Sonia Reed believed she had achieved the American dream. In December 2024, the Black grandmother and former homeless individual became a homeowner in San Leandro, California. But her triumph quickly turned into a nightmare when neighbors began harassing her with racial slurs and vandalizing her property. “I worked so hard to finally have a place to call my own, and now I have to fear for my safety in my own home,” Reed said. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating the incidents as hate crimes. For many, vandalism is part of an ongoing pattern where Black homeowners have faced some kind of discrimination.

Reed’s experience is far from isolated. Black Americans remain locked in a battle for homeownership, confronted by systemic inequities, economic challenges, and, in some cases, environmental disasters that threaten to strip them of generational wealth.

A new Urban Institute report revealed that Black homeownership rates remain far behind those of white Americans. Researchers said it’s a gap rooted in decades of discriminatory housing policies, redlining, and predatory lending practices. “Homeownership remains one of the most significant drivers of wealth, yet Black families face disproportionate barriers to achieving this milestone,” researchers wrote.

The crisis extends beyond acts of overt racism. In January 2025, devastating wildfires tore through Altadena, California, a historically Black community with a homeownership rate of 81.5 percent—far higher than the national average. Thousands of homes were reduced to ashes and rubble, leaving families displaced. Many now face the daunting task of rebuilding and the looming threat of gentrification. “Developers are circling like vultures,” said longtime Altadena resident James Carter.   

“We’re trying to rebuild, but the fear is that we won’t be able to afford to stay.” Economic barriers remain a defining struggle. Brooke Scott, a litigation assistant in Los Angeles, calculated that achieving homeownership and financial security requires an annual household income of $300,000—far beyond what many Black families can attain. Housing costs, healthcare, taxes, and child-rearing expenses leave little room for savings or investment. “The numbers just don’t add up,” Scott said.    “Even with two incomes, we’re barely able to put away anything for a down payment.”

The Urban Institute’s findings represent a clear picture of the obstacles Black homeowners face. Disparities in income, lending practices, and generational wealth accumulation continue to create barriers that make Black homeownership an increasingly difficult goal. While federal and local initiatives have sought to close the gap, the road ahead remains steep.

Without significant policy changes and investment in Black communities, the homeownership gap will persist for generations to come,” the Urban Institute report warns.

For Reed, Scott, and the residents of Altadena, the challenges of Black homeownership are deeply personal. Whether confronting racial harassment, economic hurdles, or the aftermath of natural disasters, their stories serve as a reminder that the fight for equity in housing is far from over. If these barriers persist, the promise of homeownership will remain an elusive dream for too many Black Americans.

“We just want what everyone else has—a fair shot at building a future,” Carter asserted.

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By Rev. Norman Franklin

Herald Guest Columnist

Does America have a race problem? Is systemic racism permeating every fiber of the socioeconomic, sociopolitical institutions of America? Are race-based theories, particularly the Critical Race Theory, liberal extremism, or is it a reality that remains unacknowledged – the big grey elephant always in the room?

Answers trending from conservative Republican majorities grant us some perspective. Racism does not exist. And if history is properly presented, it never existed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.Fla.) signed into law a bill that bans initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion. He viewed them as discriminatory practices. This was in April 2023. In May, Gov. Greg Abbot (R.Tx.) followed suit with legislation that shuttered all DEI initiatives. A June 2023 SCOTUS decision gutted Affirmative Action.

A July Harvard Business Review article, “Why Companies Can – and Should- Recommit to DEI in the Wake of the SCOTUS Decision” debunks a myth.    African Americans have been the face of Affirmative Action. The article by Tina Ople and Ella F. Washington, reveals that White women benefited the greater from Affirmative Action policies.

America has a proclivity for scapegoating African Americans. Ronald Reagan’s fictitious Cadillac Welfare Queen pictured Blacks as milking the Welfare System. When in fact, Whites were the greater number on the welfare rolls.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is the latest boogeyman. DEI is about promoting awareness of our differences, addressing structural inequalities, and creating an environment of community and respect for human differences and social identities.

Opponents portray an ominous goal of DEI.

More than 20 states have a combined 50 bills pending or signed into law that restrict or eliminate DEI programs. They purport to protect First Amendment free speech and shield potential employees and students from coercive practices. They are forced to align with divisive, discriminatory policies of DEI initiatives, they assert.

Legislators take the floor and pontificate destruction to our democratic system of government. Some draw analogies to Marxism and Communism. There is no mention of the centuries long system of chattel slavery or the decades of codified discrimination that fostered the inequities that must be righted.

