A look back at Athens’ declaration of racism as a public health crisis

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in The New Political’s Winter Magazine: “Moving Forward.”

Timeline: Steps taken by the city of Athens to improve racial equity. Information displayed is from the “Athens Racial Equity Report” document given to The New Political by the Athen’s Mayor’s Office. Graphic by Izzy Keller.

Over a year ago, the Athens City Council passed a resolution declaring racism to be a public health crisis in the city, county and state. The resolution contains five sections dedicated to action, two of which are still in the works today. 

The resolution, R-10-20, was brought forth by Councilmember Sarah Grace on June 22, 2020, in a special session of Council. The resolution was unanimously passed by the council and with support from Athens Mayor Steve Patterson. 

“I found that the resolution became a line in the sand to start systemic change here in the city of Athens … We've got to turn things around as a country, since we are a municipality within the country. This was a starting point for change here in our own community in Southeast Ohio,” Patterson said about R-10-20 in a phone interview.

Along with declaring racism a public health crisis, the resolution urged the Ohio General Assembly and Gov. Mike DeWine to pass Senate Concurrent Resolution 14, which declares racism a public health crisis in Ohio. A copy of the resolution was sent to its sponsors along with other lawmakers.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 14 was referred to the Senate’s Heath, Human Services and Medicaid Committee on June 3, 2020, according to the Ohio Legislature’s website. 

The resolution includes a commitment from City Council to conduct an internal review of the Athens City Code, along with other city practices and procedures with racial equity in mind. Currently, there is an ongoing assessment to identify potential weaknesses in terms of equity.

The resolution also asks Patterson to create a group dedicated to racial equity and mitigating systemic racism. The group, functioning as a partnership between a city task force and the Athens Racial Equity Commission, was created in December 2020. The group has 31 members, many of whom belong to existing commissions and differing city departments.

“There's no need to reinvent the wheel of creating a new coalition of any type, so I had reached out to a number of individuals from throughout the city,” Patterson said of the creation of the task force. “As well as my HR Director Ron Lucas (also) identified a number of people in the different departments of the city to kind of augment the Racial Equity Coalition.”

Patterson followed Grace’s recommendation during the June 22, 2020 council meeting by selecting standing commission members and people from city departments. One frequently mentioned body is the Athens Community Relations Commission, co-chaired by John Schmieding. 

The commission, created in 2010, has the goal of “see(ing) that everyone gets along in Athens, particularly to pay attention to historically disenfranchised groups,” Schmieding said in a phone interview. Although he is no longer an official member of Patterson’s task force, Schmieding remains in close communication with the group. 

Since the resolution passed, members of the Community Relations Commission have been teaching a for-credit class on equity, racism and anti-racism at Athens High School, in addition to holding other community events. 

Originally, it was the joint city task force and Racial Equity Coalition’s charge to assess the city’s laws and departments. According to Patterson, the city chose to find an organization that is “better equipped” to assess the city. 

The city decided to work with the National League of Cities (NLC), an organization made up of local government leaders from over 2,000 cities. Athens chose to partake in NLC’s Race, Equity and Leadership (REAL) assessment. According to its website, the REAL assessment works “to help cities and towns learn the impact of historical inequities and design programs that dismantle structural and system racism.”

“We went with the National League of Cities’ Race Equity and Leadership training … The REAL 100 was able to put together a package of programs,” Patterson said. “As well as a survey to start things off to kind of figure out what the baseline is when it comes to racial equity for city employees.”

The city is awaiting an initial survey from NLC. Once the initial survey is received, it will be sent to the joint city task force and the Athens Racial Equity Commission for approval. After their blessing, it goes back to NLC to finalize the survey. Once finalized, all city employees will be required to take it. NLC will then compile the survey results and send them back to Athens.

“Once we get those (REAL survey) results, we will convene a meeting of the Racial Equity Coalition and people that I have asked to serve on the task force will look at those results,” Patterson said. “And out of that, start to identify where are areas that we view that we need to improve.”

Athens would start three layers of training. All city employees would have to go through two layers and administrators would go through the third. Finally, there will be a section for the racial equity trainers, so takeaways from the REAL assessment can be utilized for future employees. Finally, Patterson wishes to add a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coordinator to city staff.

The work in making Athens more inclusive is ongoing, it is impossible to end systemic racism overnight. To Patterson, remaining vigilant of remnants of historic racism is the best way to promote racial equity. Meanwhile, Schmieding sees community and communication as being the best defenses against racism and systemic racism.

“As a commission, we do talk about building relationships. Building relationships with other white folks, if you're white, where you actually talk about these issues,” Schmieding said. “ … Just, you know, have those conversations, what have you noticed about racism lately? And then particularly for white people, for us to be building relationships with people of color, people of the global majority, in this time in particular is really important.”