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Innovating America







Early in the 1960s the increasing numbers of blacks moving into a Cleveland neighborhood on Shaker Heights' border prompted Richie and some of his neighbors to consider ways of intervening to prevent their community from becoming resegregated. A series of articles in the now-defunct Cleveland Press had inadvertently encouraged the transition. "In less than two years that neighborhood changed from 90 percent white to 90 percent black just on the strength of headlines. They thought they were just reporting the story, but they played into the hands of the block-busters," said Stephen J. Alfred, a white resident of Shaker Heights' Lomond neighborhood and one of the early activists.

The neighborhood associations in South Shaker were aware that black families were moving into their community. Yet there was little of the panic that had triggered white flight in other neighborhoods. Residents met in small groups to discuss how to accommodate the changes. "We took the position that people have a right to live anywhere they can afford to live. If they wanted to buy in Shaker, which seemed likely, we wanted that to be a peaceful process," said Alfred, who later, as mayor of Shaker Heights, would help develop the city's municipal plans to promote integration.

SETTING FIRST PRIORITIES

With blacks attracted to good public schools and sound, affordable housing in border communities such as Ludlow, and with whites moving out, the neighborhood association leadership felt that its first priority had to be to stimulate white demand. Richie and Alfred found both black and white leaders in accord on this objective, and the Shaker Heights citizenry agreed. A 1982 survey found that blacks in Shaker Heights supported the program even more strongly than whites.

"Blacks who came here," said Alfred, "had moved from places where there was very little time between when the first black moved in and the last white moved out. They equated this with a lower level of public services, particularly public education. They were moving to the suburbs to better their life styles and to provide greater opportunities for their children, just like white families; exactly the same motivation."

Yet few blacks were willing to speak openly in favor of offering incentives to whites to stay or to move to neighborhoods where whites were underrepresented. Alfred and Richie understood the reticence of some of their black allies who recognized that blacks outside Shaker Heights would likely view the policy as exclusionary.

"There was, and continues to be, tension between black families who have made it and those who have not," Alfred said. "This is why they don't feel comfortable about talking about it publicly. It's the age-old tension between the haves and have-nots."