The Hard Call

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.

The Truth Contributor

“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Schuyler Beckwith could have said nothing about the new television ad from Marcy Kaptur, who has spent four decades bringing millions of federal dollars home to this community, and many in politics would have called that the expedient thing to do.

Kaptur is fighting for a seat in a district redrawn to favor Republicans by nine points, after winning her last race by less than one. Beckwith chairs the Democratic Party in Lucas County, the district’s largest county. She spoke up anyway.

What a decision! And Beckwith made the right call.

The Call She Made

Congresswoman Kaptur has represented this area since 1983. She co-sponsored the Equality Act and voted against the Republican sports bill in 2023 and 2025. This month her campaign ran an ad saying she voted with Republicans to keep

“transgender ideology” out of schools and that boys shouldn’t play in girls’ sports. Her campaign says parents and local coaches, not Washington, should make those calls.

On September 22, the Beckwith-led Lucas County Democratic Party responded definitively. Its statement said the Party was “disappointed and ashamed” and asked the Kaptur campaign to take the ad down.

In the same statement, it said it expects Kaptur to win. Our trans and LGBTQ neighbors were listening, and the party’s own Stonewall club had already written to Kaptur. The Party chair’s silence would have been noticed.

What Sat on the Scale

Beckwith was torn and had every reason to be. She told one reporter the ad “made me sick to my stomach” and told another it was an incredibly difficult decision.

Look at what sat on the scale. Kaptur has represented this area since 1983, in what one report calls the most pro-Trump district any Democrat in Congress holds. Beckwith’s mother worked for Kaptur for more than 30 years, and her father came from a community-organizing background. Against all that stood her neighbors in the trans and LGBTQ community, hearing their own Party’s candidate borrow the far right’s vocabulary.

Whichever way Beckwith went, somebody would be hurt, and if Kaptur loses in November, people will look for someone to blame.

I get Beckwith’s trepidation.

Some Democrats will say a public rebuke six weeks before the election only helps Derek Merrin. She knows the ad may cost Kaptur some voters. But Kaptur’s campaign put this subject on the air, not the Party.

Merrin was already running ads on her sports votes, so the statement gave him nothing new to say. What it did was tell trans and LGBTQ Democrats that their Party had noticed what was said about them. And Beckwith didn’t pull the endorsement or tell anybody to stay home. She’s still urging Democrats to vote for Kaptur.

Leadership Isn’t Expedient

A Party that remains together only by staying silent doesn’t have unity. It is a divided Party with unresolved toxic differences. So, rather than settling for political expediency as most politicians do, Beckwith did what she believed was right — in an election of this size — and she did it while still backing the candidate.

That is extraordinary leadership and deserves commendation.

The premise of the Dems’ big tent brand is that its diversity enriches the entire Party. However, true unity never demands uniformity and works only when everybody in the tent can stand together without wondering whether they count.

The Young Democrats made that point in their own letter: trans people are neighbors and often fellow Democrats, not pawns. Nobody in a tent that size gets to be comfortable all the time.

Marcy Kaptur belongs in that tent too. Her record on this issue is not a straight line, and a Party can hold her to account for the ad while leaving her room to answer.

The truth is that Parties don’t stay honest on their own. Somebody inside has to say so.

Tell every candidate on your ballot that you noticed what they said about the most vulnerable folks in this county when it was inconvenient.

Early voting starts October 6. Vote. Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org

Micheal Alexander Takes the Helm of Pathway Brothers United, Calling Men to Step Into Fatherhood

By Asia Nail

The Truth Reporter

For Micheal Alexander Sr., fatherhood is bigger than a last name.

It is showing up. It is being a steady voice when a young person needs direction. It is having enough life experience to say, “I’ve been there,” and enough humility to help somebody else avoid the same potholes.

Now, Alexander is bringing that philosophy to the helm of Brothers United, the Pathway Inc. program that has spent the past decade supporting fathers and strengthening families in Toledo.

He is not walking into an empty room.

Avis Files built the foundation for Brothers United in 2015, developing a program rooted in fatherhood, family and the real needs of the community. Alexander says Files has already become a friend and resource as he steps into the next chapter.

“She’s left a phenomenal framework,” he says.

His goal is not to tear down what has been built.

It is to keep building higher.

A New Chapter, Not a New Foundation

Alexander has been in his position for nearly four months, and he already sees room for Pathway Brothers United to stretch its reach.

The current FORGE fatherhood grant began in 2025 and is entering its second year of its five-year funding cycle. Because the program is not income-based, Alexander sees an opportunity to reach fathers across a much wider spectrum.

That includes fathers, grandfathers, uncles and foster fathers who have a child in their lives age 24 or younger.

“We have a lot of room for outreach,” he explains.

That matters because fatherhood does not come in one package.

