The City Club of Cleveland Podcast

There is a tension in our region between those who view our future as constrained by resource scarcity and those who see ours as a region of plenty. Last year, Baiju Shah, President and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, pointed this out in an essay for Crain\'s, \"For too long,\" he wrote, \"our region has approached major opportunities in an \'either-or\' framing, with concern and caution. Focus on the lakefront or the riverfront? Develop new housing downtown, in neighborhoods, or suburbs? Grow research or businesses?\"\r\n\r\nPerhaps the time has come for an abundance mindset. Some national thinkers would certainly agree.\r\n\r\nBaiju Shah, chief executive of the region\'s chamber of commerce, speaks about his vision for how a mindset change might make possible the future many in Greater Cleveland hope for. He\'ll discuss the region\'s growth and how business and civic leaders can work together to unlock the region's full potential.

The national debate over the state of free speech continues to intensify. With the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah and the subsequent suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel over remarks regarding Kirk\'s death, recent events have reinforced a deep divide among Americans.\r\n\r\nAccording to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, there has been a continued decline in support for free speech, particularly among all students, and students of every political persuasion show a deep unwillingness to encounter controversial ideas. Meanwhile, Kimmel\'s suspension has drawn attention to the government\'s growing pressure on the media and private companies, and raises questions about what constitutes direct interference with First Amendment rights.\r\n\r\nIs free speech under attack? Or is the public\'s definition shifting? And what can we take stock of from current events, as well as long-term trends in this nation and our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights?

These days, becoming an entrepreneur seems riskier than ever. The market is fast-paced and increasingly advanced technology has changed the game. Today\'s entrepreneurial market is certainly not the same as those of past generations. What can we learn from those who know what it takes to build success, scale up, and improve our communities?\r\n\r\nKumar Arora is an entrepreneur, investor, and consultant behind many startups and brands you probably heard of: ILTHY(R), FutureLAND, Cleveland Cavaliers, and numerous Fortune 500 companies. His parent company Arora Ventures provides resources, investment, and consulting services to assist early-stage to mid-sized businesses. Consistently pushing the envelope on design and innovation, much of his work centers on the idea of creating novel products, teams, and scaling brands. His concentration lies in a variety of industries including consumer brands, entertainment, packaged goods, product development, marketing, & design.

In her recent book, P.O.E.T. (Power Over Emotional Trauma), Honey Bell-Bey asks, \"What do you do with what did not kill you?\" Trauma happens, she notes, but healing happens also.\r\n\r\nWidely known as the dynamic National Award-winning Poet Laureate (Academy of American Poets), Honey Bell-Bey isn\'t just a poet. She is also an Ohio Certified Prevention Specialist, and for decades, has used her talent in poetry as a vehicle for healing intergenerational trauma and other issues related to public health. Together with Dr. Scott Frank, an award-winning family medical doctor, Associate Professor Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and poet himself, they worked to underscore the importance of poetry as a public health need.

In 1855, an American named John Swanson Jacobs walked into the offices of the Empire newspaper in Sydney, Australia. The conversation that ensued between the editors and Jacobs, a fugitive slave, opened a path for both Jacobs and the Empire, a path for the newspaper to publish his story. Two weeks later, Jacobs brought them a manuscript titled The United States Governed by 600,000 Despots. This was not a typical slave narrative, and they published it.\r\n\r\nIn 2016, in the midst of other research, historian Jonathan D.S. Schroeder came across Jacobs\' autobiography, which had been all but lost to time. An extraordinary work, more sociopolitical critique than life story, Despots offers a first hand account of how the enslaved truly viewed the institution of slavery, unmediated by white editors and writers as so many other slave narratives of the time were.\r\n\r\nIn celebration of the 90th Anisfield Wolf Book Awards and Cleveland Book Fest, Schroeder will discuss Jacobs\' narrative and Schroeder\'s own scholarship with author, historian, and 2021 Anisfield Wolf Book Award winner Vincent Brown.

