‘It’s Lorain against racism, period’

Lorain City Schools Board of Education and the Lorain Academic Distress Commission issued a joint statement calling for unity and condemning racism that hurts education and opportunities for people.

On June 5, school Board President Mark Ballard and Academic Distress Commission Chairman Randall Sampson issued a joint statement describing a fight that continues in Lorain.

“Let us be clear: In our community, and in our classrooms and on our streets, we fight, not the tension of black versus white or white against brown — it’s Lorain against racism, period,” they said. “Our public and private institutions are united to speak up and stand up against racial injustice.

“Our deep wish is that every student and citizen has an opportunity to both live up to and within the aspirations of our great American promise: life; liberty; and the pursuit of happiness.”

Ballard and Sampson recounted recent protests in the city when Lorainites joined responses to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Lorain has emerged as a regional example of a community where police and protesters stood side by side against injustice.

“Our city was praised for its calm in this moment,” Ballard and Sampson said. “For our lack of riots, our refrain from looting, we tried to not be offended by the thin veil of astonishment by those who, unfamiliar with Lorain, expected a response far less controlled.

“They perhaps do not understand that we — as a community and as individuals — are quite practiced in our plea for racial justice, and that what may appear to be an absence of tension in our community is in fact deep sadness, deep fatigue.”

Racial inequity long has undermined justice, health and education in Lorain, Ballard and Sampson said.

“So, yes, while Lorain is proud to serve as a leader in the conversation surrounding racial and social justice, we live with the burden of knowing there is still much to do,” they said. “Even as we unite in voice and spirit for our community, so too, must we unite for our schools.

“And just as we all must play a role combating systemic and personal racism, so too, must our schools.”

Ballard