A crowd reported to number about 5,000 found solidarity, pride, and comfort in themes of social justice and […]
Marchers–perhaps 2,000–gathered on Jan. 16 at the Freedom Center, then marched up Vine Street to Fountain Square to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to renew themselves to the King dream and the unfinished business of the nation’s creed that all are created equal.
People who give their time and talent for neighbors with no expectation of reward deserve to be recognized (“Neighbors who care” Dec. 28, Tri-County Community Press). Neighborliness makes the community a better place for all of us.
Pain, anger, and frustration combined with disbelief filled the crowd that gathered midday Saturday at Hamilton County Courthouse over the hung jury in the trial of Ray Tensing, the University of Cincinnati Police officer charged with murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man.
Can the police build trust, respect, and communication with the black community in Cincinnati? Or, will the black community continue to fear the police as the face of an unjust and oppressive system?
The three government panelists and the three civil rights panelists were poles apart at The Enquirer’s community forum, “Police and the Black Community, One Year After Sam Dubose’s Death,” July 14 at the New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn. Some in the audience of several hundred were angry, sometimes jeering or shouting over panelists to express their views.
On July 17, 1944, when the war in the Pacific was raging, 320 sailors and civilians died instantly and 390 were injured at a naval base north of San Francisco when 5,000 tons of munitions–including 1,000-pound aerial bombs, 40 mm artillery shells, incendiary and fragmentation bombs, and anti-submarine depth charges–exploded while being loaded onto transport ships.
The blast registered 3.4 on the Richter scale and could be felt 450 miles away. The explosion was the worst stateside disaster of World War II.
Most of the dead and wounded sailors were African-American enlisted men. They accounted for 15 percent of all African-American naval casualties during the war.
Thousands gathered–black and white, young and old–to express their frustration over police brutality, racism, and economic injustice in a peaceful rally organized by Black Lives Matter Cincinnati on Sunday July 10 and dubbed ‘Enough is Enough.’
By Paul Breidenbach, pbreidenbach.c4ad@gmail.com
C4AD spoke to Aaron Sojourner, labor economist with the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, about current research on the economic impact of investment in early childhood education.
Sojourner’s research focuses on the development of human potential through early childhood and K-12 education, labor-market institutions, and behavorial consumer finance. He authored a study that shows significant and lasting benefits from high-quality intervention from infancy to age 3. He is a member of Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges’ Cradle-to-K Cabinet.
By Mike Brown, mbrown.c4ad@gmail.com
About 270 children in grades K-8, nearly all African-American children from disadvantaged backgrounds, will need to find another school next year. Their charter school, CSR Academy, closed to students on May 27 after 11 years of operation near Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine.
“A sad day,” said the principal, Kieli Ferguson, who would greet each arriving student by name and sent them home at the end of the day with a thumbs up.
“Our families would say their children receive love here,” said Ferguson. “That’s the culture we wanted to foster.”
A loving environment or not, CSR Academy may be the type of low-performing school that state legislators envisioned closing when they passed major charter school reform legislation in 2015, known as House Bill 2.
By Lee Finn, finnwl@mail.uc.edu
Duct tape covers the cracks and crevices inside Terri Williams’ residence at 2525 Victory Parkway in Walnut Hills – everything from small chinks in the baseboards to gaps in the kitchen cabinet doors and even the vent grills for the heating ducts.
C4AD 