HEALING 15
A SOLUTION-FORWARD ACTION PLAN TO HEAL A HISTORIC BLACK MUNICIPALITY
HEALING A HISTORY OF TRAUMA
The story of Lincoln Heights is a testimony to the indomitable spirit of Black communities in America. It's a story of overcoming adversity, achieving greatness, and sustaining a legacy against all odds. By sharing this narrative, we honor the resilience of countless Black individuals and the communities that birthed them, helping pave the way for generations to come.
LINCOLN HEIGHTS IS A MICROCOSM OF THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA.
-
The first five families in LH traveled from north Georgia to escape white mob violence.
-
Unincorporated land was the only place for Black people to purchase property in Ohio.
-
GE Aviation (now Aerospace) fought against incorporating under a Black municipality.
-
LH was incorporated at 10% of our original size, removing all industrial tax bases from us.
-
The Cincinnati Police Department established an open-air gun range adjacent to LH in 1947.
-
The average lifelong (50-year) Lincoln Heights resident has heard over 1.5 million live gunshots.
-
After becoming the 2nd wealthiest Black community in America, we are now in the bottom 0.01% of economically disadvantaged municipalities in the state of Ohio.
ESTABLISHING A CONTINUUM OF CARE
Health is a human right, but healing is an ongoing process that requires dedicated engagement and a collective responsibility to help each other find peace. We would create a duplicable model for wellness that could help propel the rebuilding of a beloved community in the VOLH.
​​
We are focused on establishing a continuum of care around all Lincoln Heights and Woodlawn residents, past and present, who experienced the trauma that comes with poverty, racialized attacks at the hands of government-sponsored law enforcement agencies.​
​
The focus is on the development of the skills to cope, diagnose, heal, manage, and transcend the trauma.
CENTERING COMMUNITY VOICE
The most important aspect of this work is having it rooted in and driven by community members who can ensure that the work and its fruit are addressing real-time issues that the residents face. This work must create bold, brave, and brilliant ways to chronicle the harm caused. Here's how:
COMMUNITY-DRIVEN PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH​
By supporting the research alongside academic institutions, we can ensure that the research findings are effectively designed, will maximize impact, subject to community-wide delivery, and admissible in a court of law, which is required for healing to be realized for the residents of Lincoln Heights, past and present.
QUANTIFYING COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
With nationally-recognized researchers helping us design, develop, and execute the vision of this proposal, we have the chance to gather info and intelligence that can help create evergreen solutions that will benefit residents, past and present, of Lincoln Heights and drive change.
TRAUMA IDENTIFICATION & MAPPING
The ability to plot the impact of the gun range based on the social determinants of health and the negative physical manifestations of trauma (i.e., anger, fighting, learning deficiencies, suicide) that coincide with sustained trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mapping this will transform future conversations.
GET INVOLVED IN HEALING
THE FIRST BLACK CITY IN AMERICA
