My grandfather came home from two wars and used his GI Bill to build a house on West Avenue in South Elyria. Decades later, I knocked on those same doors and asked my neighbors to make me their mayor.
Elyria.
I took my first job at fifteen at Save Our Children, working with young people who needed someone to show up for them. I didn't take a straight road after that. I left college once and came back through Lorain County Community College, the place that carried me further than I had dreamed.
I spent sixteen years serving my county before I ever ran for anything. When I decided to run for mayor in 2019, people told me it would be an uphill battle. I told them my whole life had been one.
We started that campaign with a $200 loan from my wife and a prayer. The first doors I knocked on were on West Avenue. That November, Elyria elected its first African American mayor.
"Maybe they haven't seen a reason to. I hope I'm that reason."When asked why I spent so much time with people who don't vote
I'm the farm coordinator at Atlanta Good Shepherd Community Farm, a ministry of Good Shepherd Community Church. We grow food, and we teach neighbors and volunteers how to grow it. Land, food, health, and ownership sit at the root of economic development, and a field teaches all four.
A vacant lot can become a place where people see something grow because of their own hands.
Many seniors and veterans own their homes and are still one failed roof away from losing them. Our team built a home repair program around that reality. More than 30 families have stayed in homes they might have lost.
Sometimes fighting displacement is a ramp, a roof, or a water heater.
As mayor, I worked with Lorain County Community College, the college that gave me my second chance, to launch the Skill City Promise. Every adult in Elyria can now earn an in-demand skill for free.
Partner with the people already doing the work, and take away the cost that keeps others out.
At the Lorain County Urban League, we sat with families to talk through budgets, home buying, and how to hold on when foreclosure was close. In a single year, dozens of families bought their first homes.
The best time to save a home is before the crisis.
When more than $15 million in federal recovery funds came to Elyria after the pandemic, we asked residents first. We also published financial reports no law required, so anyone could see where the money went.
People trust a plan when they can find their own ideas in it.
In 2019, still only a candidate, I went to the scene of a shooting on Fuller Road and asked House of Healing to open its doors so neighbors had somewhere to be together. As mayor, we gathered faith leaders and counselors on Ely Square so the city could grieve as one.
You don't need a title to open a door for people who are hurting.
Most of what a mayor starts, another mayor finishes. Most of what a farmer plants, someone else eats. I've stopped measuring the work by whether I'm there for the harvest.
Plant what the next person will need.
I serve as Acting Director of Economic Development for the City of East Point, Georgia. It's the same work: keeping longtime residents rooted, helping small businesses grow, and building partnerships that outlast whoever holds the job.
On weekends, you'll usually find me at the farm.
If you've stopped believing anything changes, I understand. I've stood in rooms where it felt that way. I've also watched a whole block come outside to meet a candidate nobody expected to win, and I've watched families keep homes they thought were gone.
If you want to make a difference, or you're already leading and feeling the weight of it, you don't need permission to start. You need one need you can see, one person willing to try it with you, and the patience to stay.
That's all most of this ever was. Go do the work.
Frank
If something here sparked an idea for your own community, I'd like to hear about it.
Mayor of Elyria, Ohio, 2020 to 2023. President and CEO of the Lorain County Urban League. Executive MBA, Case Western Reserve University. BA in Nonprofit Administration, Cleveland State University. Nord Family Foundation Fellow, and a participant in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative's 2020 cohort.