Democratizing Cleveland

A trenchant history of Cleveland’s community organizing movements, detailing their origins, campaigns, and legacies.

Randy Cunningham, a founding member of the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, spent nearly fifteen years researching grassroots efforts that put neighborhood concerns and voices front and center. In Democratizing Cleveland, he chronicles one of the greatest examples of mass civic and democratic education in Cleveland’s history.

The decade between 1975 and 1985 was a thriving period of social movements and community groups built around civil disobedience. Many of these groups, led by women, were able to unite white and black neighborhoods in a common cause. Cunningham introduces readers to the various groups and the causes they took on, covering topics such as:

• Insurance and bank redlining
• Community development and urban renewal programs
• The movement’s decline during the Reagan administration