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CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — The city’s “All Are Welcome” motto owes a great deal to the work of the Heights Community Congress (HCC) — and five women parishioners who formed the St. Ann Church Social Action Housing Committee in 1971.
That committee changed the course of local real estate dealings and, from there, history itself.
All were honored last week with city proclamations for the 50th anniversary of the “St. Ann Audit of Real Estate Practices,” which showed “clear racial bias and discriminatory practices among real estate companies” at the time and contributed to the creation of the HCC, which continues to this day.
Following the presentation of proclamations to the St. Ann committee, City Council unanimously passed a resolution introduced by Mayor Kahlil Seren declaring Sunday, Sept. 18, as “Heights Community Congress Day.”
This coincides with the HCC Heritage Home and Garden Tour, going on around town from noon to 6 p.m.
Recognized individually at the Sept. 6 City Council meeting were Suzanne Nigro, the committee’s chair; Lana Powell; and Linda Johnston, all of whom attended and accepted a proclamation on behalf of Nancy Cappelletti, who could not be there.
Ken Diamond, husband of the fifth committee member, the late Jeanne Martin-Diamond, accepted her proclamation on behalf of the family.
“We are celebrating a half-century of work leading to a community that not only are we proud of, but one whose reputation transcends even the boundaries of our region,” Seren said.
“Thank you for your service, intentionally integrating disadvantaged people, Black people into this community.
“All are welcome here, and that is in large part due to you,” Seren added.
The proclamations commended their “leadership, bravery and pioneering efforts.”
Along with Powell, who hired him as an HCC community organizer in the 1980s, Councilman Tony Cuda recognized many others in the audience, saying, “I can’t begin to tell you what Heights Community Congress has meant to me personally over the years.”
The proclamations note that in the early 1970s, prominent Jewish, Catholic and Protestant religious leaders from Cleveland Heights began meeting at the Carmelite Monastery to discuss how to promote interracial harmony.
“In late 1972, the interfaith Carmelite Group formed the HCC, which took on the task of continuing the St. Ann Housing Committee’s audit work,” officials noted.
Two years after that, “HCC launched the Heights Housing Service, a program funded and later taken over by the City of Cleveland Heights to promote open housing throughout the city.”
This, in turn, led to the “Nine-Point Plan” that established anti-discrimination real estate practices in Cleveland Heights, community activist and former city manager Susanna Niermann O’Neil noted earlier.
Much of the early work is chronicled in Susie Kaeser’s meticulously researched book “Resisting Segregation: Cleveland Heights Activists Shape Their Community, 1964-1976,” published in 2020 by Cleveland Landmarks Press.
Tickets for the 43rd annual Heights Heritage Home and Garden Tour are $25 and are available online at Heights Community Congress or in person at Appletree Book, Bremec on the Heights, Heinen’s on South Green Road, The Stone Oven Bakery & Café, Tommy’s and Zagara’s Marketplace.
In this month’s Heights Observer, HCC Board Chairman Les Jones notes:
“This year, the tour will showcase six elegant and unique Cleveland Heights properties. They include a colonial with a recently renovated kitchen and bath, a stately Tudor mansion, a remarkable backyard garden oasis, an English brick cottage and garden, a contemporary solar-powered home with tropical foliage and the magnificently restored exterior grounds of Harcourt Manor.
“Ticket holders can also take a guided tour of the landmark Fairmount Presbyterian Church, partake of light snacks and view a special display about the history of HCC over the course of its 50 years of service to the community.”
Read more from the Sun Press.
