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(casual upbeat music) (people chatting) (bell dings) - Good afternoon.

And welcome to the City Club of Cleveland where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, July 8th.

I'm Will Tarter, second vice president of the NAACP Cleveland Branch, and I'm pleased to welcome each of you to our forum today.

It's the Steven A. Minter Endowed Forum, as part of our Local Heroes series, which spotlights champions here in Northeast Ohio whose hard work changes the way we view ourselves and our community.

It is my honor to introduce our speaker, Crystal Bryant, executive director of the NAACP Cleveland Branch.

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, many Americans felt a commitment that this time things had to change.

Protests and rallies packed cities, and promises were made to invest in the necessary steps to address inequalities faced in black communities.

But for many black Americans, this commitment rang hollow.

Then, in May 2022, a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo targeted a predominantly black community and its residents.

It was a stark reminder about the progress yet to be made against racism in this country, and what it means to be black while doing exceedingly ordinary things, like jogging or grocery shopping.

It begs us to ask what freedom, what liberty, and what justice for all actually looks like for black Americans, and in the face of these constant threats, and targeted violence, our speaker today was named executive director of the NAACP Cleveland Branch in early 2021, launching the organization into a new era of leadership during a critical time.

Crystal is an east Cleveland native with strong community ties.

She graduated from Shaw High School, and earned a bachelor's degree in social work from Cleveland State University.

She then earned a master's degree in criminal justice administration from Tiffin University, and a Juris Doctorate from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, all while working full time as a social worker.

And if that's not enough, she founded Cleveland Votes and served as the director of the Cuyahoga County Office of Reentry.

Her dedication to the community has led her to serve on numerous boards, and take up multiple volunteer roles, including City Club's very own Debate Committee, of which I'm the co-chair.

(audience chuckling) Crystal's impressive resume, passion for her community, and commitment to Cleveland, is unrivaled, and today, we hear what it will take for accountability, true reform, and what moving forward looks like in today's polarized climate.

If you have questions for our speaker, you can text them to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also Tweet @thecityclub and City Club staff will try and work them into the second half of the program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Crystal Bryant.

(audience applauding) - [Crystal] All right, can you hear me?

- [Audience Members] Yes!

- Okay.

So let's get into this thing.

I wanna give you a few disclaimers about myself outside of that bio.

(audience laughing) (Crystal chuckles) I think Dan probably summed it up best.

I believe in speaking truth to power, I tell no lies.

If it offends someone, it's not the intent, but without truth, we will get nowhere in a room.

I love to curse, but don't worry, City Club.

(audience laughing) I'ma hold my tongue today.

I'ma hold my tongue.

Gonna look out in the audience.

I do this with passion.

I do this fearlessly.

I do this so my son at the front table who is not paying any attention to me (laughing) will hopefully never have to go through any of the things that we are consistently fighting today, and our ancestors have fought in the past.

I may drop a few rap lyrics, like you know?

We quote people, those are the people of my time.

I am a 90s baby, born in '81, so those Tupac lyrics were prominent for me.

(laughing) So let's talk about the examination of freedom.

And I'm also a storyteller.

I have often been told throughout the years that people don't remember numbers.

I can give you all the data and the stats in the world, and you would forget it tomorrow, but if I give you something that you can feel, something that resonates with you all, you may never forget it, and you can use those same stories as you move into community to make changes.

Every person in here is a local hero, right?

What does that even mean?

I'm often asked the question, what does success look like, what is your greatest success?

And I always tell them, I really can't answer that question, because until we're all free, none of us are free.

There are no successes for me.

Right?

So, all right.

Let's talk about this.

So when I started at the NAACP as the executive director in April of 2021, I do these things called tours, and I go out and I meet folk and community, because I come in with a vision about where I want to take the organization, and so it's necessary to know who are gonna be your allies and your partners in those spaces, and who do I need to connect with?

And so during this tour, because it was maybe a year past, a year post George Floyd's murder, you meet many, many interesting people, especially in the space of the NAACP, and so I was given the question many times, where what is the NAACP going to do about this, and this is the time, and things are gonna change, and I've spoken to my grandchildren, and Gen Z will be the generation that will move this forward, and we won't go back, and you know, I would just kind of stare at them, and smile, because the NAACP, let's be honest, it's a part of the institution, so there's some politics involved, and I just put on a nice smile, and I say yeah.

Okay.

And they probably read through my nice smile, like why are you giving me that sarcastic smile?

What does that mean?

You don't believe that things are gonna change?

We are committed.

It's like yeah, okay.

(laughing) And that one particular person challenged me during my tour, and he said you know, I think you're a bit of a pessimist.

And I had to politely tell him I don't believe that I'm a pessimist.

In fact, I believe that I'm a realist, recognizing that this is an opportunity to seize the moment for freedom fighters that are in the room.

For those who do this work day in and day out for no other reason than the fact that you want to see things change, we are no, it was a moment to capitalize off the momentum, but it was not going to be a momentum that was gonna be longstanding.

Because if you are not a part of the oppressed, you're not thinking about it everyday.

It doesn't become your problem.

You don't see it as your problem.

So I said no, I look at it as a moment in time when we must seize the opportunity while it's relevant to everybody, because it's relevant to us every single day.

I'm a realist.

So I'm prepared to handle it, even when it's no longer relevant to those who decide it's not popular.

So, if I was lying, and I was just a pessimist, I wouldn't be in front of you today a year and a half later after I started that job, right?

