By Fletcher Word
The Truth Editor
On Monday, June 2, Robert Smith, founder and director of the African American Legacy Project, convened a community forum – the first Monday Community Conversation – to announce plans to move ahead with the Historic Dorr Street revival and to seek input from community members about plotting the way forward.
“Our challenge is to continue to put a stake in the ground and continue to put a footprint in the ground,” said Smith to an audience of about three dozen he described those next steps forward.
“We want to be a vehicle to bring us all together,” he noted of the ongoing efforts that the current historic committee that meets every Monday at the AALP headquarters has undertaken thus far.
After delving a bit into the history of Dorr Street and the now legendary collection of business and cultural entities that were, for the most part, eliminated as a result of the “urban renewal” schemes of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Smith introduced to the audience the plan to create an “ecumenical advisory board,” including “people of all backgrounds” to lay the groundwork for the future of the historic district.
The current committee has proposed a number of guiding principles for the new working group: representative of the community, operating with transparency and with cultural integrity, focusing on economic justice while remaining accountable to the community.
“We have to set selfish interests aside,” said Smith while adding that the realization that population is declining and young people are leaving the area must be taken into serious consideration.
“We have to set the stage for our kids’ return,” he observed.
Smith used as an example of how the community, the African American community in Toledo, can work together, the Belmont Neighborhood Savings Club, which began in 1943 to help the neighborhood focus collaboratively on stimulating economic and community development.
In 1948, that group announced it was breaking ground on a $100,000 (equivalent in 2012 dollars to $1.6 million) community investment project known as Belmont Enterprise.
The new advisory board will develop a model and set strategies, align work with a set of community planks, oversee engagement and secure partnerships and funding.
It is anticipated that the advisory board will probably be ready in the autumn to begin the task of moving forward with revitalization plans the Historic Dorr Street corridor, but there are some immediate next steps necessary to prepare for the success of that venture, Smith noted.
First, there must be an outreach to identify board members; then a nomination process must begin. Public forums will be held to gain input on the way forward and to help establish working groups to gather information and start building relationships.
With the current historic committee, Smith said that the discussions revolve around not necessarily the African American Legacy Project but about the community as a whole.
Interested in being a part of the committee? Or have a name or two you would like to nominate for such a committee? Or simply have ideas to share? Call the AALP at 419-720-4369.