Once again, the time is now. It’s always been.
Below the fever pitch demands for immediate accountability and police oversight, countless black leaders in Akron quietly tend to the embers of a movement that’s been smoldering since the 1950s. And they’ve got enough firewood stacked for another decade.
“It’s a protracted struggle,” said the Rev. Bruce Butcher, who can recount every high-profile incident between the black community and police since arriving in Akron in 2004. “It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. If you are going to get in this fight, you’ve got to have patience and a certain amount of discipline, because the city is not going to capitulate easily and they are not going to work with you, at times, unless they are forced to.”
Butcher met every Tuesday for a dozen years with co-founders and members of the Coalition for Safe Community and The Concerned Clergy and Community Leaders Their protest moves the needle on reform. Their longevity keeps it from snapping back.
“We don’t feel that merely a protest or a prayer vigil is the answer,” Butcher said.
“This isn’t going to change overnight,” said the Rev. Ray Greene, an organizer whose reform plan runs not in the street but through the ballot box. “We could start building something so that in 10 or 15 years, we’re looking at a different Akron.”
“I think there needs to be a dialogue,” said John Williams, Alpha Phi Alpha Homes deputy executive director and one of several black business and community leaders signing a letter asking for deliberative conversations with Mayor Dan Horrigan. “I think all parties need to not talk at each other but listen to each other. It’s through that listening that we can come away with meaningful and needed reform.”
To break the tragedy-protest-violence-tragedy cycle, change must be structural, institutional, resourced and lasting.
“I think that’s the problem,” Akron NAACP President Judi Hill said. “We’ve done things in name-only for so long, people are tired of it. When people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, this is what happens.”
Leaders want black men killed less by police. Their sons and fathers overpopulate jails. Their mothers and babies experience twice the negative health outcomes, which can be measured by counting death certificates. Their schoolchildren are disciplined four times as often as white kids.
With intent
The first step, as counselors often say, is acknowledging the issue.
“The prioritization has to come in the understanding and willingness to say that we have a problem,” Greene said. “We thought the best way to get rid of crime was to hire more police. We thought the best way to get rid of crime was to put more people in jail.
“No,” he said. “We have to start treating human beings like human beings. We have to start recognizing the humanity in people.
“And until we recognize racism, until we recognize institutional racism, then there’s no chance for any of these demands,” Greene said.
The political director for Akron Organizing Collaborative, headquartered in the WOMB (Way of Mind and Body center), is part of a statewide effort to raise 100,000 black leaders who will step into every power structure across Ohio.
In Akron, Greene’s focus is on registering voters who will elect and embolden leaders to take on the police department and its powerful union when it comes time to set policies and approve budgets. “They can’t fight on our behalf if we’re not standing behind them,” he said. “We can’t blame them if we’re not doing our part.”
“We’re gonna play the smart, long game now. We’ve got to continue to fight but fight smart. We’ve got to fight with our votes,” Greene said. The war will be won “either with the current administration — or we will raise our own administration.”
“If you want humans on your side,” Hill said, “bring them to the table. I am so sick of terms like ‘open and honest dialogue.’ It doesn’t exist. It’s so sad.”
Williams and other black leaders are taking a “process-driven” approach in soliciting a series of sit-down meetings with the mayor and city leadership. He’s not bringing demands to the table. The solutions must flow from the conversation, he said.
Instead, he’ll walk into City Hall, or wherever they might meet, with a handful of questions and an open mind.
For example, he said, he appreciates that Mayor Horrigan is working with Councilwoman Tara Samples and Health Equity Ambassador Tamiyka Rose to declare racism a public health crisis. Veronica Sims has introduced similar legislation in Summit County Council.
“But what does that mean? What happens after that?” Williams will ask of top leaders. “Clearly there needs to be some funding associated with that. In this world of COVID-19 and limited funds, how does that look?”
Getting specific
Seasoned civil rights leaders have prioritized demands to build on recent success and set the stage for future progress.
“There’s no question about it that we need more, better structured, mandatory training around racial bias, mental health and deescalation,” Hill said. “We’ve got to do it. I respect what police do. I want them to show African Americans the same respect they show others.”
City administrators say the training is in place. The debate has shifted to whether it’s enough.
Black community leaders call for transparency in how police shape policies on discipline and use of force. “Systemic loopholes” that let bad actors keep their jobs or get their badges back must be closed.
Good officers must speak up or be held accountable for their silence, black community leaders said. Institutions across the board must adopt and execute equity in hiring, allowing black girls and boys to see themselves in everyone from police officers to schoolteachers. Programs that inspire children to become police officers should not stop at middle school.
Proceeds from the forfeiture of assets confiscated after arrests should be returned to the community, giving grassroots agencies vehicles to run programming and allownig old drug houses to become beacons of positive change in their neighborhoods, the leaders said.
And, they added, more funding should flow directly to community policing, which does not exist as a unit.
“In community policing, you create allies to get rid of knuckleheads,” said Hill. “They don’t have it.”
“That premise would be based upon it being a unit,” said Charles Brown, Horrigan’s deputy for public safety. “It’s not.”
Brown said officers often volunteer as coaches and mentors. They’re leaders in their communities.
Brown said “it’s not just numbers” — hours committed to foot patrols or public meetings attended.
“It’s about every single person doing the type of work we want and expect folks to do,” he said.
The Beacon Journal surveyed all of Akron City Council. Of the 11 who responded, none said “there are enough resources (including funding and staff) dedicated to community policing in Akron.
On the oversight side, they support more authority, staff and resources for the city’s police auditor, a position created in 2002 and filled since 2007 to provide external oversight of complaints filed against, and investigated by, police.
Black community leaders also ask for an advisory committee, an opportunity to observe and advise police processes, from the investigation of complaints to the review of use of force to allocating resources.
A 2011 report by the Police Executive Research Forum, mutually respected for its independent consulting, recommended 32 reforms to what it viewed as an already solid Akron Police Department. Prioritized by public input, the top three recommendations focused on community policing and the creation of a permanent Citizens Advisory Board, which does not exist despite the previous administration trying multiple times to start but never being able to sustain.
Reach Beacon Journal reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3792.
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Akron’s black leaders detail playbook for long-term reform - Akron Beacon Journal
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