I wouldn't go to the City Club.

The City Club came to me with this idea.

So if it was no truth in what I was saying, I wouldn't be in front of you today.

Right?

Because now it's getting unpopular.

(audience applauding) All right.

There is no doubt that we live in two different Americas.

I'ma say that again.

There is no doubt that we live in two different Americas.

To white America, the murder of George Floyd was an unspeakable tragedy, something you had never seen before.

It was treacherous, and it was undeniable that racism was real, still breathing, living, and existing.

But for black people in America, George Floyd is not an isolated incident.

It is one of many black faces that are unarmed, pose no threat, and that were brutally rather choked, or gunned down, murdered by the police for nothing other than their race.

It's not an isolated incident.

In the last five years, there have been over 135 unarmed black men or women murdered at the hands of the police for nothing more than their race.

Most of them have been recorded, all of them have not been popular.

But nothing happens.

So understand the difference between the way that the different cultures see it and think.

Because to us, each time, when I seen Sandra Bland, when I seen the gunshots of the guy just trying to sell the CDs, it all looked the same to me.

I didn't see a difference.

To be black in America means to experience racism as a rite of passage.

(audience murmurs) I'ma say that one more time.

(audience laughing) To be black in America means to experience racism as a rite of passage, for every black or brown person, regardless of age, or sex, or socioeconomic status.

So it means that my son, at some point in his life, he doesn't understand, he thinks I'm super crazy.

(laughing) Because when I try to prepare him for life as he gets older, I say things will change.

You'll have to do this, or the bigger you get in stature, the taller you get, people will look at you different.

They won't speak to you the same way.

And it's a hurtful conversation to have.

And I always have to balance out am I creating a space for us to coexist, or am I preparing him?

But either way, he's my son, and I want him to be ready.

All right?

So there's a story sometimes we tell at Cleveland Votes, shout out to CV, with my co-founder, Erica Anthony.

She calls those that are in the room firefighters.

And she calls us firefighters because we always say in democracy the world is on fire.

Every time you turn around, we are all like oh my god, it is something else.

We are consistently on the reactive, because we have to constantly put out some kind of fire.

So for the black firefighters in the room, you have to think about extinguishing flames from a race-conscious approach in the work that we do.

And you may be asking yourself well, what does she mean by that?

So let me expand a little bit more.

In both my personal and professional life, there are many times in the groups that I'm civicly engaged or involved in I am asked to put in my social capital to join a fight, that may not primarily be based upon race, but nevertheless, there are some similarities, and we are asked to join in.

And when we are joined in in the fight, and maybe certain groups that folk wanna work with, and maybe opportunity areas or thought processes that we have as black women or black people, and when we try to insert that into the argument, we are quickly silenced.

We are often asked, what does race have to do with it?

Why are you speaking of race again?

That makes no sense.

This is not even about that.

This is just about women rights.

What are you talking about?

And so I set out to say when you try to bring up race in a fight with your non-black peers that is silenced, you cannot continue to go along with the greater good.

Every time we join in a fight but choose to dilute our own thought process, it comes at the expense of black people continued fight for freedom.

Our history is unique.

Our history is unique.

It should not be silenced.

And so is our fight.

Our fight is unique.

Allies, allow us to be liberated in our thoughts and approaches to freedom.

Don't ask me why am I speaking about race when race is not relevant.

I wouldn't have said it if it wasn't relevant in the room.

(audience applauding) Our race has everything to do with it.

When black people have worked to build their own because we were segregated, when it was skillfully destroyed, it was plotted against and taken away, nothing is given to us freely in the United States of America but death.

When we built our own communities, white supremacy burnt it down.

When we asked for health equity to prevent the early loss of children in maternal care, safe communities, mental health and substance abuse treatment, we are met with over-policed communities, a war on drugs, a lack of resources, community development and funding, and we are also met with being the worst city for black women in America.

Shoutout to ChiChi in Enlightened Solutions.

(audience applauding) Our cries are often ignored, resulting in limited, restricted, or no access to opportunity at all.

So I am pro-choice.

I need to give you that disclaimer.

But I need you to understand that our fight sometimes look different when I talk about that race conscious approach, because the only thing that white supremacy has freely and willingly given to us again is death.

They didn't give black women easy access to abortions because they love the black woman and when she produces the black child, and more black life.

They gave us easy access to abortions, not because they wanted us to feel liberated or freer choice, it's because there is no value to white supremacy on our lives, so you easily can kill yourself.

Why not?

After slavery, what else am I gonna do with you?

You are worthless to us if you're not the bottom of the barrel supporting capitalism.

So I'm not perpetuating a system of more black life.

Right?

So, we must often start from a different place, and be okay with uplifting a racial argument in every fight.

We can all win together, especially where there is common ground, but please get comfortable, allies, with us uplifting the race-conscious approach.

Please do not silence our ideas in this fight, because even the overturning of Roe versus Wade is rooted in racism, and it may sound like, you know, I hear a lot of oh, you're whining.

Whining again.

What else do you want?

Right?

It's not that farfetched, because the governor of Alabama, she let it out the bag.

What did she say?

They're not even hiding it no more.

Thank you, Supreme Court, for overturning Roe versus Wade, because you are saving white lives.

(audience murmurs) This is what this is about.

This is the long game.

This isn't about women.

I know we think it is, you know?

Oh.