What if the conventional narrative of the 1960s civil rights era, by its very nature, limits the success, legal achievements, and persistence of Black Americans for generations? In Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, author Dylan C. Penningroth maintains that the fight for civil rights didn\'t begin with famous marches and courtroom cases of the 1960s. Instead, his research stretches from the last decades of slavery to the 1970s, and challenges nearly every aspect of our traditional understanding of civil rights history as we know it.\r\n\r\nDrawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth centers the everyday lives of Black Americans and sheds light on their centuries-long tradition of legal knowledge to assert their rights, protect their families, and shape their communities.\r\n\r\nDylan C. Penningroth is a professor of law and Morrison Professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in African American history and legal history and is a MacArthur Fellow. Before the Movement won eleven book prizes and was shortlisted for four more. He is also the author of the award-winning book, The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South.

It is a rare opportunity to hear about a mission to space firsthand from any NASA astronaut, and Euclid, Ohio, native Sunita \"Suni\" Williams certainly has an extraordinary experience to share. On June 5, 2024, she was launched on the new Boeing Starliner spacecraft for what was intended to be an eight-day mission on the International Space Station (ISS). It ended up being a nine-month stay after technical issues forced the spacecraft to return to Earth uncrewed. While her timeline aboard the ISS faced uncertainty, Williams\' work and commitment to science and innovation never wavered. Together with the crew, she completed more than 900 hours of research between more than 150 unique scientific experiments during her stay.\r\n\r\nThroughout her three-decade career, Williams has logged 608 days in space over her three flights. She has also completed 62 hours and 6 minutes of total spacewalk time. That\'s the most of any female astronaut, and fourth on NASA's all-time list.\r\n\r\nModerating the conversation is astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock. Like his colleague Sunita, he was also selected by NASA in 1998. On October 23, 2007, Wheelock launched on his first spaceflight aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. The retired Colonel has accumulated more than 178 days in space.\r\n\r\nTo mark Ohio Space Week, and in partnership with Great Lakes Science Center, join us for an inspiring conversation between two NASA astronauts - Sunita L. Williams and Doug H. Wheelock - on what it takes to live and work in zero gravity, and the importance of space exploration today.

Art is powerful. It can foster social cohesion and influence the mood of a moment. Murals aren\'t just decorative elements in a neighborhood; they are a tool for revitalization, connection, and storytelling that amplifies voices and strengthens both place and people.\r\n\r\nIn partnership with the Saint Luke\'s Foundation, Assembly for the Arts\' Jeremy Johnson will be joined by Kevin \"mr.soul\" Harp, Stina Aleah, and Robin Robinson. Each of these talented artists have created stunning murals within the Saint Luke\'s footprint in the Buckeye-Shaker, Woodhill, and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods.\r\n\r\nJoin us for a special FREE City Club Forum and Cookout in the Community as we hear from three inspiring muralists who have transformed their communities on Cleveland\'s East Side, and what more can be done to support art for the public good.

One of the underreported casualties of any war is culinary culture. It\'s not just family recipes that might get lost; when you recognize the importance of food to our essential humanity, you can quickly see how the loss of culinary traditions can lead to an erasure of cultural and identity. This is the terrain author and human rights investigator Michael Shaikh explores in his new book The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found.\r\n\r\nRaised in Cleveland and Karachi, Shaikh has worked for nearly two decades in the field of human rights, spending extensive time in conflict zones mostly in Asia and the Middle East. Shaikh\'s book explores the impact of conflict on the most essential of human traditions--what we cook and how we nourish ourselves and our souls. From a refugee camp in Bangladesh to the legacy of Nazism and Soviet rule on Eastern European traditions, Shaikh unpacks what might have been lost if not for the resilience of diasporic communities and the amazing activists, home cooks, and chefs who have kept traditions alive.\r\n\r\nJoin us for a conversation moderated by chef and Marine Corps veteran Ben Bebenroth of the nonprofit Spice Field Kitchen.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously stated, \"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.\" And there are numerous notable figures in our country\'s fight toward this justice, and then there is Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II.\r\n\r\nFor decades, Rev. Barber has served as a powerful voice in movements that combined faith, morality, and activism. As the Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, Rev. Barber has launched a new movement that aims to address the same issues that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke against in the original 1960s campaign.\r\n\r\nRev. Barber is also President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. The author of five books, including We Are Called To Be A Movement, his most recent book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy explores how we can join together to take on poverty and economic injustice.\r\n\r\nIn a moment when the strength of democracy is tested, and our country\'s bend toward justice is questioned, join us as we hear from Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II on how we can build social justice movements that uplift our deepest moral and constitutional values.