According to Acts 17:26, God made every nation and people from one bloodline. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth..”

But we are different. We were made that way. We process our experiences differently and come up with perspectives influenced by our experiences. In our nation of Christian leadership, this “great melting pot” of democracy, those differences should not erect invisible fences that keep us opposed to the goodwill of one another. The truth should tear down the fences and set us free.

We cannot deny the interconnectedness of the past and the present. We cannot deny America’s history and its imprint on the discord in our society, the imbalance in our economy, and the ambiance of conflicted dysfunction in government – state and federal.

Conservative legislatures move to prohibit the inclusion of African/African American history in academic curriculum. Native American history is equally shunned.

African American history and Native American history is American history; however, the amalgamated and comfortable version legislators prefer castrates our experiences and insults our heritage.

The genesis of the opposition is that Whites should not experience guilt when learning about history. That’s a misappropriation of guilt. Knowledge of the past bears no guilt; it could lead to shame, and shame spurs corrective action to ensure that mistakes are not repeated.

Erasure of African American and Native American history justifies the opposition to DEI initiatives. It denies the need to correct the imbalance resulting from generations of a privileged/marginalized social construct. If there is no cause, there is no effect, there is no need to take institutional corrective measures.

When the seats of government — the legislative and the executive branches – rests in the hands of one ideological movement, unrestrained by the weakness of opposition, legislative measures born out of the simmering angst of decades of feigned “go along” with social correctives, are pushed through that roll back the progress towards the more perfect union.

The legislative body is comfortable with the imbalance of power and inequalities of society. They wield the sphere of authority over the marginalized.

The African American could feel a sense of betrayal; but we felt the sting of ingratitude when we returned from the battlefields in Europe and the Pacific Theater. Our red blood soaked into foreign soils, but many were denied access to the GI benefits that fueled postwar prosperity.

Those who govern are the descendants of those who enslaved us; they deny the inhumanity of this immoral and unjust system.

Those who govern are the generations of those who codified Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws into a social construct that devalued Black life and castrated their dignity.

These are the progeny, the sons and daughters of those who have benefited from systemic injustice, but deny that inequality permeates every fiber of the social construct of America. It’s all they have known; it feels so normal. They can feel justified in the unjust laws they legislate; they can feel comfortable in the rollback of corrective measures. They can see no wrong in ending DEI initiatives.

As the Ronald Reagan, the quintessential Republican, said during a presidential debate. “There you go again.”

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary piece do not necessarily the express the opinions of The Cincinnati Herald.

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Contributed

“Our Mayor has said from Day 1: ‘Equity must underlie everything we do,’” said Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney, “but our underserved communities and many members of our Black communities know from history that equity often is not part of the game plan.” A few weeks ago, City Manager Sheryl Long showed the proposed infrastructure priorities that span across the City. Given that Cincinnati’s Black and low-income communities have historically been underserved and even ignored in the past, City Manager Long’s number one criterion in prioritizing the projects is equity.

Councilmember Scotty Johnson said, “I voted ‘no’ on the railroad sale because I wanted to see plans in place in writing to ensure equity for our Black communities – not just talk, but real commitment.” Johnson also said, “And I’m not just talking about equity from the proceeds of the railway sale because state law limits those funds to modifying, repairing or replacing existing infrastructure.” Johnson insisted that City Council find funds from other sources for underserved neighborhoods to have opportunities for “economic development – new projects in our underserved communities.”

President Pro Tem Victoria Parks added, “And we want to see good union jobs and economic opportunity for our struggling citizens who are one paycheck away from experiencing homelessness, or maybe already homeless.” The councilmembers agree that the time is now to make a difference and move the needle on poverty.

“We aren’t working in a vacuum,” Vice Mayor Kearney added. “We had several meetings with Rev. Damon Lynch III, Rev. KZ Smith, NAACP President Joe Mallory, and others, as well as listening sessions with members of several communities. She said whether the conversation was about reparations for those whose ancestors were enslaved, or the ravages of systemic racism – historical and ongoing today – at the heart of the conversations was the need to close the ever-widening racial wealth gap, and the historical absence of equity across the City.

Motion 1 – Office of Equity: Mayor Aftab Pureval, Vice Mayor Kearney, and Councilmembers Johnson and Parks are proposing repurposing the Office of Human Relations to an Office of Equity. Its mission will be to build upon the Mayor’s Financial Freedom Blueprint that addresses the racial wealth gap in Cincinnati. Pursuant to several discussions that Kearney and Johnson had with Rev. Damon Lynch III, Rev. KZ Smith, NAACP President Joe Mallory, and Iris Roley, the motion incorporates part of a proposed ordinance that Attorney Al Gerhardstein created to establish a community advisory committee to research what other entities across the country are doing to address the vestiges of slavery and monitor progress in closing the widening racial wealth gap.

