With the national media descending on the Tristate, local civic and corporate leaders are scrambling this week to show that race relations in Cincinnati are improving.

        With the one-year anniversary of the April 2001 riots looming this weekend, it's proving to be a tough job.

        As late as Tuesday, as settlement negotiations on a lawsuit accusing police of targeting blacks dragged on past midnight, local leaders still hadn't nailed down a show of unity on their efforts to improve jobs, education, housing and police relations for African-Americans.

        They will attempt to accomplish that at 10:30 a.m. today. That's when Mayor Charlie Luken and other officials will describe their progress so far at a City Hall news conference.

Bailey

        Business leaders who worked feverishly over the last several weeks to publicize some positive results included Tom Cody, the Federated Department Stores executive who is co-chairman of CAN; Clifford Bailey, president of TechSoft Systems Inc. and head of one of the CAN working groups; and Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce president Michael Fisher.

        Behind the scenes, their strategy has zeroed in on two things: Justice and jobs.

        “Business people like to be about action, and they're accustomed to working with self-imposed deadlines,” Mr. Fisher said.

        Mr. Cody said that many of the initiatives had to wait for approval of things like federal grants.

        “If we were not ready, if these things were still in the high-risk category, we wouldn't have done it,” he said. “I think things came together.”

        Meanwhile, the the Washington Post said Tuesday that there was “a war going on” in Cincinnati in the fourth paragraph of its year-later story.

        “The messages of the boycott are much more easily summed up in five words than the work going on to move this community forward,” said Ray Buse, a chamber spokesman who has been Cincinnati's liaison with reporters around the country.

        “Boycott says a lot in one word.”

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