You're taking women's rights, and you are.

But what this is about is a shrinking majority, becoming a minority.

This is about power.

This is about capitalism.

And so it is in effect about race.

When examining the notion of black freedom in America, freedom implies independence.

Yet such independence has never been realized for the black man or woman.

We weren't given freedom on July 4th, and we weren't given freedom on Juneteenth.

What kind of freedom is granted with an exception?

An exception that continuously perpetuates the systematic racial inequalities in this unjust legal system?

A legal system that is being used to block us from buying loans, from purchasing businesses, from creation of wealth, from creating any sense of real community, from obtaining occupational licenses.

The mark of the legal system has more collateral consequences than a punishment created in the statute itself, which sends the black man or woman spiraling, creating broken homes and no opportunity for anything but recidivism and stereotypes that perpetuate fear and hatred.

So if I were free, I would be able to?

If there were no exceptions to the 13th Amendment, I would be able to do what?

I'd be free.

I could sell CDs, I could go for a jog.

I think you all mentioned that I can fall asleep at a parking lot in Wendy's, I could change a tire, I could have my children ride bikes in suburban neighborhoods with friends and not be stopped by grown A men and women.

(laughing) Harassing my children, and asking what are they doing in this neighborhood.

I could even tell you a personal piece for me, he has tons of non-black friends, and so I wouldn't have to pray before I send him off to the suburbs to make sure a neighbor doesn't have a wrong idea, and then some weekend they call me and tell me my son is hung from a tree, right?

And nobody knows what happened.

All right.

It is the opportunity, if I knew what freedom looked like, where you don't have to re-hire officers how they've proven were incompetent for murdering a 12-year-old and not doing their due diligence.

But what does it look like to be free?

It would probably mean I would have the right to protest when a young man is murdered in Akron, and the organization, Freedom Blacks organization, is not surrounded by police like it's the 1970s and he's the Black Panther Party.

That's what it probably will look like.

(audience applauding) If I were free, I wouldn't be pulled over for a nonviolent traffic stop, and run away from police for god knows what, I probably was scared, and be riddled with over 60 bullets with no weapon, and the same weekend, where those very free white men actually murdered officers, not citizens, officers, and their service dogs, but was taken with no incident.

If I were free.

400 years of institutional racism, from slavery to Black Codes, to Jim Crowe, to redlining, to the war on drugs, to mass incarceration.

And I want you to understand something.

It's not like one started, and then one ended, and another one started.

We feel the effects today of all of them.

They never end.

They never end.

So don't ask me about what it means to examine freedom, because we have never been free.

Don't debate me when according to the United States Census, for those who do believe in numbers, the state of Ohio has 59% of African-Americans in their prison population, but 14% of us in the state of Ohio.

Your United States Census doesn't look much different.

We make up 11% of the population, but 60% of the prison population.

National data tells you that one in three black men, count.

One in three black men throughout their lifetime will end up incarcerated, while only one in 17 white.

Does that mean we're so violent and angry in our rage, and we're just doing everything wrong, because we're beasts, right?

It's how we do.

So what does freedom look like in black America?

So my comrade, sometimes I call her my wife, my freedom fighter, my co-founder, whatever you wanna call Erica Anthony.

To know her is to love her.

Was doing a state of democracy video a couple weeks for Cleveland Votes, and she talked about what does freedom look like?

And she referenced some things from ThirdSpace Action Labs co-founder, Mordecai, and we have to really think about that, because I don't know what freedom looks like.

I've never seen it.

I've never tasted it.

I've never felt it.

I've never smelled it.

I have no idea, so I can only imagine what it may look like.

And I imagine it tastes real sweet.

(laughing) I love goodies.

So, you cannot provide liberty without accountability, and you can't provide equity instead of justice.

The wells of slavery run deep.

We are traumatized by our ancestors' experience, and the unspeakable reality in our day to day lives.

In preparing for this, I read somewhere that we have only been given the amount of freedom that any well-kept slave could ask for.

Where is the lie?

So what will it take for accountability?

In doing some research, I also found another quote that I thought was pretty dope.

It said one free man, and this is by Houston Hartsfield Holloway.

"For we colored people did not know how to be free, "and the white people did not know how to have "a free colored person about them."

Right?

And so when you think about that, what do you need for accountability?

You need to be able to reverse that.

We have accountability in this thing too, black people.

So there will be some things that are directly for you.

Right?

Because you have to know how to be free.

What was Harriet Tubman saying?

I could have freed so many more if they knew they were slaves.

(audience murmurs) Free your mind.

White people, you have to be willing to really relinquish power, and not in the way that you think relinquishing power means.

I put my money up.

I sat next to you, I marched with you.

Sometimes I just need you to be quiet and let me win.

No, really.

(audience applauding) I don't need you to tell me how to lead my people to freedom, we've been doing it for a long time.

I need you to trust me as your ally.

Trust my leadership.

Don't nickel and dime me.

If you want us to do something, and you want us to eradicate racism, you wanna see freedom, then give me the resources we haven't been granted.

There were no reparations here.

Only our slave masters got them.

(audience applauding) We need acknowledgement.

All of us as Americans have to stop lying to ourselves.

America has its own unique culture, and we all are American.

We share some very similar values, of thinking we know everything, we're the best at everything, and that America don't stink, but it does.

America is not candy-coated.

America has a workaholic culture that is rooted in slavery and capitalism, and that's regardless of color.