There is the dad working two jobs and trying to make it home before bedtime. The father rebuilding after a divorce. The grandfather raising grandchildren. The stepfather who chose to love a child who does not share his DNA. The uncle who became the dependable man in the room. The young father who is still figuring out what being a father actually means.

And sometimes, a man can be providing for everybody else while quietly needing somebody to pour back into him.

Brothers United wants to be that place.

The Only “Hood” They Claim

The organization’s familiar message says it plainly:

The hood we claim is fatherhood.

For Alexander, that means fatherhood is not simply biological.

“It’s being the support system,” he says.

It means stepping into spaces where young people need guidance and being intentional about the impact a man leaves behind.

That last part is important.

A father does not have to be perfect to be present.

He just has to understand that somebody is watching.

A son may watch how his father handles pressure. A daughter may learn something about love from how her father treats people. A teenager may remember the uncle who answered the phone when nobody else did.

Sometimes fatherhood looks like a paycheck.

Sometimes it looks like a ride to school.

Sometimes it is a conversation in the driveway that lasts 10 minutes longer than expected.

Sometimes it is simply being there.

Alexander says the goal is to “leave fathers better than when they arrived.”

That is a philosophy that reaches beyond parenting.

When Men Have a Place to Grow

Alexander is candid about some of the barriers fathers face.

Some are personal choices. Others are generational.

When a man grows up without a strong father figure or stable household, he may enter adulthood without having seen certain lessons modeled. Then those gaps can repeat themselves in the next generation.

Alexander says Pathway Brothers United works to help men break through those barriers by connecting them with education, GED opportunities, employment and other resources.

But there is another piece that can be harder to talk about.

Men need men.

Not men standing around judging each other.

Men sitting at the same table, sharing what they have learned.

The Pathway Brothers United four-week program gives fathers that kind of sounding board. Even a man who already has a good job can benefit from the fatherhood development, relationship and co-parenting tools offered through the program.

Alexander also wants fathers who have completed the training and found employment to return and encourage the men coming behind them.

That creates something bigger than a class.

It creates a brotherhood.

A Bigger Table

Perhaps one of the most significant parts of Alexander’s vision is his desire to make Pathway Brothers United feel increasingly multicultural and inclusive.

He wants fathers from different income levels and nationalities to see themselves in the program.

That is more than a numbers game.

It is an opportunity for men who might never otherwise sit together to discover that they have more in common than they thought.

Race can shape a person’s experiences. So can poverty, wealth, geography, religion and family history. Those differences are real.

But when communities become completely isolated from one another, assumptions can grow in the empty spaces.

One group hears stories about another group without ever meeting the people behind them. Bias can become comfortable. Fear can grow where familiarity is missing.

Bringing people together does not erase differences.

It gives people a chance to understand them.

A father from one neighborhood may discover that the father across town worries about the same things: keeping his children safe, paying the bills, being respected and leaving something better behind.

Different backgrounds.

Same concerns.

Same children growing up in the same city.

Alexander wants Pathway Brothers United to help create those connections.

He also hopes to strengthen relationships with faith communities and men’s ministries, while bringing established men into the program to share their experiences with participants.

Because sometimes a man does not need another lecture.

He needs to see somebody who made it.

Providing More Than a Paycheck

Alexander understands the dignity that comes from being able to provide.

He describes employment and financial stability as empowering for fathers.

A decent job can change how a man sees himself. It can give him the ability to buy what his children need, plan beyond Friday and stand a little taller because he knows he is contributing to his family’s well-being.

But Pathway Brothers United is not simply a workforce program.

If a father already has a good job, he can still benefit.

If he needs a college degree, there are resources.

If he needs help navigating child support, there are resources.

If he needs another organization, Pathway Brothers United can make the connection.

If he needs to talk about something he has never felt comfortable saying out loud, Alexander says there are people who can help him find the next step.

That is what makes the work human.

You don’t have to arrive with everything figured out.

You just have to be willing to start.

For the Father Who Is Still Trying

Alexander has already seen fathers come through the program, graduate, earn certificates and secure jobs.

His message to a struggling father is simple:

Reach out.

Talk to somebody.

Find out what help is available.

Then do your part.

“We’re putting in the work and the effort as well,” he says.

There is no promise that fatherhood will be easy.

There is no perfect manual.

But there is power in a man deciding that whatever happened before today does not have to write the rest of his story.

Alexander is taking the wheel at Brothers United with a foundation behind him, a broader table in mind and a simple belief at the center of it all:

Men can grow.

Fathers can become more intentional.

And when fathers have the support to become stronger, the impact does not stop with them.

It reaches their children.

Then their families.

Then the community.

That may be the real work of Pathway Brothers United’s next chapter: reminding men that fatherhood is not about having all the answers.

It is about being willing to show up, learn, grow and leave something better behind.

Interested in Brothers United? Fathers and father figures can learn more about the program, available resources and ways to get connected through Brothers United at Pathway Inc.

Opinion: Meetings Are Free

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.

