News of a town hall meeting Tuesday night in Over-the-Rhine to discuss race problems in Cincinnati left James Douglas uninspired and even a bit agitated.

        “They been having all these meetings to talk about how to change things down here, but none of the people at the meetings live here,” said Mr. Douglas, who was sitting in a doorway near Race and 12th streets. "They ain't gettin' shot by the police. They ain't strugglin' to survive. What the hell do they know about what it's like down here?”

People listen during a town hall meeting in Bond Hill on Tuesday to Maurice Adams, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        Mr. Douglas was wrong about the absence of any community residents at the town hall meetings. At least three of the dozen or so people who attended the meeting at Emanuel Community Center were from the neighborhood.

        A total of about 50 people attended three such town hall meetings Tuesday.

        Norma Holt Davis, president of the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she understands Mr. Douglas' frustration.

        “The people who have been taking action in the streets have not been included” in discussions and initiatives to improve race relations in Cincinnati, Ms. Davis said. “We need to stop speaking for low-income people and start including low-income people in our discussions.”

        Ms. Davis was referring primarily to young blacks who responded with violent protests to the recent acquittal of Cincinnati Police Officer Stephen Roach on charges related to his shooting to death an unarmed black teen, Timothy Thomas, who was fleeing police.

        But Calvert Smith, an NAACP board member and University of Cincinnati professor who led the discussion in Over-the-Rhine, said the only real power Cincinnati's poor black residents have to change the circumstances that led to Mr. Thomas' death is the power of the vote.

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