Resistance is the reason that we have and can expand our political imagination. Fighting for a reality that we decide for ourselves is at the center of deciding our own path.

Resistance sustained “Station Hope,” the final stop of the Underground Railroad in North East Ohio which led countless enslaved Blacks to freedom. During the 1960s, Black parents fought for education desegregation and equal resources for their children even when faced with brutality from the police and white mobs. 

Cory United Methodist Church was a sanctuary for new political ideas in a divided America and where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the importance of direct action in the Civil Rights Movement and Malcolm X delivered “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech, urging Black Clevelanders to use their political, economic, and social power to combat structural racism.

The merging of local politics by Carl Stokes Jr with the CLEVELAND: Now! program and radical organizing by Black militants to support disenfranchised Clevelanders shows a tradition of resistance and commitment to disrupting systems of oppression that harm our communities. The last 20 years of Cleveland history, involving Occupy Cleveland and Black Lives Matter, demonstrates that this history has not left us, but there is so much more work to do.

Looking back to Cleveland’s history of freedom fighting provides many blueprints for resistance today. 

Being a Black Clevelander and willing to resist is both knowing our history, then finding the courage to redefine it. We must establish neighborhoods dedicated to black culture, business, and retellings of white-washed history. We must understand how structural racism controls and shapes city planning, education, policing, housing, and distribution of resources. Resistance must involve revolutionizing the parts of our lives that we depend on the state for - forming networks of mutual aid, establishing community safety groups, affordable and accessible food, divestment from harmful institutions, and investment in Black communities.

Resistance is the true step towards liberation.