The Truth Contributor

“It’s not that they don’t hear you. It’s that hearing you costs them nothing.” 

Toledo City Council spent three hours last week listening to folks practically beg for basic answers about a camera system that’s been watching us since 2022. 

I’ve had this exact conversation before — with the Lucas County Sheriff, and separately with the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, over a year ago—the same fight in a different layer of government.

Ten Years Before Flock

In 2015, I stood next to then-Sheriff John Tharp when he rolled out the county’s first body cameras. I approached him worried about the number of unarmed Black folks dying at police hands nationally — Freddie Gray had just died in Baltimore. 

Tharp listened and quickly responded by putting 17 cameras on his deputies. He said plainly: “We’re not going to be covering up anything.” Toledo followed his lead not long after. So, this community knows how to get ahead of an issue before it becomes a crisis. We’ve done it before.

I sat across from Sheriff Mike Navarre over a year ago and discussed maps where law enforcement typically places Flock automatic license plate reading cameras (ALPRs) to help solve crimes.  It’s always wherever law enforcement already watches most closely. 

I told him 30 days was long enough to hold footage not needed for a case, and that specific secure protocols be established for accessing the files. He also could establish a citizen review board to provide real oversight. 

I made the same case to the Lucas County Board of Commissioners not long after. Both times, I got a lot of nodding and seeming agreement followed by draft policies that fall way short of what is expected.

That was Lucas County’s perhaps “good faith effort.” 

However, last week’s fight belonged to a different governmental entity — the City of Toledo, its own council, and its own separate Flock program. Yet, the same technology, same questions, and nothing, that I am aware of, suggesting the city ever asked the county what it already knows.

County Commissioner Pete Gerken’s own staff found over 900,000 searches on the county’s camera data in one month, run by more than 3,200 outside agencies — most of them nobody elected, and half of them nobody’s heard of. 

And that’s after Brandon Upchurch got bit by a police K-9 after Flock misidentified his vehicle. That’s only one instance of a myriad of mistakes our call for public error reporting was built to catch. Not to mention opportunities for misuse and abuse.

I’m not saying the technology is no good — it has helped push Toledo’s homicide solve rate from 59 percent to 86, and that matters. But technology with this much reach obviously needs guardrails before the damage lands in a courtroom, a hospital bill, or worse. 

Meetings Are Free

This is what I know. Municipal government doesn’t resist a good idea — it just never lets a conversation become a commitment until it has no other choice. 

I sat with Navarre. I sat with the Commissioners. I’ve met with City of Toledo officials dozens of times on dozens of issues. Every time, the response is the same: nodding, real interest, but very seldom anything binding.

That’s not their failure. It’s the strategy: to wait you out. They know that we holler loud, but not long. So, they stall until it is quiet again by holding meeting after meeting and meeting you to death, never intending to produce results, thinking you will just move on. Why? Because a meeting costs them nothing. A policy costs something.

It took three hours of residents packing a chamber this week to make the city treat the Flock camera issue as more than talk. That’s apparently what it takes to turn a conversation into a decision.

But now it is time for Toledo to — not only talk the talk — but walk the walk. Adopt the framework itself that the county has had a year’s head start on the problem areas: equitable placement, real data limits, public reporting, real citizen oversight, written into the ordinance, not studied to death. 

Toledo doesn’t need another meeting. It needs a signature.

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org 

La”Shardae Scott Honors Sickle Cell Warriors During Annual 5k Walk/Run

By Alexandria Leatherberry

The Truth Reporter

The Scott Center for Observation, Treatment and Transition held its second 5k walk/run to raise awareness of Sickle Cell Disease and honor those who have navigated living with Sickle Cell Disease. Led by La’Shardae Scott, DSW,  S.C.O.T.T. organization hosted the Heal Together: Race for Sickle Cell at Ottawa Park to share, inform and bring forward the accomplishments that have been made for those living with sickle cell. 

Prior to runners taking off, Scott centered attention on the organization’s honorees for this year. Honorable recognition was given to Councilwoman Brittany Jones, DSW, for Community Impact; Beta Phi Sigma Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and Zeta Xi Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc for Community Partnership. 

Tributes for lives that have been impacted by sickle cell disease were held for recognition as well. Recognized as Sickle Cell Warrior of the Year, Ty’Kela Smith, a survivor, shared her personal story of resilience and transforming her diagnosis into a mission now leading Sick Cell Awareness-Toledo as president. 

Smith, the Sickle Cell Warrior of the Year, was diagnosed when she was six months old with the disease and doctors did not anticipate her living to adulthood. Sickle cell, a disease primarily limited to the African American community and a few other communities of color, does not have a track record of being widely understood by the medical establishment. When she was born, doctors accused her parents of stealing the child because, unlike them she was so light-skinned as a result of the disease, said Smith. 

