Cool Cleveland Interview with Anthony Houston

Since he became the director of the Cleveland Empowerment Zone in October of 2003, Anthony Houston has kept a low media profile, focusing instead on serving the 50,000 residents in the EZ. The Empowerment Zone is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program designed to help reinvest in the urban communities of Fairfax, Glenville, Hough, and midtown Cleveland for which the City of Cleveland received $177 million dollars of loan and grant funds over a ten year period. It's anything but easy. Anthony Houston grew up in Glenville, "surviving" (as he puts it) the Cleveland Municipal School District during one of it's darkest hours - desegregation. After living and working in New York, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia for fifteen years, he recently returned to the city he vowed never to return to. Cool Cleveland's Information Officer had coffee with Anthony one Saturday morning to find out why.
Cool Cleveland: You were living in New Jersey when the Towers came down?

Anthony Houston: "It was a beautiful day, and I remember what a beautiful morning it was. I was working at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersy when [My wife] Lisa called. She said she didn't feel like going to work that day in Manhattan. I told her not to worry about it, to just stay home and that we'd make up the money somehow. (Lisa Tomlin-Houston was working as a consultant a block away from the World Trade Center.) I still can't find the words to describe it, it was horrific. Everything was shut down. When I finally got back to our apartment in Hoboken, you could see the sky filled with dust. One of the worst things was...all of the people who went to work from our apartment building that didn't come home. You could hear dogs barking, scratching at doors for owners who never came back. Then there were all the pictures of missing people that started appearing. It wasn't very long until Lisa told me, "It's time to move." The position she later interviewed for was back in Cleveland, the place that I really didn't want to return to."

Why didn't you want to come back to Cleveland?
Too many bad memories. My brother was killed in a black on black shooting, and my other brother is a substance abuser. My father passed in 2002, and my mother in 2003. When I graduated from Oberlin in '87, I felt like I had to leave and not come back. I knew I couldn't live here and not become a victim. I'd rather have myself die than hurt another brother. All of the people I grew up with are either on drugs, in jail, or dead.

What happened when you got back into town?
The folks I knew were all gray, ashen shells of people. All of the guys I grew up with said 'Man, you sure look good'. They all had problems. One was like 'I just got out of jail', another was like 'I ain't got a job'. I asked them, 'What are we gonna do?'. I'll never forget what they told me. They said, 'Man, we ain't gonna do nothing. We CAN'T do nothing. You're gonna do it'. That stuck with me ever since.

What are you working on besides the EZ?
I was appointed to the Ohio Board of Regents by Governor Taft. The Ohio Board of Regents provides higher education policy advice, develops strategy involving Ohio’s public and independent colleges and universities; advocates for and manages state funds for public colleges; and coordinates state higher education policies. I'm probably the youngest person ever appointed.

Talk about what happened at Oberlin when you were there.
I went to Oberlin in the 1980's when apartheid was still the policy of the regime in South Africa. There was a movement on campus to force the school to divest its investments in South Africa. We were having protests and did things like seizing buildings, everything. I was one of the leaders who spoke to their board and convinced them to stop investing in businesses there. I went to Oberlin to live my activist values, and I did.

What do you boast to people outside Cleveland about Cleveland?
I talk about the great people, and how the neighborhoods are down-to-earth. In Cleveland you can relax and live, it doesn't have the busy rush of NYC. Here you have room to breathe. I'm also impressed by the educational and cultural institutions that we have here.

What's your vision of how Cleveland should look and feel?
More diverse racially; in New York, for example, when I'm out in a restaraunt I notice there are all these different nationalities. I'd like to see more openness, sharing and encouraging here. I want people to feel comfortable and fit in easily because of the diverse racial mix. I'd like to walk into a restaurant and not feel like I'm the only African American in the room. Walking in NYC you see 5-6 different local newspapers; we don't have easy access to diverse selections of news so much in Cleveland, either.

What are your passions and how does it manifest itself in your life?
Social justice and equality, addressing issues of race within neighborhoods so that everyone has an opportunity. Another passion is my relationship with God - it's my life. I am transformed in Him, and in that way I desire to positively transform others. As a case worker, I've been able to walk into trailer parks and talk to bikers with tattoos. As director of the Empowerment Zone, I walk the streets asking people if they've heard of the Zone and if not, I tell them how to get help.

What's your best contribution to Cleveland?
Being the proud product of Cleveland Municiple School District, leaving and living elsewhere, coming back with experience and using it to get talk put into action.

Do you have favorite quote or sayings you live by?
Victor Hugo said, "No army can withstand the force of an idea whose time has come." My brother-in-law told me recently, "Do what your father would do, and add some spice to it!"

What's the best learning experience you've done in the last 5 years? Walking away from law school! I spent a lifetime wanting to go, then I got it and one day I just realized it wasn't what I wanted, so I walked out the door. It came to a head when one day I was asked in class whether or not a particular case was a contract or not. The case involved an illiterate black man in Alabama who signed a bank note with an X. I answered no, it wasn't. The professor said yes it was, and told me I whould probably be better suited doing some other work, that law wasn't about activism. I looked around me and realized I didn't want to become like these people. So I walked out and didn't even try to get my money back.
Who is on your most admired list and why?
Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, a Federal African American judge who wrote two books on race and the American legal process - In the Matter of Color: The Colonial Period and Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process. He was a tireless legal giant and fierce supporter of justice. I also admire Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought to integrate the national Democratic party, and became one of its first black delegates to a presidential convention. And Noam Chomsky, just because, and Malcolm X because he told the truth.
Where are you most likely to hang out?
Now that I live in Tremont, Lucky's, Civilization, and 806.

Interview by George Nemeth with images by Jack Ricchiuto