They hold meetings at churches at least once a week. They talk strategy. They vote on what to do next. They're guarded about their membership and finances. They invite the public but discourage news reporters and photographers.

Rev. Stephen Scott (center) is vice chair of the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati. William Kirkland (left) is president of the African-American Cultural Commission. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        They are the core of a grass-roots effort that believes the only way to improve relations between Cincinnati's African-American community and the police — and to give African-Americans a bigger piece of the economic pie — is to encourage an economic boycott against the city.

        As the boycott moves into its ninth month, a picture is coming into focus about who the boycotters are and how they are organized.

        Although the boycott is often portrayed as a single effort against the city, the campaign is actually divided into three groups operating under one umbrella. The groups have similar goals but different leadership and objectives.

        The three groups:

        • Cincinnati Black United Front, headquartered at New Prospect Baptist Church in Over-the-Rhine.

        The BUF emphasizes police issues and is headed by the Rev. Damon Lynch III. He is also pastor of the church, which is the spiritual home of the protests that sprang up last April when a police officer shot and killed an unarmed African-American teen-ager he was chasing down an alley in the impoverished neighborhood.

        • Coalition for a Just Cincinnati, a loose alliance of local activist groups that formed last year and puts economic concerns at the forefront. The most notable coalition member is the Baptist Ministers Conference of Cincinnati, a group of influential African-American clergy. Other coalition members include the New Black Panther Party, the African-American Cultural Commission and the Cincinnati Zapatista Coalition.

        The coalition is directed by the Rev. James W. Jones, pastor of Greater New Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage, and the Rev. Stephen Scott, pastor of the First Recovery Christian Fellowship in North Fairmount.

The Rev. Damon Lynch II invited the Rev. Al Sharpton to speak at his New Prospect Baptist Church last Saturday. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        • Coalition of Concerned Citizens for Justice is led by Victoria Straughn, a lifelong Cincinnatian, who works at University Hospital on AIDS-related issues.

        She co-founded the group — which has endorsed candidates for City Council and held town meetings on police brutality — in 1997 with Nathaniel Livingston Jr., a former City Council candidate and former radio talk-show host on WDBZ-AM. The group has no specific base of operations.

        The three groups each send delegates to the others' meetings to stay informed. Leaders of each boycott group talk to one another daily by telephone about strategies and breaking boycott news.

        “It's not just one or two people making decisions here,” said Juleana Frierson, chief of staff for the Black United Front.

        The Rev. Mr. Lynch described the working relationship of the three groups this way: “We are about as dysfunctional as a city council and about as organized as one.”

        Added the Rev. Mr. Scott: “I have to laugh when I hear people asking for Damon (Lynch III) to call off the boycott. He couldn't call off the boycott even if he wanted to. How can he call off something that he didn't even start?”

        Boycott organizers say they follow a deliberate strategy of keeping secret details of their efforts — to protect members from recriminations and to keep the city off guard. They also attribute their secrecy to a distrust of the news media.

        “The media has given the public mixed messages about who we are and what we are about,” the Rev. Mr. Scott said.

        That secrecy angers Mayor Charlie Luken.

        ""They're costing people their jobs, and it's important to know who they are,” he said.

Outspoken Rev. Lynch

        The Rev. Mr. Lynch, 41, who grew up in North Avondale, is the best-known of the three ministers at the front of the boycott. Since the shooting of Timothy Thomas, he's become the most outspoken critic of the police department and leads Tuesday meetings of the Black United Front at his church that draw up to 200 people.

        He is former co-chairman of the mayor's Cincinnati CAN race relations panel, removed by the mayor after signing a letter that sharply criticized police officers.

        The Rev. Mr. Lynch leads the Black United Front's efforts to develop a federal lawsuit against the city for allegedly using racial profiling techniques to harass black citizens. The involvement of the city in mediating that lawsuit is cited by Mr. Luken as a particularly significant response to the Black United Front's concerns.

        “When there is no pres sure on the city's leadership, we have found there is no change,” the Rev. Mr. Lynch said. “We got to this point because of 30 years of broken promises.”

The Reverends' resumes

        The Rev. Mr. Jones, 67, a native of Detroit, lives in Roselawn. He became widely known for his frequent appearances before City Council, where he urged the dismissal of the police chief and spoke often of economic justice for black citizens.

        A former associate pastor in Detroit for the Rev. C.L. Franklin, father of R&B singer Aretha Franklin, the Rev. Mr. Jones' civil rights record spans five decades.

        He fought for more black jobs at the Kroger Co., Avon and Keebler Corp. He advocated an African-American Santa Claus at local malls during the 1970s. He also called for a similar boycott of Cincinnati in 1979.

        Recovery from a heart ailment has slowed the Rev. Mr. Jones in recent weeks.

        Co-chair of the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati is the Rev. Mr. Scott, 56. He was born and raised in the West End.

        The Rev. Mr. Scott has pastored three different Greater Cincinnati churches in 17 years. A licensed substance abuse therapist, he's a former Hamilton County sheriff's deputy and 20-year veteran of the Air Force. He was a delegate to the Democratic presidential convention for the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984.

        “We're not amateurs at this,” the Rev. Mr. Scott said. “So if they're looking for us to go away, they're making a big mistake. We're in it for the long run.”

        The Rev. Mr. Scott described his followers as regular people who care about human rights and justice in Cincinnati.