The doctors certainly didn’t expect her to reach adulthood. She did indeed reach childhood but not without a lot of pain and suffering along the way. She was in and out of hospitals frequently. She participated in activities such as sports but always had to be careful especially in the winter. Cold weather is not a blessing for the sickle cell patient.

She grew up and eventually became pregnant. Her doctor, her hematologist, insisted that she have an abortion. He said that neither she nor a baby could expect to survive and thrive. He also said that if she persisted, he would no longer treat her. She persisted and he walked away.

Smith’s daughter, Zy’Naijah, is now 16 years old and although Zy’Naijah carries the trait, she does not have the sickle cell disease.

But Smith’s difficulties as a sickle cell warrior have continued into adulthood. Pain is frequent and intense. She is obligated to travel to the Cleveland Clinic once a month for treatment and to Sandusky twice a week. The doctor who had been treating her up until almost three years ago moved to the Cleveland Clinic and his successor at ProMedica here did not believe that Smith was in much pain and declined to continue the treatment previously prescribed and also informed the staff in the emergency room not to treat her as before, said Smith. So, it’s to Sandusky and to Cleveland to receive treatment

Ty’Kela Smith is indeed a warrior.

Following Smith’s testimony, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Cheryl L.Jones for her work within the Ohio Department of Health and contributions to advancing health care patient experiences. Her accomplishments did not come without her own experience of navigating the effects of sickle cell which she led a moment of silence for, honoring her late son, Jordan. 

The severity of sickle cell complications was shared by the Winged Warrior Tribute, Judge Myron Duhart. The judge graciously shared the legacy of family members who have departed  due to sickle cell. Duhart honored the achievements of his mother, Patricia Maddox-Duhart, as well as her siblings Donald Maddox and Constance Maddox. 

In spite of their early life transition, Duhart emphasized the acquired higher education, community involvement, and commitment to service his family carried, even in the face of crisis. Judge Durhart has previously rarely spoken about the details of his family’s loss because the grief was too painful, but chose to share more with platforms advocating for better care for those living with sickle cell. 

La’Shardae Scott has tirelessly built her platform from navigating her own experience of her two sons who live with sickle cell. Through education, advocacy, outreach and supportive programming, S.C.O.T.T. seeks to help others navigate health-related challenges and life transitions while strengthening resource connections. Scott has developed programs focused on helping patients transition from pediatric to adult care. Her work has included partnerships with Ohio hospitals and collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Scott previously served as Sickle Cell Director for the Neighborhood Health Sickle Cell Project of Northwest Ohio and has continued expanding community awareness through events, educational programs and advocacy. Scott has positioned the S.C.O.T.T. ‘s presence at the intersection of healthcare, advocacy, and community leadership. 

Just before the walk began on Saturday, she was recognized by State Rep. Erika White and Senator Paula Hick-Hudson for her work as well as support of legislative progression. Connect and get involved with the center at scottcenteroh.org.

Opinion: Soldiers Without Swords

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.

The Truth Contributor

The Toledo Blade might not exist by January unless somebody buys it — ending a run that started in 1835, two years before Toledo was even a city. A former editor called the paper “the glue” that held this town together, whether people loved it or hated it. He’s right. The Blade’s closing would represent a tragic loss to our city and deserves real grief first and foremost.

But Toledo didn’t invent the question the potential closure raises. Black folks in this country have been answering it since before the Blade’s first edition ever ran.

Too Long Have Others Spoken for Us

In 1827, John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish published the nation’s first Black-owned newspaper — eight years before the Blade existed, 10 years before Toledo was even a city. Papers were everywhere already. What wasn’t out there was a paper that saw Black people as anything other than a crime story or nothing at all. So, Russwurm and Cornish built one and said exactly why in their first issue: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.”

That declaration held. Sixty-some years later, a mob in Memphis burned Ida B. Wells’s printing press to the ground because she wrote the truth about lynching and wouldn’t stop. She didn’t stop. She left town, kept writing and got her reporting into the New York Age instead — the same white-owned papers that wouldn’t print the word “lynching” couldn’t stop her from finding another way to say it.

Soldiers Without Swords

During World War II, the Pittsburgh Courier ran a campaign called Double V — victory over fascism in Europe, victory over racism at home, treated as the same fight because they were the same fight. The government’s answer was to call it treason. J. Edgar Hoover pushed the Justice Department to indict the Black press outright, branding its publishers and reporters “soldiers without swords.” 

When the attorney general actually looked at what the Black press had printed, he found no case for treason and refused to bring charges — so the presses kept running. That contemptuous insult stuck around longer than Hoover’s investigation did. Stanley Nelson used it as the title of his 1998 documentary on the Black press, and I borrowed it from there, too.

Hoover meant it as disrespect — men and women doing something that looked like combat without the legitimacy of an actual weapon. But he “got it twisted,” because a sword can be taken from you, sold out from under you, handed off to a corporation’s balance sheet. What Russwurm and Cornish started in 1827 never depended on any one printing press surviving. The Blade just lost its sword. The soldiers who never carried one are still standing.