Motion 2 – Ensuring Equity in Distribution of Proceeds from Sale of the Cincinnati Southern Railway: Johnson, Parks, and Kearney said that the sale of the CSR means more funds to address the City’s infrastructure needs – roads that need repairs and pedestrian safety upgrades, potholes, unhealthy HVAC systems in recreation centers, old playground equipment, municipal buildings that are not up to code, firehouses that are in poor shape, crumbling city stairways, streetlight upgrades, and much more. The railway sale is the City’s chance to make needed repairs across the city and to invest in the underserved communities that are suffering from decades of neglect and abuse due to systemic racism.  

Johnson, Parks, and Kearney are proposing two funds for the 15 neighborhoods with the lowest income levels: “The Rising 15.” The first fund is directly from the railway sale proceeds and is reserved for infrastructure in the Rising 15 neighborhoods. This investment is in addition to the City Manager’s proposed plan to use the railway sale proceeds to modify, restore, or rebuild existing city-owned infrastructure across the city in all neighborhoods.

Johnson said that a second fund is needed for economic development – that is, new infrastructure projects for which the railway sale proceeds cannot be used. The source of these funds for new projects is money in the capital budget that the city saves by using the railway sale proceeds for existing infrastructure projects. Since the second fund is from the general capital budget, it is not restricted to existing infrastructure and can be used by the underserved neighborhoods for new developments.

Kearney, Parks and Johnson also included in the motion the equitable development policy that Council passed in February to create opportunities for minority and women owned developers, contractors, and businesses. Kearney added, “We need to open up the clubhouse and provide economic opportunity for everyone.”

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By Yvette Johnson-Hegge

YWCA Greater Cincinnati 

YWCA Greater Cincinnati will host its 22nd annual Racial Justice Breakfast on October 11 at Music Hall. The Racial Justice Breakfast is an important part of our efforts to create the social changes necessary to end systemic racism.

Attendees this year will experience meaningful dialogue about health equity, and hear from keynote speaker, Dorothy Roberts, an internationally recognized scholar, public intellectual, and social justice advocate. She studies the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues and has been a leader in transforming public thinking and policy on reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics. Professor of Africana Studies, Law & Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, Dorothy directs the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society.

She has authored and co-edited ten books, including the award-winning Killing the Black Body; Shattered Bonds; and Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century. She has also written more than 100 articles and book chapters, including “Race” in the 1619 Project. She received the 2015 Solomon Carter Fuller Award from the American Psychiatric Association for “providing significant benefit for the quality of life for Black people.”

The 2022 Racial Justice Honorees are Ozie Davis, III and Claire Mengel. Before joining Congressman Steve Driehaus’ office as his Community Liaison, Davis spent five years in the field of Community Development as a Program Officer at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) where he worked on Housing, Safety, Education, Workforce Development, Commercial Development, Community Organizing, and other community-based initiatives. Davis is an active member of the Avondale Community Council, where he co-founded the Avondale Youth Council and Residents United for a Better Avondale (RUFABA). He serves as board member on Cincinnati’s Citizens Complaint Authority, and as a member of Parents for Public Schools of Greater Cincinnati. Davis also founded and is Board Chair of the Queen City Youth Development Program, a program for 13-18yr old inner city student athletes.

Claire Mengel is a high school graduate and activist. Passionate about female empowerment, queer issues, and voter registration, they have been involved with Girl Power Politics, the Hamilton County Commission on Women and Girls, and the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection’s Reconciling in Christ Team. She recently addressed the Congressional Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on “ongoing efforts to prohibit discussion in K-12 classrooms about American history, race, and LGBTQ+ issues.” She and other students organized a student walkout and a replacement event for Diversity Day at Turpin High School after the event had been abruptly cancelled by the Forest Hills School District School Board, many of whom had campaigned and protested on an anti-critical race theory platform. For several years, Turpin’s Diversity Day raised awareness of cultural and racial issues for junior and senior students. More than 300 Turpin High School students participated in the walkout to protest the cancelation of Diversity Day.

YWCA Greater Cincinnati is thrilled to be back in person for the first time since 2019. To learn about partnership opportunities and individual tickets, please visit: www.ywcacincinnati.org.

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