        “We have middle-class folks, business owners, high school students, college students — you name it,” he said. “These are people who have set aside their own personal attainments and things they would like to see done, so that everybody in this city has an opportunity to achieve their goals. They are selfless.”

        Mr. Luken, who says boycotters ignore racial progress since the riots, said he won't attack the boycott leaders personally.

        “You have to assume that their motivations are good, that their motivation is the improvement of conditions for African-American residents of Cincinnati,” he said. “You have to continue to assume that people are looking for some real answers and not just playing some political game, and so that's the way I'm approaching it.”

Community involved

        About a dozen people work behind the scenes from their homes or Black United Front headquarters at New Prospect Baptist, as well as Coalition for a Just Cincinnati offices at Greater New Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church.

        Ms. Frierson, 45, oversees and manages all day-to-day operations of the Black United Front. As chief of staff, she writes letters and deals with the news media.

        A Louisville native and member of New Prospect Baptist, Ms. Frierson works as an equal employment officer for the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She moved to Cincinnati six years ago from New York.

        “I don't think people realize how diverse the Front really is,” Ms. Frierson said. “We have support from all corners of the city.

        Dwight Patton, 49, is vice president of the Black United Front. The Avondale resident is a former member of Grassroots United, a local protest group that surfaced after the fatal shooting by police of Michael Carpenter in 1999.

        He is a member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (a national group of historians) and the Woodburn Center for Cultural Studies (a local group of historians that promotes science among African-Americans).

        “We are the hope for disenfranchised black people in Cincinnati,” Mr. Patton said. “We empower the powerless and fight for those who can't fight for themselves.”

        Another active BUF member is Iris Roley, a 39-year-old wife and mother of three boys. She led the campaign to gather more than 400 stories of racial profiling that became part of the racial profiling lawsuit. She grew up in Avondale and lives in Madisonville.

        “I wanted to make sure that what was happening to so many of our young black males at the hands of police didn't happen to my sons or anybody else's,” she said.

Coalition supporters

               Some key coalition members include Amanda Mayes, 27, who chairs the Artists of Conscience campaign that tries to sway entertainers from coming to Cincinnati.

        A Michigan native, she moved to Cincinnati in 1993 and has participated in a number of marches and pro tests, including a demonstration in Louisville last June in support of a civilian review board to monitor police.

        She was one of three demonstrators arrested during the final day of last year's Ujima celebration. Ms. Mayes allegedly tried to give a police officer a boycott leaflet, leading to charges of littering and resisting arrest. She pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine. The other charges were dismissed.

        Ms. Straughn, 40, helps write leaflets that are distributed at boycott functions and in city neighborhoods. She also researches issues and helps organize demonstrations.

        Ms. Straughn played a key role in organizing people to go to City Hall following the shooting of Mr. Thomas last April. She succeeded in persuading actress Whoopi Goldberg to cancel her June 12 speaking engagement in Cincinnati.

        “We're not just a bunch of uneducated people and the homeless,” Ms. Straughn said of the boycott groups' membership.

        “Some people work for the city, some for the state and others for the feds. We have a lot to lose, but we're not afraid to stand up for what we believe in.”

        Michele Taylor-Mitchell, 51, a stay-at-home mom who lives in Avondale, is a full-time volunteer for both the Black United Front and the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati.

        She works as the coalition's inside communications chairwoman, making sure all coalition members receive up-to-date information about current events and actions. She also mobilizes members for protests.

        “I want to see change in Cincinnati in my lifetime,” Ms. Taylor-Mitchell said. “I want Cincinnati to be better for my kids and my kids' kids. That's my motivation.”

Mixed reviews

        Boycott leaders maintain there is a significant amount of support for their effort. Indeed, church rallies have drawn hundreds of people. A so-called “sanctions summit” in early March drew 500 people to New Prospect church. A rally featuring civil rights activist Al Sharpton last week attracted about 200 people.

        “Not a day goes by that we don't receive cards, e- mails or phone calls from people in and outside of Cincinnati saying they support us and asking us to keep up the fight,” said the Rev. Mr. Lynch.

        Norma Holt Davis, president of the Cincinnati branch of the NAACP and aunt of the Rev. Mr. Lynch, said her organization has not joined the boycott but is “taking a serious look at the issue.”

        “These are folks from the community that we all know — some better than others,” Mrs. Davis said in reference to boycotters.

        “I sense in the African-American community there is a lot of support for the boycott. And where there is not support, there is strong sympathy.”

        Silverton resident Don Lykins views it differently. “It has gone too far when it negatively impacts others such as the financial loss to downtown businesses and the blue chip image Cincinnati has worked hard to create.”

        Tom Jones, president of the Avondale Safety Task Force, said the support in the black community is not as deep as it may seem.

        “You have a group of individuals who want City Council to legislate respect,” Mr. Jones said. “But they will not take responsibility for what's going on in their own community.”

        While the boycott has celebrated some early victories, the Rev. Mr. Lynch said it will ultimately prove a success when:

        • Police officers are fired or jailed.

        • A collaborative agreement is reached on police-community relations.

        • Dollars flow through black communities as they do downtown.

        The only way to achieve some of those goals is to sit down and negotiate with city leaders. Until then, he said, there is no end in sight for the boycott.

        “Love us or hate us, you've got to deal with us,” the Rev. Mr. Lynch said.

        Enquirer reporter Greg Korte contributed

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