Putting Itself Out of Business

Once the civil rights movement finally forced white papers to hire Black reporters and cover Black communities as something other than a crime blotter, Black newspaper circulation declined. It looked, on paper, like the fight to be seen and heard had finally been won — like the Black press had worked its way out of a job by winning it.

It wasn’t. Toledo proved that this month. The city slipped a produce market contract to a corporate distributor behind the backs of the Black growers who had already been feeding Englewood and Junction for years. The Blade didn’t write the piece calling that what it actually was — “institutional racism dressed up as community investment.” The Sojourner’s Truth did! And from a Black contributor, on a fraction of the Blade’s budget.

Toledo should still grieve if The Blade passes away. Without a well-staffed newsroom, it is impossible to hold every corner of Toledo’s government accountable. Our community deserves that, and no single Black paper, including this one, has the staff to replace it. 

But don’t let the grief convince you this city will go quiet. It was never going to be silent. Two hundred years before this month, somebody already answered the question of what a community does when the record it’s handed leaves it out — it builds its own, and keeps building it, in public, with its name attached.

Of every institution this country has ever produced, none moved social and political change further than the Black press.

Support this paper. Read it, share it, subscribe to it. Tell your council member and other political leaders you saw it here first.

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org

Suzette and George Cowell Celebrate 50 Years of Love and Life

A golden anniversary filled with family, friendship, music and memories

By Valerie Simmons-Walston

Guest Contributor

Love was in the air as more than 150 family members and friends gathered at the Gesu Conference Hall on Saturday, September 12, to celebrate an extraordinary milestone – 50 years of marriage for George and Suzette Cowell, ThD.

The evening was more than an anniversary celebration – it was a tribute to five decades of love, family, friendship and a life bult together.

The celebration began on a beautiful note as the Cowells made their grand entrance to Natalie Cole’s classic “inseparable,” a fitting tribute for a couple whose lives have been intertwined for half a century.

Music continued to tell the story of their love throughout the evening. Big Woo delivered a special performance of two songs that were played at the Cowells’ wedding 50 years ago:  “Love Don’t Love Nobody” and “You Are My Starship.” The performance was a surprise for George, lovingly arranged by his bride, Suzette.

One of the evening’s most touching moments came during “You Are My Starship,” when the emcee invited other couples in attendance to join the Cowells on the dance floor. Soon, the floor was filled with couples celebrating not only George and Suzette’s marriage, but also the enduring power of love and commitment.

Their children and grandchildren offered heartfelt well wishes, sharing memories and words of appreciation for the example of love and family the Cowells have provided over the years. Friends also came from near and far to honor the couple, including one special friend from California to be part of the celebration.

The memorable moments continued as Darius Coleman serenaded the couple while they cut their 50^th anniversary cake, adding another special tough to an evening filled with music and emotion.

Perhaps one of the most memorable reflections of the night came from George Cowell himself. He shared that his mother was 53 years old on the day that he and Suzette were married. Fifty years later, she was there once again – this time to witness and help celebrate their golden wedding anniversary.

It was a powerful reminder of the generations, memories and blessings represented in the room.

For Suzette and George Cowell, the evening celebrated much more than a date on the calendar, it honored 50 years of choosing one another, building family, creating memories and traveling through life side-by-side.

Surrounded by more than 150 people who have been touched by their lives, the Cowells celebrated a milestone few couple are fortunate enough to experience. 

“I am ecstatic that my brother-in-law, George, whom I have loved unconditionally for years now, because of the way he has loved my sister and the compassion he has given her,” Tina Butts, Suzette’s sister, told The Truth. “He has given her everything she has ever asked for and on top of all that love, the beautiful nephews and nieces they have blessed me with. I have been so honored to walk in their footsteps along with God. Happy Anniversary!”

Fifty years. One love. One life built together.

It was truly an evening to celebrate love – and a good time was has by all.

The City of Toledo, Institutional Racism and the Exclusion of Black Urban Farmers

By Carla Thomas

Truth Contributor

The controversy surrounding the Al Peake & Sons pop-up market is bigger than carrots and collard greens. It exposes how the City of Toledo repeatedly makes decisions for Black communities without meaningfully involving the people already living, working, investing and building within them.

This is what institutional racism looks like. It does not always announce itself with racial slurs or openly discriminatory policies; sometimes it looks like a “community-centered” project designed without the Black businesses already serving that community.

The Real Issue Is Not the Pop-Up

This is not an argument against bringing fresh food into the neighborhood. The issue is that the city created a produce market in the heart of a Black community while overlooking thriving Black urban farmers already operating nearby.

SONIA Organics, located at 619 Woodland Avenue, is approximately 2.3 miles from Swayne Field Shopping Center. Johnson Produce Market [David Johnson, owner/operator], located at 524 Pulaski Street, is approximately 2.7 miles away. Mighty Organics [Thomas Jackson, owner/operator], located at 1489 Milburn Avenue, is barely a mile away.