All we do is work.

My husband's African, he's like, you always working.

I know!

(laughing) (audience laughing) We have country-wide laws that came into place after a child was murdered about standing your ground.

We continue to strip away at voting rights.

We had this thing called gerrymandering that's ridiculous, that kind of shuts down democracy.

We have the creation of consequences in law to prevent people from feeling comfortable at a protest, and this is a democracy?

We have the reframing of historical incidents and lacks of teaching in direct violations of our constitution.

America's not candy-coated.

So the first thing we have to do is acknowledge where we are and what this really is, and don't tell me this is the greatest country ever invented, because it's not as bad as this country.

I don't care.

What is this country supposed to be?

It is your job to make it what it's supposed to be.

Right?

Stop being ignorant.

This is specifically for my black people.

Educate yourselves.

Reading, learning, and understanding the history of yourself and others' history that has not been taught to you builds an H of a bridge, and provides an H of a blueprint.

I can't curse.

(audience laughing) (laughing) So, I always go back to this story, because it was so profound to me to have Fred Gray, who was one of the initial civil rights attorneys for the NAACP during the historical times of Dr. King, and he went to Case Western Reserve University for those who don't know, and we were very privileged, Ali and I, to see him speak last year.

And he was mentioning, because sometimes we forget, Danielle, our president, talks about this sometimes.

Sometimes we forget that when they were doing this civil rights work in the core and the heat of it, they were like 30 something years old.

They were really young.

And so now he's like 90, and he's like, you all couldn't make it during my day.

All you do is whine, you cry about everything.

(audience laughing) And you ain't even facing half of what I faced, and we didn't know what we was doing either.

And that was like an a-ha moment.

That was really important.

It was critical because there was no blueprint for them, but they just got out there and did something.

So stop whining and crying.

Do something.

Educate yourselves, learn, and unlike them, you actually do have a bit of a blueprint if you know and learn your history.

But stop expecting somebody to teach you how to fight your way out of slavery.

They ain't gonna do that, that wouldn't benefit them.

So you have to seek knowledge, thirst for knowledge, and find it.

Caring more about people than money, and I've been called a socialist, Jesus Christ was, hey maybe I am.

Human-centered designs, common sense approaches, if something is built with intention, then just as directions were given to create it, instructions on reversal or how to tear it down exist.

Undesign your red lines.

I know I get hit a lot of times with it's so complicated.

This is so complicated.

But it's not, though.

Just like somebody literally intentionally sat down and said hey, if we draw out these things, even though they're getting this benefit, and we can remove them from this, and this will have a cause of this, and let's try it out, and it worked.

If it's that intentional, you can be that intentional about reversing what you wanna see.

What's difficult is getting people all on the same page as a convener, and ensuring that their intentions are pure, their hearts are good, and nobody will sell the other person out.

That's the difficulty.

(audience applauding) Attack the roots of racism.

Race, people always say this, but it's true.

Racism is as American as American pie.

It's in the country's DNA.

So you must remove those that make decisions for this country who wants to maintain the old order.

The prospect of black progress often comes with a backlash from those who are too scared or small-minded to believe we all can win together.

Eric Dyson, a professor at Vanderbilt said, "It's not simply in these streets "with the rise of antisemitic and anti-black revival, "but also in the halls of Congress "where they go thinly disguised, "attached on black progress, "and on the insistence that we study black history."

Whoa.

Ooh.

Actions set words on fire.

Especially black people.

The fire that was full within Mandela, the fire that was full within Marcus Garvey, the fire that was full within Malcolm X.

The fire that was full within Mr. Fred Gray, and still is.

He working, by the way.

(laughing) And so many others that came before you.

Catching fire.

Don't kill it.

We have become too complacent, too fond of our individual liberties won by those who collectively fought for us, thinking we can never go back, and not strategizing on the way forward.

America's dirty, and in the words of Lauryn Hill, "It need to get down on its knees and repent."

(audience laughing) So what will it take for true reform?

I'm not gonna tell, the people I know in this room, you all fight like H everyday.

So most of the time, you know the answers.

It's about aligning things the proper way.

So none of this will be new for you.

It's about thinking about what are the macro and the micro strategies at the same time?

What is the end game, right?

Kyle Earley, he's a pastor here, and Kyle often says it's not a moment, it's a movement.

I see no lies told.

It's the truth.

Like, this is not gonna, if something was created that took this long to create, you're not gonna see real progress in two years.

That's ridiculous.

If you were doing this properly with the idea of justice at hand, where you're creating real, you're removing these barriers, not just creating equity, you're creating a world that is supposed to be equal and fair for everybody in this room?

You know how much time that's gonna take?

You need at least two years to even get the right people to the table.

It doesn't happen overnight.

You have to be in it and committed for the long game.

And the more you promote the idea that things are supposed to happen overnight, the more smoke in mirrors you receive, which is not real change.

You can't just throw money at this.

It doesn't go away from money.

It doesn't go away just from marching.

It doesn't go away when Congress puts on Kente Claus and kneel.

It doesn't go away from apologies.

You have to be accountable and committed to this work.

Remember that the battle is between good and evil, not black and white.

And I don't know what you all's spiritual framework or time that you on, but I love my Jesus Christ, and there are times when you going through this, and you are discriminated against, it can make you hate.

When you see those grocery store incidents, and you see this little boy getting fired at and riddled with bullets, it can make you hate.

