If one looks with care, there are signs that Cleveland’s black community is slowly awakening from a generation of civic stupor. New leadership is emerging among within many small circles, abetted by new tools of social interaction, eager to find space in the civic common, open to new avenues of approaching persistent problems, and desirous of establishing Cleveland as a hospitable place for African Americans — a goal that history says has largely been mythic for at least a century.

The rise of new leaders over time is a natural process in any community, but whether potential leaders find fertile soil to grow in their area of origin is not a given. New leadership must be nurtured, afforded opportunities to grow, to stumble, to learn, to fail, to succeed.

In Greater Cleveland such opportunities have been uncommonly rare. Civic space can be generative and welcoming or it can be relentless and hostile. Communities make choices about what kind of place and space they want to be. These choices are heavily influenced by a town’s leading businesspeople and and institutions, those folks with money, access, power and prestige. A hundred or so years ago, Cleveland’s leaders established many of our proudest civic achievements, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Orchestra and Severance Hall, the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Clinic and a beautiful and impressive array of public buildings and spaces downtown.

But those civic leaders were also often haughty and hostile towards Cleveland’s newcomers, who were mostly Central and Eastern Europeans, but who also included an initially tiny black community  whose significant growth during and after World War I city fathers found alarming.

Cleveland’s predominant culture — then and now — was top down, politically conservative, and inbred. It struck a bargain with ethnic leaders that allowed the latter, beginning in the thirties, to hold the reigns of political power in Cleveland so long as the establishment’s business prerogatives were unchallenged.

Post-World War II changes in economics, demographics, and culture led to tremendous social and political change in Greater Cleveland in the 1950s. Hundreds of thousands of black people now lived in Cuyahoga County, constrained by a fierce system of de facto segregation that saw almost all of them confined to stultifying existence in just a handful of  neighborhoods: Central, Hough, Fairfax, Glenville, Mt. Pleasant. Only a trickle of black folk lived in any of Cuyahoga’s more than fifty suburbs at the start of the tumultuous Sixties.

This was no accident, as the same individuals who on the one hand prided themselves on their great cultural institutions, used their economic and political institutions to maintain an oppressive two-tiered system that intentionally relegated black people to the economic, social, political, and cultural margins.

This repressive system produced both the problems and the circumstances — the concentration of potential political power — that Carl Stokes harnessed to win the Cleveland mayoralty in 1967. While his stunning breakthrough electoral victory led to the beginnings of racial equity at City Hall, improvement in other areas has remained more elusive, especially on the economic front.

Fifty-eight years ago today, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the unanimous opinion outlawing segregation in public schools [Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954]. There was jubilation in the black community and among its allies at the thought that the nation would move towards a new unity. Few if any anticipated how difficult that would be in the face of massive resistance in the South and smug ignorance in the North.

Over time, some places have gotten issues of diversity, inclusion and equity right. Cleveland and Cuyahoga are not yet among them. The old order still reigns in too many places, resulting in the departure for other more hospitable places of too many of our best, our brightest, our most ambitious, our most creative, our most talented.

There are signs in Cleveland’s black community of impending change, of the possibilities of new leadership. Long dominant forces are receding from pinnacles of personal power, some with grace. The old self-perpetuating insiders at the United Black Fund are doddering away. The Urban League imploded and is now reconstituting itself. And change is even on the horizon at the NAACP, which saw the Forbes’ era end in the same messy, egotistical way it retarded civil rights progress for the past twenty years.

Take a look at some of the following community activities occurring over the next few days. None is necessarily focused on civil rights, or equity, or inclusion. But collectively they suggest the silent “work in the darkness of the earth against the time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit” named by Thurman in our preface.

Meanwhile, look for our story on the NAACP tomorrow.

• • •

Tonight, retired judge Sara Harper will lead a discussion leader on the life of the legendary civil rights warrior Ella Baker. Baker was remarkable for many things but we especially like the way she encouraged young people to seize control of their lives and forge new paths. She gave encouragement, support and wisdom to young leaders that contravened the “go slow” approach favored by her chronological peers.

The program will start at 6PM at Deuteronomy 8:3 Café and Bookstore, 1464 East 105 Street, just north of University Circle. Deuteronomy is where PhDs can be found sharing ideas with both retirees as well as the involuntarily unemployed.

Info: call 216.376.9695, email deuteronomy8cafe@aol.com, or visit www.restorativejusticeinstitute.org.

Also tonight, the Northeast Ohio Young Black Democrats are hosting a fundraiser at Tavo Martini Lounge, 815 Rockwell Ave. 5:30PM-8:15PM. NEO OBYD’s flier says it was organized to advance progressive political ideals and to recruit, train and empower emerging new leaders. The flier also promises a special appearance by recording artist Londyn Gaines.