These farmers did not suddenly appear when funding became available. They have served this community through its struggles, setbacks, and seasons of neglect. They built their businesses from the ground up, often while fighting for land, resources, recognition, and basic institutional support. They are not merely selling produce here. They are invested here.

Who Benefits from the Community’s Money?

The city committed approximately $150,000 to this 10-week pilot project.  And Black folks’ money will leave this neighborhood and benefit three non-local families:

Keil’s Produce & Greenhouse — Swanton, Ohio.

Laux Farms — Monclova, Ohio.

Bauman Orchards — Rittman, Ohio.

This is laughable. Black dollars will leave the Black community to help build these farms, support these families, put their children through college and help fund whatever dreams they have for the next generation.

And to everyone who keeps referencing the RFP, you’re missing the point. The city designed an RFP seeking one vendor capable of planning, launching, operating, and evaluating the entire market, including distribution, staffing, food safety, merchandising, payment processing, and reporting.

Even if the Black urban farmers had seen the RFP, the whole structure favored a large, established operation. The city claims, “We remain committed to uplifting our small, local businesses.” I call BS. If that commitment were real, why didn’t the city create a model that allowed local farmers to provide the produce while another organization handled the market’s operations? The RFP included paperwork for primary contractors and subcontractors, yet it did not require the selected vendor to partner with, purchase from or subcontract with neighborhood growers.

In other words, this entire model was never designed with local growers in mind. Our Black farmers were not merely overlooked during the bidding process; they were excluded when the city decided what the project would look like. 

So, my question is why would the city create a project that required one entity to do everything instead of designing one that built local capacity, divided the opportunity among urban farmers, and kept the money circulating within the community?

Because the City Sees US as a Project, Not a Partner

I’ll tell you why. Because the city does not see the Black community as equal contributors, business owners and taxpayers worthy of real investment. It sees us as a project, people who need someone to ride in on a white horse and save us.

When I stopped by the Al Peake Pop-Up Market on opening day, the whole aesthetic was giving mission trip to the inner city: “Let’s bring the poor Black folks some nice fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Meanwhile, thriving Black farmers are operating less than three miles away from the location.

Now Make This Make Sense

After the community raised questions, the city apologized, saying the RFP “didn’t reach many farmers and food producers who may have been eligible” and called the situation one of the “hiccups” of a new program.

Hiccup my arse.

Roslyn Clemens, the city’s chief of housing and neighborhood sustainability, told The Toledo Blade:

“We didn’t do any outreach … We didn’t do any outreach prior, to make sure as many people [knew].”

But Philip Peake told The Blade that the city reached out to him directly:

“It was about a year, maybe even a year and a half ago, that they reached out, mentioning that they’re redeveloping that plaza.”

So, which is it? The city did not outreach, yet it reached out to an outside vendor as much as a year and a half ago. A year-long process is not a hiccup, and it is not an RFP that simply “didn’t reach” enough people. The city knew how to reach the business it wanted.

You claim to remain committed to uplifting our small, local businesses and removing barriers that prevent them from competing, yet you created the biggest barrier: local farmers cannot compete for an opportunity they were never told existed and that was never designed for them in the first place.

What Happens Now?

In its apology, the city announced that it would “course-correct” by opening an opportunity for additional local food producers and providers to participate in the remaining Saturday events through the end of October. 

This is not inclusion. This is afterthought and crumbs. You want to now invite Black urban farmers in after the contract has been given to a white company and white non-local farmers and call it good.

WE DO NOT ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY CITY OF TOLEDO

This cannot end with a Facebook apology, a few late invitations, or another promise to “do better.” The community deserves a public forum, full transparency, and direct answers.

• Who decided that this was the best use of $150,000? 
• How does this project benefit the Black community beyond giving us another place to spend our money? 
• Where in the plan is there any real investment in the people, businesses, and resources already here? 
• Why is our money always good enough to spend, but our businesses are never good enough to invest in?

BLACK PEOPLE: Stop mistaking access for inclusion. Giving us a place to spend our money is not investing in us. A market placed in a Black community that sends dollars somewhere else is not community development. It is extraction dressed up as service. We don’t need another project brought in to save us. We need investment in what has already been built.

Opinion: Build a Bridge Not a Bypass

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.

The Truth Contributor

“Sometimes ‘they’ forget about us, but ‘WE’ will lift us up.” – SONIA Organics, Produce Party flyer, September 2026

Swayne Field re-opened Friday in Toledo’s Englewood neighborhood, carrying a nearly $3 million city investment, a ribbon and a grand-opening banner. Much of the African American community felt disrespected despite the dire need for access to affordable, nutritionally rich and culturally significant food.  