But the Lord tells you, you cannot serve me with hate in your heart.

You're blinded.

And so you have to remember that it is not good, it's good and evil.

It is not black and white.

I was listening to this old Negro spiritual the other day.

He was saying (laughing) it's my favorite one.

Satan, we gonna tear your kingdom down.

(audience murmurs) So be optimistic, even though we're tempered by reality.

Make us whole again, not just equity, but justice.

Equity allows for us to build custom tools and identify and address inequality, but justice removes systemic barriers.

Move in a proactive and a race-conscious approach, one of the things I prided myself on doing in working with Danielle and Will and Kayla, and everybody at, shoutout to the NAACP Cleveland Branch.

(audience members whooping) (audience applauding) Is to think about how do we do this in a proactive way?

There will always be opportunities to react, because we can't control other people.

But you are responsible for controlling what you do as a community, and how you fill in.

And so us thinking about being intentional, and how we host legislators, and educate legislators, and create a policy agenda, and build capacity, and create accountability round tables for the murder of Floyd's death, for all those local commitments, to see where people are with those commitments.

First to create economic development series, and wealth building symposiums so that black people can understand the way that wealth is not your small business, even though those are great, there are plenty of times you have to be able to make passive income.

That's how you build wealth.

You can only be so many places at one time.

But it's not game that was given to us, so it's our duty to create game for our people.

That's our job.

Well that's mine, anyways.

Proactive approach.

(laughing) All right?

So in closing, because I know I am running out of time, I just want to remind people here that it's strength in our lineage.

Our lineage has royalty in it.

We cannot fail if we do this together.

And lastly remember, advancing racial equity is not about extending special treatment for certain groups, but ending it.

Thank you, City Club.

(audience applauding) - Thank you, everyone.

And thank you, Crystal.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A.

I'm Cynthia Connolly, director of programming here at the City Club of Cleveland.

We are joined today by Crystal Bryant, executive director of the NAACP Cleveland Branch talking about what black freedom actually means in America today.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, and those joining via our livestream, or radio broadcast at 897 Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to Tweet a question, please Tweet it @thecityclub.

You can also text your question to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794, and our staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please?

- Hi.

Thank you so much for speaking with us here today.

So I was wondering, you had mentioned how those of us who aren't in it, don't always see it.

And it's hard for a white person who can never understand fully the struggles of the black community here in America, and unfortunately, a reality of being a part of the queer community is that some white queer people do not take that experience and think to themselves, oh now I have people reacting poorly to me, what does this mean about how I've been treating people who I've been taught to disregard, and stuff like that.

So I guess my question is, has there ever been a time where you just see a missed opportunity with the queer community, where you're just like, if you could just expend your social capital in this way, or you know, so I guess that's what I was wondering, is other than trying to elevate black voices, and standing up in white spaces and speaking the truth even when it's unpopular, is there anything that you've ever seen where you're like, ah queer community, you're missing an opportunity to help us out, and help each other.

- Sure.

So thank you for the question.

I would say that there's often tons of missed opportunities, not just with the queer community, but other communities that are also faced with oppression.

But I think what's really important to make a point out of, which I hope I did within this talk today, is that it's really hard to partner with other communities when we haven't organized ourselves.

And so understand that a lot of what was built was lost, because the bridge wasn't connected properly from generation to generation, and right now, we are dying.

We are in a state of emergency, and so it's not that there's no intersectionality, because there is, but sometimes when intersectionality happens, then our cause actually gets lost.

It's silenced.

It's dangled.

So until we are organized, and we know what we want, as black people, and where we're trying to go, it's really hard to engage other people, because we have to organize better.

But there's tons of missed opportunities.

So it may look like we are not moving.

We are moving.

We are rebuilding, and certainly when those hands, if it's time to be extended, and you have one to extend, we certainly welcome partnerships.

- Good afternoon.

I'm so glad you're here, Crystal.

As many people know, my name is Meryl Johnson.

I serve on the State Board of Education.

And a very, very, very quick story in July 2020, the state board passed a resolution condemning hate and racism.

It passed by a vote of 12 to five.

Eight appointed members by the governor helped us pass it.

In 2020, we had a different person elected, and he decided he wanted to rescind our resolution.

So it was rescinded.

But why I'm telling this story is because the eight appointed members were threatened by the governor, and a couple of senators, that if they did not rescind that resolution, they would be kicked off the board.

Two board members chose not to vote to rescind it, and they were indeed asked by the governor's office to resign.

My question to you is what do we do in a toxic environment like our state legislature, that decides that people who support black kids should not be on the board?

So that's my question to you.

What do we do in an environment like that?

- Thank you, Representative Johnson, for the question.

So, Board Member Johnson, I think that I actually had it in my notes, which I realized were just way too long and that we're not gonna get through, but we, in addition to organizing, because really, if you're not organized, you're not gonna get anywhere, because you don't know what goals you're actually trying to accomplish or reach.

You have to build democracy.

And democracy doesn't look like just telling people to align with political parties, especially not for black people.

Did you hear that?

Democracy looks like going for the candidate who aligns with the things that you need, and your community.

Who is going to fight for you?

Democracy looks like supporting those people.

Meryl should have been able to have a back table discussion with the NAACP saying this is happening.

What can you do for us?

What can you uplift and highlight?

And then we talk about building democracy, we talk about the ongoing opportunity to constantly be civicly engaged in building political power from the ground up.

