Where are the leaders today?

Roma Stephens, an employee at the Arlington Community Center, works with residents of Arlington Courts, a Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority property on McCall Street. PHOTO CREDIT: SKIP PETERSON/DAYTON DAILY NEWS

"There is a black conservatism here that is, I believe, unreal. It is rooted in fear of losing some of what we have gained. We want to go the moderate route. We have been so brainwashed to that. It's a slave mentality. Southern leadership seems more enlightened. Here, it's, `I'm not stepping out there by myself.''' Some whites say the problem transcends black leadership.

"The reason there's no black leadership in Dayton is because there is no white leadership in Dayton," said retired businessman Edward Klaben, who is white. "There's no leadership in this community. Period. No one wants to take a risk to do the things that will move all of us forward, black and white. "

Willie Walker, executive director of the Dayton Urban League, agreed that the lack of visionary black leadership is a symptom of a broader leadership vacuum.

"The few who have tried new things find themselves out there with no lifesaver and sometimes the paddle is lost too," he said. For example, Walker applauded Dayton Schools Superintendent James Williams for pushing to implement charter schools. If the plans are approved, the school board would relinquish day to day control of several public schools to allow private groups to oversee the education.

Some are critical because they contend not enough black parents understand what is at stake. But Walker said Williams is taking a chance - just like community leaders who hope to build up Dayton's riverfront, revitalize the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood and get development in the old downtown Lazarus building.

Reserved leadership

At Dayton City Hall, Rep. C.J. McLin Jr. led 300 blacks in protest against the imminent dismissal of two police majors - one black and one woman. The decision was rescinded.

Then Bradley's mind fast-forwarded to the summer of 1997, when barely 30 people picketed against the dismissal of Dayton's only black police lieutenant, David Sherrer. The Dayton Civil Service Commission later reinstated him.

Bradley, 58, relishes the time when blacks, marshalled by a single compelling figure or a civil rights organization such as the NAACP, marched and preached until walls of injustice came tumbling down.

The Dayton Daily News informally surveyed about 100 black Montgomery County residents concerning local black leadership. Residents described and graded the state of leadership, listed who they felt were local black leaders and offered suggestions for improvements.

Because Bradley rarely hears traditional voices of outrage informing and activating the community, she described the region's black leadership overall as "reserved and ineffective," one of seven possible survey answers.

Yet, Dayton residents such as Dennis Robinson, preferred "reserved" leadership on the written survey.

"Good leadership is reserved and undercover," said Robinson, 40, who has worked as Dayton's Northwest Priority Board coordinator and who now heads 3CI, Creative Concepts International, a consulting firm for community development organizations. "Outspoken is probably the most ineffective."

New tactics needed

At her dimly lighted office in the Germantown Street funeral home once run by her father, Rhine McLin points to a photograph of blacks and whites, 7,500-strong, marching over the Third Street Bridge on April 7, 1968, three days after King's assassination. Her father is in the front row.

"I don't march," said McLin, 49. "We're used to sit-ins and marching, physical things. Now, we're in a whole new war, a mental war. Instead of marching, we need strategizing, thinking about how to change from being consumer-oriented to holding on to wealth, about economic development to recapture our community. The key is education and economics."

The need is there. For example, city statistics show while Dayton's median family income is $24,819, in Miami Chapel, one of the city's poorer and predominantly black neighborhoods, the median family income is $7,411.

At his City Hall office, City Commissioner Dean Lovelace also heralds a new leadership style for a new day.

"The conditions shape the kind of leadership style that you have," said Lovelace, 52.

`Whereas 30 years ago, you'd have W.S. McIntosh leading protest marches at City Hall about getting more blacks in the police and fire department. Now we're inside. We've got three blacks on the city commission, a black (police) chief, a black city manager. Don't you think we're going to try to solve these problems?'

Elected officials such as McLin and Dayton City Commissioner Idotha Bootsie Neal say the fact that they serve constituencies beyond black communities also influences their leadership styles and positions on the issues.

"There are black leaders, and there are leaders who happen to be black," said McLin, whose 5th Senate district, which includes Trotwood and Jefferson Twp., is about 31 percent black.

Karen Townsend is the assistant director of the Bolinga Cultural Resources Center at Wright State University. PHOTO CREDIT: SKIP PETERSON/DAYTON DAILY NEWS

Some of the residents surveyed said political office renders leaders less effective on some issues of importance to blacks. `There's the fear of not being re-elected,' said Ralph Clanton, 50, a probation officer who lives in Dayton.

White backlash could occur, but some elected officials worry more about black Daytonians not exercising their right to vote.

