Black women speak out about difficulties living in Cleveland

By Rachel Rood

Published October 26, 2021 at 5:17 PM EDT

On the Sound of Ideas, we talk to Black women about their difficult experiences in Cleveland. [Mary Long/shutterstock]

A few weeks ago on the "Sound of Ideas," we talked to the founders of a local research and advocacy firm, Enlightened Solutions, about the results of a year-long survey project called Project Noir, which asked Black women across Northeast Ohio to share their personal accounts of what it's like living in Cleveland. The survey got more than 450 anonymous responses.

Project Noir was an effort to get a better understanding of why Cleveland scored dead last in CityLab's rankings last year as the worst large cities for Black women to live based on inequities in income, health and education.

There were some shocking statistics from the respondents.
Regarding employment: 74 percent of respondents said they felt they had been passed over for a job or promotion they were qualified for.
When it came to healthcare: 41 percent of respondents have been told their health issues are not real or made up.
And regarding education: 73 percent felt they were excluded from key educational opportunities.

After that conversation with the two women behind Project Noir, Chi Chi Nkemere and Bethany Studenic, we wanted to dig further into these inequities by talking to some of the actual survey respondents. Enlightened Solutions connected us with a few women that we'll begin this hour talking to.

Later in the hour, we'll talk about a project that will capture the first-hand experiences of Slavic Village residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's part of the Coping with COVID-19 reporting initiative, an Ideastream Public Media project and local journalism collaborative funded by the Third Federal Foundation and University Settlement.

And we'll hear the next in our Applause Performance monthly series hosted by David C. Barnett.

-Ms. Angela Maggott, PhD Student

-Rhonda Crowder, Entrepreneur & Freelance Journalist

-Jazmen Henderson, Entrepreneur

-Rachel Dissell, Freelance Reporter

-Amanda Miller, Slavic Village Resident & Technology Services Coordinator, University Settlement

-Kahrin Spear, Musician