It is getting your neighbors involved in everyday, and helping them understand they do have a voice, they do have a space, and then ultimately if they feel engaged year-round, hopefully they'll actually get out to exercise their vote, because we all know that voting is a huge piece of this.

The political process is a huge piece of this.

But getting the political office doesn't mean you're actually empowered to do something.

It's a title.

They're ran by people just like we have bosses et cetera, and everything else, and generally the people represents money.

And so if we don't get behind those candidates, or those people that are in office to make them feel empowered to do what they're supposed to do for us as a constituency, versus what they're supposed to do for money, then they're lost.

They feel that pressure, and it's easy to say from your seat, I would never.

I would have done it right then.

You may not have.

You have no idea what kind of pressure and what that looks like.

I spent 18 years in government.

Oh, I was about to curse.

It's a H of a pressure.

So.

(laughing) (audience laughing) So I hope that answers the question.

I know that was a lot in one.

- Hi, Crystal.

Ruth Gray.

City of South Euclid Council.

When this country was founded, life, liberty, and the pursuit of property was initially what we were grounded on.

They initially changed that to inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Moving forward in 2008, this country saw a housing crisis of monumental proportions.

In Cleveland, specifically in greater Cleveland, thousands of people lost their homes more likely were black African-Americans.

Those properties were foreclosed, and they were sold to out of state lenders, and today, it is difficult for those home owners or people to buy property if you don't have the money.

So what are we gonna do as a community to address this housing property rights issue that is fundamental to our constitutional rights, it is connected to our voting rights, and is connected to our collective power?

How are we gonna turn this around so that we can provide property to those that were disenfranchised?

Thank you.

- Thank you, Councilwoman Gray.

Very nice to meet you in person.

So, what I would share with you, right, I'm gonna keep duplicating the same answer.

Because it doesn't happen, and that's why we're in the state that we're in.

You have to get organized.

But the other thing I wanna be able to point out in addition to getting organized and having this back door conversation is strategy, before you even get to the table to make the ask, know the ask that you wanna make.

So when we finally had the opportunity two years ago, and they were like okay, I'm listening, you all are hurting.

What do you want?

Guess what we couldn't tell them?

We couldn't tell them what we wanted.

Get organized.

Know what it is that you are asking for so when the time comes, you are prepared to strike.

And understand, there's no offense to any ally in the room.

There is no white man coming to save you.

Learn how to save yourself.

So don't ask me what I'm gonna do.

You tell me what you're gonna do from your position, and each person in their position collectively comes together to light fire.

That's the only way it happens.

It's a collective response to something.

If one individual believes they are greater than anybody else in the room, you'll see the outcome of that and its effects.

One person can't do it, because unlike other people that are oppressed in the United States of America, when someone comes for us, that someone is our government.

We ain't got enough population to beat our government, so you have to be real strategic, and honestly, we often say the revolution is not televised, well for us it cannot be televised, because when it is, it's neutralized.

- Regarding today's topic, how does the struggle of immigrants and refugees of color parallel it or fit into it?

- It has everything to do with it fits into it, so one of the other new opportunities we had when I was able to come into this role as the executive director was to look at our nationals model.

We actually have an international affairs committee, so it's really new.

And our chair of international affairs, can you raise your hand?

(laughing) And so, when we think about the struggle of some of our immigrant and refugee brothers and sisters that come over from different countries that are black, they're coming into a totally new environment, where they'd been sold that it was wonderful.

You thought it was candy, didn't you?

Not anymore.

Right?

So they don't fully understand, and there are some prohibitions that don't allow them to come over as easy, to make the transition to America is easy.

As a diaspora, they are met with tons of disrimination in terms of how their applications and their visas are decided.

Also they find it sometimes that they are outliers, because we've been taught to hate each other, so they don't know really how to integrate with black America, so there are tons and tons of issues for the diaspora as well, and again, these are some of the things that we like to work on.

It's only the beginning.

Right, I wish I had all the answers.

I wish I was that great.

Maybe Jesus will make me that great one day.

(audience laughing) - [Audience Member] I have a question.

- Oh hey, Madame President.

- Hey Crystal.

Crystal, I think you did an amazing job, first of all.

But I was just curious, from your perspective, you talked earlier on about someone saying you might be a pessimist.

Talk to us about how black joy is also resistance in this work of being a freedom fighter, and what it means for you personally, and your son, to take moments to experience joy as freedom?

- Oh, well thank you Madame President for the question.

I definitely miss Erica for this one, because she consistently speaks of black joy.

You know, they don't want to see us win.

It's a win for them to see us down, right?

I was actually gonna start and come up here and tell you, I sure is tired.

(audience laughing) And I am.

And I think we all are in this room.

We are tired of fighting.

But then I think about Mr. Gray, and his fight was way harder, and if he got tired, and if he gave up, and if he didn't have moments of joy, then I wouldn't be able to stand in the midst of you freely and say some of the things that's coming out of my mouth today, right?

So when you think about a space of joy, take time for yourself and celebrate your wins, because there are some wins.

So everything is not doom and gloom, right?

Just as somebody fought to get Roe versus Wade the first time, you surely can turn it back around, right?

Just like somebody fought for us to be integrated in this room, we can move and progress further.

You have to learn how to take your accomplishments, be in them, be in a space of making sure you reserve space and time for yourself, and then love on one another.

Make sure your room is kept up with energy that is parallel to yours.