Sonia Flunder-McNair decided to throw her own celebration in response — three food trucks, a DJ, same neighborhood, same weekend, same hours, and a caption that reads less like an invitation and more like a verdict: “Sometimes ‘they’ forget about us but ‘WE’ will lift us up.” 

When the city doesn’t call your name, you make sure somebody does. That was the point;

The Ones Already Here

Flunder-McNair has grown food and run wellness programs out of her Woodland Avenue urban farm for years, partnering with the city itself on land-bank projects and with the University of Toledo on community health work. David Johnson built Johnson Produce Market out of a truck into a central city institution that has fed this neighborhood since 2007, through the years the big grocers packed up and left. Thomas Jackson spent three central-city lots and 20 months in court proving his own backyard produce wasn’t a public nuisance — after the City of Toledo prosecuted him for growing it. An appeals court threw out his conviction in 2018. By 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was touring his beds near Auburn Avenue, calling his work a model for the nation’s food system.

Each of these three have provided a strong template for addressing Englewood and Junction’s food-access problem. They needed the city to get out of the way, or better yet, to walk alongside them. For years, it did neither.

The Bridge Toledo Already Had

Instead, the city signed a nearly $3 million contract with Al Peake & Sons and Daughter Too Food Service. This Toledo food distributor has moved product in the city since 1949 and opened the Swayne Field Pop-Up Produce Market at the refurbished Swayne Field Shopping Center.

Roslyn Clemens, the city’s chief of housing and neighborhood sustainability, told The Blade the market would give residents “greater access to affordable, nutritious food in a welcoming setting close to home.” Nobody disputes exactly that, and Al Peake’s 50 years of grower relationships are a real asset. None of that is the problem.

What the city already had — and didn’t use — was Sonia, Johnson and Jackson themselves. I’ve been asking Toledo for a bridge like this since 2015. Not a pop-up — an inclusive healthy food overlay district, a zoning tool that would guarantee our neighborhoods lasting access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally significant food, built with the people already feeding this community instead of around them. That proposal has been slow-walked for over a decade. 

Toledo’s food policy manager, Mara Momenee, spent three hours back in March gathering Toledo growers to help shape exactly this kind of decision. The city already partners with SONIA Organics on land-bank work. Every mechanism this city needed to bring Sonia, David Johnson and Thomas Jackson into a $3 million investment already existed before Swayne Field’s plans were drawn. None of it touched this project. Sonia learned about a market built to solve the problem she’s already solving the same way the rest of us did — from a newspaper.

Bridge, Not Bypass

Al Peake & Sons isn’t wrong for taking this contract. The city is wrong for handing it over without an inclusive, equitable second call — choosing corporate infrastructure over Sonia’s years on Woodland Avenue, over Johnson’s truck-turned-institution, over Jackson’s decade fighting the city’s own courts to prove his soil wasn’t a crime.

Martin Luther King Jr. saw this same choice in Montgomery’s empty buses in 1955. The boycott was never really about one bus company — it was Black Montgomery deciding where its dollars would and would not go. Passive acceptance, he wrote, is complicity with injustice. 

 Black America carries $2.1 trillion in buying power and still owns just 3.4 percent of the nation’s employer businesses — money moving through our hands on its way to other communities. The typical Black family holds 15 cents of wealth for every dollar the typical white family holds. That gap did not happen by accident. It happened by choices, made over and over, one Swayne Field at a time.

Some in this community are already calling for a boycott of Swayne Field. I am adding my voice to it. Not out of spite toward Al Peake & Sons, and not forever — until the City of Toledo recognizes the growers who were already doing this work and brings them in as full partners, not an afterthought. 

Shop Sonia’s tables, Johnson’s stand, and Jackson’s beds — and keep shopping them after the cameras leave. Ask Swayne Field when it plans to do the same for the growers left out. 

Spend your money like you know the difference.

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org

Opinion: Colonized: The Economics of Criminal Justice

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.

The Truth Contributor

“The dark ghettos are social, political, educational, and — above all — economic colonies.” — Kenneth B. Clark

Every office in Lucas County found a way to tighten its belt this year — except the two that already eat first and eat most.

But let’s start with the good: Lucas County is safer than it’s been in 30 years. Homicides are down 18 percent. Shootings are down almost 30 percent. And when the Lucas County commissioners asked every county office to cut 13 percent, or at minimum hold flat, most of them did. 

The prosecutor and the sheriff both more than pushed back — saying the demand itself was out of line. And next year, for the first time, the county’s community funding line — the grants to those on the ground keeping people safe — isn’t shrinking. It’s gone.

Everybody Cut Back But Them

Public budget filings plainly show that 70 percent — a full 70 cents of every general fund dollar in Lucas County — goes to the criminal justice system. Nobody’s disputing that this isn’t necessary and important work. What’s troubling, though, is the assumption that the system is owed whatever they ask, while everybody doing the actual work of catching people before they fall through the cracks gets told there’s nothing left.

