Lorain County Racial Equity Agenda announced

After nearly two years of work by multiple organizations and individuals, the Lorain County Racial Equity Agenda was announced Thursday. A full report and action plan will be ready for public distribution within a week. For now, those who worked on it said they hope to engage Lorain County and its community leaders in areas where systemic racism keeps communities down, organizers said. In a call "for coordinated and integrated planning, collective action and accountability," the Racial Equity Agenda identified five focus areas: economic justice and workforce development; housing; health care equity and justice;, criminal justice and community policing; and education. PolicyBridge CEO Gregory Brown, whose Cleveland-based think tank summarized the 18 months of work by a 12-member steering committee made up of Lorain County stakeholders, presented the findings during the event at Lorain County Community College's Spitzer Conference Center in Elyria. "We are in perilous times" because "we treat some better than others," he said. "That doesn't equate to what America's Constitution is about." Elyria/Lorain YWCA Director Jeanine Donaldson said her organization was founded in the 1850s for two purposes: Eliminating racism and empowering women. Whether fighting the sale of the Confederate flag at the Lorain County Fair or taking part in the Community Hate Task Force alongside federal, state and local law enforcement, Donaldson said the YWCA is continuing the work it was founded to do. "Eliminating racism, that's my job. That's our job," she said. "The fact is that racism is a public health crisis" in Lorain County and the United States, Donaldson added. True racial equity means taking into consideration what the community's needs are and meeting them. Speakers at Thursday's event said systemic racism does not create wealth in at-risk, racially diverse communities; does not assist homeowners in keeping up the properties; and is detrimental to a community's mental health. The agenda is meant to find solutions through improving racial equity. "We can't do it all beginning tomorrow," said Cynthia Andrews, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Lorain County, but the plan is to engage elected officials, institute the action plan and create ways to report progress. "We didn't create the racism," Donaldson said, but the Racial Equity Agenda is also "not pointing the finger" at those who did. Lorain City Council unanimously declared racism a public health crisis in June 2020, less than a month after a white Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, a Black man, during an arrest on May 25, 2020. Representing Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley, Lorain Safety Service Director Sanford Washington said the declaration was an acknowledgment the city must do more to bring attention and resources to dismantling institutional racism in Lorain and the county at large. A week after Lorain did so in 2020, Elyria City Council passed a similar resolution. Elyria Assistant Safety Service Director Tim Williams, speaking on behalf of Mayor Frank Whitfield, said the city was excited to be a part of Thursday's event. "The agenda will be interesting. The agenda will be challenging. The agenda will have lots of places for growth, lots of places for celebration, but we just embrace this opportunity," he said. Oberlin City Council passed its own racism-as-public-health-crisis resolution on July 6, 2020, City Manager Rob Hillard said. He called Thursday's launch "an important moment for all of us in the county and of course in the city of Oberlin," with its history as a stop for enslaved people fleeing on the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. Lorain County Commissioners declared racism a public health crisis in the county on June 17, 2020. Commissioner Matt Lundy, the only member remaining on the board from when the resolution was passed, said the nation lives in "polarized times," especially after Floyd's murder. "We need to have difficult conversations, and this is an example of a difficult conversation," he said. "It's the only way we can learn from each other, and certainly is the best way to move forward." We all want what's best for our families, safety in the community and good jobs, he said, "but we have to acknowledge there are segments of our county that are not doing well and are treated unfairly, and it impacts all of us in ways we may see, and in other ways we don't see and should see," Lundy said. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com or on Twitter @daveobrienCT.