Browse Interviews

Maria Smith recollects her early life growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri, attending Catholic schools and later studying Political Science in college. Smith decided to go to law school soon after, later reconnecting with her faith. Smith highlights the need to find community in her life, which eventually led her to Cleveland’s Near West Side. Smith and her husband were involved in the Witness for Peace where they lived and worked in Nicaragua during the Contra War. They would eventually live…

Gail Long recalls her early education which eventually led her to Cleveland’s Near West Side. Long worked as a community organizer at the West Side Community House, where she helped organize community block clubs that dealt with various issues in the neighborhood. She focuses on the affordability and gentrification of the Near West Side along with her involvement in Tremont’s Merrick House. Long recollects various initiatives she was a part of like the efforts to stop the privatization of Metro…

Near West Side resident Kathleen McDonnell recollects her arrival to the Near West Side and her efforts as a community organizer. McDonnell shares her involvement as a mediator for Cleveland Mediation Center and as an educator on mediation in Euclid High School. She shares her experience dealing with a hazardous waste recycling facility in a residential area and the arrival of lawyers to pressure the Northeast Chemical Corporation to relocate operations away from the neighborhood. McDonnell…