Prosecutor Julia Bates asked for $371,000 more than last year. Sheriff Mike Navarre wants a 10 percent larger budget, another almost $5 million. His staff got nine percent raises last year. He’s back asking for six percent more, while community organizations doing violence and other prevention work that actually move the declining crime numbers — are told, “Sorry. We can’t help you.” 

Meanwhile, caseworkers at Job and Family Services who hold the actual floor together — the people families call when the lights are about to get shut off, or when your Big Mama raising three grandkids can’t stretch a SNAP benefit that already tells her what she can and can’t buy. Federal cuts have shifted a fifth of SNAP funding nationally onto states, projected to cost Ohio hundreds of millions a year. Ohio’s own budget already cut food program funding by a quarter. None of that shows up as a line item — it shows up as a caseworker carrying more files than the job was designed for, working through lunch just trying to keep the families already in crisis from disaster because of personnel cuts or unfilled job vacancies. 

The Common Pleas Court, which actually met its target, only by eliminating six positions and cutting weekend drug testing. Yet, the Board of Lucas County Commissioners still must find roughly $4 million to keep administering SNAP and cash assistance to the 69,000 residents who depend on them, after Washington cut its share of a cost the state and county used to split. 

Even then, JFS and community organizations didn’t demand more this year. They’re doing more with less. They are asking, in effect, to keep doing the job with the tools they already have — while the criminal justice system asks for a raise nobody else is getting. 

A Matter of Entitlement

The criminal justice apparatus has become its own economy: contracts, overtime, equipment, new hires, growing every year whether crime rises or falls. Yet, the funding ask still gets larger. From where I sit, there’s only one word for that. Entitled. The sheriff traded a two-year-old Jeep for a brand-new personal-use Ford Explorer this year—a mere drop in the bucket of its fifty-million-dollar budget. But small numbers like that never sit in the departments that have to go without. 

Meanwhile, the folks catching kids before the streets do and rescuing families one missed payment from going hungry — they’re being cut out or asked to hang on by a thread, while the system calling itself the last line of defense asks for millions more.

That’s not fair, and it ain’t right!

The prosecutor and sheriff will get their day at the microphone September 15. Let them make their case. But somebody needs to ask why the community folks doing the critical work on the ground are forced to fight over crumbs while the folks carrying the gavel and wearing badges are asking for heaping seconds.

Psychologist Kenneth Clark called our community a colony someone always profits when a system is built to extract instead of invest — to take from our plate so somebody else’s already crowded pantry stays full.

The only question left is whether our community keeps paying it quietly.

The community needs to show up to the public hearing on September 15. Bring both your voice and your anger. 

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org

The Lucas County Commissioners have asked all departments which cannot meet the 13 percent budget cut to present their case to the Commissioners at the regularly scheduled meeting starting with the September 15 session – 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Sisters 4 Unity hosts the Fourth Annual Communities Against Gun Violence March and Unity Day

By Dawn Scotland

The Truth Reporter

Sisters 4 Unity held its fourth annual Communities Against Gun Violence March and Unity Day at Smith Park Saturday, August 22. The free community event featured food, music, games, community resources and more in a day of remembrance for Issac Carpenter, Jo’Von Porter, Christopher Kinnebrew and Treasure Wiley who were lost to gun violence.

The Sisters 4 Unity organization was formed in December 2022 out of love, legacy, tears and unity. The organization is led by four mothers, Abena Rowland, LaShawnda Kinnebrew, Jannell Ector and Aviance Hill, who have all experienced the insurmountable pain of tragically losing their sons to gun violence and were determined to take action against the senseless precious lives being taken from us daily.

Ector emphasized the importance of this year’s event “This is the fourth annual community day and its very special for us, because we have four sons, which is what started this. So we are out here representing our four loved ones,” she stated.

“We are here in the community and we want to bring a peaceful and a healing event. Bring the entire family out. We are here for you. We are boots on the ground. If we can will do anything we can to help a victim, a survivor, or change one person’s mind so that no other family feels what we go through every day,” she continued. 

Abena, Aviance, LaShawnda and Jannell stand to bring about advocacy, change, policy, education, compassion, communication, and above all else, assist with preventing further violence. Together all four mothers united with the Sisters 4 Unity volunteers from all walks, work bravely to support survivors and victims while aiding in the fight to stop violence in the community.

The mission of the group is to stir courage, amplify voices, and kindle solace for survivors and victims of violence, while forging a path toward a safer future.

The march began at 10 a.m. at Scott Park with events continuing until 3 p.m. Those who marched included local officials, community members, organizations, dance troops, car clubs and the families of those who have been lost to gun violence in the community. 

Ector shared a message from Sisters 4 Unity: “Stop and think. Three seconds can change the trajectory of your life and everyone else’s around you. Please remember, when these things are happening, it’s not just the victim that is victimized it is also the victim’s family. Then your family. So you should stop and think,” she shared.

To learn more about the organization visit their social media page on Facebook.