People that believe in the same things because if people don't believe you can actually accomplish it, it'll never get done.

The most important thing, they can laugh at Barrack, but that's why he won.

I sold you on hope.

Hope is real.

Christ sold you on hope.

(laughing) So.

Thank you, Madame President for that question.

- Thank you so much.

I learned so much from your speech, and one of the things I wanted to talk about is we are with a platform called the Cleveland Observer here.

One of the very few black owned newspapers here, if anyone knows.

We just got back from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And one of the things that they were talking about, this was where Black Wall Street was, and this was where the federal government dropped bombs on our own people, and they rebuilt afterwards, but what really got that whole community was them putting a highway through it.

And so my question is, and it's in regards to black platforms, to people who are influencers as black individuals, what are ways that we can use our platforms and the influence that we have to connect those dots in action, and also, how are ways that we as people who have influence, who have platforms, hold people accountable that either fund us, that support us, or that have influence in ways that could affect our bottom lines?

- That's a loaded question.

(audience laughing) - Yeah.

- I wasn't ready.

(all laugh) - I just had to ask you.

- But thank you for the question.

It is a very good one, and I hope to try and answer everything you asked.

I actually had all this in notes.

I just had way too long of a speech.

(laughing) So when you think about the opportunity to capitalize off one's power, it's understanding your power.

So many times, we had this thing, right, especially in the nonprofit world, called mission creep.

Because you know, you may not be doing or seeing the impact you wanna see, and you're like, oh well, what if I did this?

I wanna move into the housing space today.

And so what we often have to understand, if you haven't even perfected your own mission, you don't need to move into the housing space, bro.

You need to focus on your work.

Capitalize off the movement building you are doing, believe in your organization, and connect roots, and city organizations who are doing the other pieces of it before you start building out and trying to create a wraparound, or something.

You have to believe in your vision and understand your power, and where you are in the ecosystem, and think about what do you need to connect to?

And what we are often missing is the convener.

When Erica and I built Cleveland Votes, that whole idea is to have an entity that serves as convener for democracy building work.

Because too many times in Cleveland, I will say this as a former government employee, we are resource rich whether you believe it or not in Cuyahoga County.

You don't see impact because we are fragmented and siloed, and if the right doesn't know what the left is doing, and you're duplicating, you don't have impact.

So organizing, strategizing, long game strategizing.

Not mission creeping, but reaching out to your right and left, being informed, coming to one table, having one collective plan, your individual plans, sticking to it for the long game, and being honest.

It may look like it's easy to come up here when I notice some of the things I'm saying is insulting to people that I care dearly about, and who has had my back?

Where's my Cynthia Dempsey?

Right?

And something else I could have said in this room could have easily offended her.

But I want you to understand that a part of this is being able to speak truth.

So when it is your funder, and you have to say well, you know, hey, you gave me $25,000.

In fact, I'm just gonna give you an example of what happened with a funder recently with us at the NAACP.

Don't listen to this, President.

(audience laughing) Because she's my boss and I don't want to get fired.

(audience laughing) We had a funder who asked us to write a $10,000 grant, and they specifically wanted it for one of two things, or both.

And so when we were having a conversation, I'm like, you know, $10,000, you can't get both.

You can get one.

You have a full staff.

What do I look like to you?

Stop letting people pimp you.

Because where- (audience applauding) Where one person doesn't do it, understand that God will provide.

And that same week, I was having a random conversation with somebody, and they was like, oh, we'll cut you a check.

No grant application, none of it.

God will provide when you are doing the work that He destined and sent you to do.

(audience murmurs) (audience applauding) Oh Lord.

(all chuckling) What?

I love you.

- Well, we go way far back, and thank you for this excellent speech.

You continue to be an inspiration to me every single day.

So I just wanted to publicly say that.

But here's my question, and I will try to keep it brief.

And I'm sure we'll have a long conversation over some coffee that I promise I'll buy for you.

(audience laughing) The question and the challenge that I'm confronted with is that this is for black people only, is that within our community there is a divide between the young and the old.

I'm not gonna try to draw generational gaps or generational lines, but we seem to divide ourselves, and what can you speak to uniting across these generational gaps, and how do we also pass on knowledge so that it is not lost, and that we continue to remember the blueprint that you rightly said is already there, but due to the tension, or whatever it may be, so can you speak?

- I can.

I think as a black community, we have always been divided.

That's how I get you.

I divide and I conquer.

Right?

I get to tell you on the census you no longer get to be Hispanic.

You can be black or white.

Division is how you conquer people.

So I'll tell you for us, and I think it may not be unique to Cleveland, but Cleveland definitely has some challenges.

What we have to understand as a people is that there is nothing we can do without our ancestors.

Right?

Like, they told you who sponsored this today, right?

Somebody left the resources to be impactful, to get up here and speak about local heroes.

So you have to acknowledge those who were before you, and stop thinking you know everything, because they likely did it already.

Your idea may be more tech savvy.

Best believe they've done it already.

You're not as smart as you think you are.

So acknowledge them.

Seek them out.

We are often always waiting for somebody to come to us, because my feelings hurt.

But we are in a state of emergency, so it doesn't matter if your feelings hurt.

You don't got time for that.

Humble yourself.

And so what I often say, even though sometimes they talk to us crazy, because our elders do, I suck it up and I still go.