Montgomery County Board of Elections records show predominantly black wards 13, 14, and 19, located in West Dayton along West Third and Germantown streets, had an average turnout of 70 percent in the 1972 presidential election. But only 49.6 percent voted in November 1996.

However, a new generation of leadership transcends the ballot box.

Arto Woodley Jr., director of development for Goodwill Industries of the Miami Valley, points to management of resources like the $1.3 million African American Community Fund of the Dayton Foundation as one way that blacks are leading quietly and helping city residents. Woodley chairs the fund, which sponsors the Bing Davis fine arts scholarship, programs at Mary Scott Nursing Center and other initiatives.

Woodley, 32, is among about 500 young professionals who have graduated from the Black Leadership Development Program since it began 16 years ago. The program, which began in 1982, aims to cultivate a cadre of black leaders who could serve on local boards and commissions.

So far, about a third have served on boards, said Charity Earley, who helped create the program. Other graduates include Dayton school board members Joey Williams and Clayton Luckie.

But leaders of traditional civil rights groups such as the NAACP, as well as political leaders complain that more graduates need to be active. "What happened to them?" McLin asked.

Woodley agrees.

"We need to be more diligent and say, `I'm not going to let my neighborhood go down.' Or `I'm not going to let this group of kids go down,''' Woodley said. "Professional African Americans need to step up to the plate. We've won half the battle (because) we're trained. But we're not engaging in the fight."

However, Karen Townsend, 35, an administrator at Wright State University and a graduate of the leadership program, explained that lack of interest may not be the reason black baby boomers aren't taking a more active role in community leadership.

Some may feel "I've got to work hard. I don't have time to be a leader. If I get a good job and don't perform, I'll be judged by a stereotype that says, `You people can't do this or that.' So it's a dilemma."

Changing demographics

No one has named her leader. But residents bring their needs to her.

And she responds, giving personal encouragement, aid for families in crisis, a pair of shoes or a telephone call to City Hall.

"I have just always been the kind of person that if I saw something that needed to be done and if it was within my power, I did it," said Stephens, 43, who is an employee at the Arlington Community Center.

In a neighborhood vulnerable to crime and drugs, Stephens wonders whether middle-class, professional blacks on boards or commissions have her community's interest in mind.

She is not alone. Asked "Do you feel that blacks in positions of leadership use their positions to speak out on and support issues important to poor blacks," 56 percent of those surveyed answered no.

Right or wrong, such perceptions are rooted in the changing demographics of income and integration that have moved middle-class blacks out of the city and into once all-white suburbs.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, segregation dictated that professionals such as the late Russell L. Carter, who was Dayton's first black judge, lived in the same West Dayton neighborhoods as cooks and janitors. In 1960, about 70 percent of black families with high incomes, at the time $10,000 or more, lived in the city. But in 1990, only 40 percent of the region's black families making $50,000 remained in Dayton.

McLin and Commissioner Lovelace live in working-class areas near low-income neighborhoods. They say they recognize the class divide.

Lovelace: `Distance is emerging (between) blacks who have left the central city and are now in Centerville or Trotwood," he said. "They may have a different spin on issues than people in Dunbar who want neighborhood revitalization and jobs."

"I feel we are standing alone," said Betty Dunson, head of the NcNary-Kilmer-Kammer Neighborhood Association.

Visionary office

Launched in 1989, Parity 2000 is a non-profit, volunteer strategic planning forum. Its mission: to develop strategies to improve the condition of Dayton-area blacks by century's end. Its top priorities: education and training, economic development and preserving families by stamping out self-destructive behavior such as drug abuse and violence.

About 150 people are involved, including founder John E. Moore Sr. and Mervyn Alphonso, who is president of Dayton District KeyBank, said Earley, who is also one of Parity 2000's founding members. The endeavor operates off of grants from non-profits, such as the Dayton Foundation.

The idea is not to create more programs but to spur existing organizations to develop programs, Earley said. Black residents interviewed were, for the most part, oblivious to Parity 2000. And several leaders said it has failed to catch on and involve people from grassroots to politicos and preachers.

"It has not yet become something that people are rallying around, but it has the potential to grow into that," said Commissioner Neal, 46.

Parity 2000 could be the great black hope to galvanize scattered and some say, uncoordinated efforts to attack problems that affect the city's core black communities and blacks in general.

Neal added that while there are many people capable of leadership, a lack of unity and poor communication between organizations and individuals leaves the impression that there is no powerful guiding force.

"We need some sort of collective body to address one or two target issues, and to make sure that people on every level are aware of those efforts and get involved," she said.