We don’t know much about the group but we have met its president, Michael John Hauser. He is currently pursuing a master’s in public administration at Cleveland State’s Levin College and is clearly a comer on the local political scene.

Tavo’s has become, by the way, a venue of choice for much of Cleveland’s vibrant young professional community. It will be the site of another fundraiser tomorrow [6PM -8PM] to benefit the Hip Hop Caucus, an advocacy group that works to support voting rights, and increase voter registration and participation. The $10 admission opens the door to networking and an open bar. Sounds like a fun way to get political. Check the caucus out here. Paul Sadler Jr. heads the local effort.

Back to tonight, another networking opportunity exists courtesy of The Cleveland Realtists Association. This month’s regular third Thursday membership & business networking session occurs at Jezebels Bayou, 12718 Larchmere Blvd, just off Shaker Square. 5:30PM-8PM. The Realtists have become more active this year under the leadership of Kim Johnson. Cleveland is scheduled to host the national conference of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers this August. Local broker Julius Cartwright heads NAREB. Visit clevelandrealtists.org for more info.

Business, politics and romance will also be shaking hands tomorrow at AFTER FIVE FRIDAY’s, a monthly event "where people, passions and possibilities meet", according to local social engineering hosts Alton Tinker, Donna Dabbs, & Jesse LeGrande. Tinker is a Bedford Heights city councilman, KeyBank exec and social promoter. Dabbs directs a minority program for the Urban League.

This month’s social takes place at Bodega, 1854 Coventry Rd in Cleveland Heights. 5PM-11PM. for more information email after5fridays@hotmail.com

We think these folks have taken lessons from George Fraser, the nonpareil networking guru. Read on for news about the Cash Mobs he is coordinating in several cities across the country this weekend, including, naturally, his hometown Cleveland.

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The Metropolitan Cleveland Alliance of Black School Educators will host its annual scholarship awards program at Greenmont Party Center, 800 S. Green Rd., South Euclid, OH 44121. The program will also honor the late Ed Young, a founder of the Cleveland chapter, former Cleveland schoolteacher and former school board member, and a tireless promoter of a strong black community.

Students from across Greater Cleveland are expected to be scholarship winners; several will speak as part of the program. Tickets are $35. The program begins at 11AM. For tickets/more info: Tillie Colter 216.577-7446; Ike & Diane Smith 216.382.9168; LaVerne Hooks 216.406.2785; Mary Rice 216.570.1200.

Cash Mob a Small Black Business

Nationally known networking expert and entrepreneur George Fraser is part of a nationwide effort encouraging consumers to “cash mob a small black business this Saturday. The latest marketing phenomenon promoted via social media, cash mobs typically encourage customers to descend on a pre-identified business and spend at least $20 per person. Participants then typically gather at a nearby restaurant or lounge where they are expected to spend at least another $20.

Fraser’s company, FraserNet, Inc. is combining with black business advocates nationwide to promote “Cash Mob Noir” in seven major cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland. The promoters expect the simultaneous event to illustrate the economic value and benefit of supporting local, quality, black-owned businesses.

Fraser hopes the nationwide event will also demonstrate the buying power of black consumers. The local participating businesses are B&M Bar-B-Q, 5501 Warrensville Center Rd, Maple Heights OH 44137 • 216.475.8720 [4PM-7PM]  and Opus Restaurant, 20126 Chagrin Blvd. Shaker Heights, OH 44122 • 216.991.6787 • [7PM-9PM for celebration and networking].

 

Pre-registration here is encouraged. Visit www.frasernet.com for details.

  

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Next to last but certainly not least this weekend, August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” opened Mother’s Day weekend at Karamu and will run through June 3. Purchase tickets online or call 216.795.7070.

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And finally, what may be the nation’s first Minority Biomedical Entrepreneurship Conference opens in Cleveland on Monday, May 21.

The purpose of the two-day conference, according to its organizers, which include The America21 Project, a minority innovation and competitiveness initiative, is to address the issue of underrepresentation and to increase minority competitiveness in the biomedical sector.

Keynoting the conference will be Dr. Frank Douglas, president of the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron.

“Cleveland, with its rapidly growing biomedical industry and nationally recognized research, clinical and educational institutions, is the ideal location for the first-ever Minority Biomedical Entrepreneurship Conference,” Baiju R. Shah, president and CEO of BioEnterprise and co-chair of the conference, said in a statement. “The entrepreneurial environment is one that embraces and provides an unparalleled support network to biomedical innovators."

Conference planners said attendees would be offered mentoring opportunities with industry leaders and investors, entrepreneurship education, and practical advice on starting and growing a biomedical company. Entrepreneurs looking for financing also will be afforded the opportunity to present before a group of seasoned biomedical investors.

To view the complete conference agenda and register, visit here.

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To our elected officials: either lead, follow, or get out of the way!

To ALL our readers: I hope to see you someplace this weekend!