Because even if they're not receptive the first time, if I keep pulling them back, and keep pulling them back, and then I leverage them to bring me all the other elders, then we're in a different space.

Because we know what was done to us, whether it was intentional or unintentional, we're at the age of 40, I know, I know, I don't look it.

(audience laughing) For us to start now, building the next regime underneath.

So you know again, it's very easy to critique from a seat, but without even realizing we often do it too.

So when you see the next person coming up, make time.

It doesn't matter how exhausted you are.

It's unfair to us, but that is our state.

We have to constantly build and drive.

Reach back.

Build bridges.

Get them new information.

Task them with things.

Because you have to be developing your next set of freedom fighters.

This is not a moment, it's a movement.

Shoutout to Kyle, right?

So you have to prepare your next ones as well, and think about what information they need to start to task them, and channel that, and champion him, and document.

History is critical.

We have the opportunity to treat the work with our history center, to go dig back what we have in our archives of the NAACP at a local level.

We talked about even black history, and how they're creating these markers with the restoration society, but also we challenge the idea at the history center that black history is not just what you Google from the civil rights movement.

There are many black champions that white people may not consider champions.

So I ask them, did you know that the UNIA was headquartered here?

Marcus Garvey's organization was headquartered here.

That is our history.

And some people may want to see him as an offender of postal services, but I'm telling you, he was a champion.

He was a leader for black people.

And so again, know your history.

It's not stupid, it's not un-hip or not cool.

You have to know your history.

You have to go back and teach others to wanna get your history.

You have to take the step to build the bridge backwards and forwards.

I know, it's a lot of weight.

But it's what we tell, oh lean back.

It's what we tasked to do.

(audience laughing) I hope that answers it.

- So my father, Steven Minter, would have been very proud and honored that you were on the podium today speaking about black freedom.

And I think he would have been inspired.

- [Crystal] Thank you.

- When he was retiring from the Cleveland Foundation, this is what he said.

"Periods of hope, optimism, and opportunity "sometimes blend with or exist side by side "with times of doubt, despair, and pessimism."

He understood that that confrontation created moments when change can happen.

Speak to us about where you see the greatest opportunities for our local branch of the NAACP to make a difference.

- Oh hey now, Ms. Minter.

(laughing) (audience laughing) I'll just tell you that honestly there are limitless opportunities because there is so much work to be done, right?

We're talking about a news study that just said Cleveland is the worst place for black women.

Not like a study from 1920, no, now.

Today.

So there is so much work to be done if you understand your position.

If you're in a position of philanthropy, or corporate responsibility, give to operational costs.

Don't program us to death.

(audience applauding) Please.

Because guess what?

I can run far more many programs for you if you gave me staff capacity.

(audience murmurs) Give me the capacity for the work you wanna see done.

If you are an organizer on the ground marching everyday, stand your ground.

You a brave mother ... (audience applauding) Everybody doesn't have it in them to do it.

Organize properly.

Reach across the aisles, stop fighting.

Well no, I'm Black Lives Matter, no I'm the NAACP, no you all are black, and we are dying.

So get out there and figure out how you are going to do it together.

If you are in government, listen, my 18 years, I am traumatized.

You have to be an institutional organizer, because there is no way that you are going to be able to get the work done if you don't learn how to make some changes and be an influencer internally without rocking the boat too much to get what you need.

I'ma cut this off because I see we at time.

But I'll be happy to chat afterwards, and thank you all for being a great audience.

(audience applauding) (audience cheering) - I feel like we could have stood here for at least five minutes clapping for you, Crystal.

That was absolutely incredible.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Today's forum is part of our Local Heroes series, in partnership with Citizens Bank and Dominion Energy.

It is also the Steven A. Minter Endowed Forum made possible by a generous endowment gift from the five member banks of the Cleveland Foundation.

Mr. Minter spent his life in pursuit of justice, and for 28 years, he served as president and executive director of the Cleveland Foundation, and was the first African-American to lead that foundation.

Following his retirement in 2003, he was appointed executive in residence at Cleveland State University.

Mr. Minter spent 15 years in positions with the government and served on or chaired boards of national and regional organizations in the fields of education, health and human services.

We are grateful to the banks who endowed this forum and to the Minter family for their longstanding support of the City Club.

And we are pleased his daughter and City Club's immediate past president, Robin Minter Smyers, is with us in the audience today.

(audience applauding) We would also like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by Birthing Beautiful Communities, the Center for Community Solutions, the Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation, Citizens Bank, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library, Cleveland NAACP, Cleveland Votes, Dominion Energy, the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Policy Matters Ohio, and Sisters of Notre Dame of the USA.

Thank you all for being here today.

(audience applauding) We have three forums coming up next week.

We kick it off on Tuesday June 28th, back in Public Square, where we hear about the next era of philanthropy in Cleveland with the new president of the George Gunn Foundation, Tony Richardson.

He will be in conversation with Evelyn Burnett, co-founder of Third Space Action Lab.

Then on Thursday, July 14th, we'll be discussing how to support the whole child in our schools.

Dr. Lisa Damour, author and senior advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University will be leading the conversation with local and statewide experts including Meryl Johnson, who is here today, in education and child wellbeing.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you so much, Crystal.

And thank you members and friends of the City Club.

I'm Cynthia Connolly, and this forum is now adjourned.

(audience applauding) (bell dings) (casual upbeat music) - [Announcer] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(bright music) Production and distribution of City Club Forums, an Idea Stream public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.