On Monday evening, Highland Square neighbors left their homes and began walking down the sidewalk, some with folded canvas chairs slung over their shoulders.
On the road beside them, cars from nearby Wallhaven and West Akron slowly filtered in, squeezing into parking spaces on the narrow red-brick side streets.
By 7:30 p.m., a steady stream of humanity filled a tiny parking lot at Grand and West Exchange, a patch of broken asphalt sandwiched between humble houses on tiny lots.
They sat next to each other, elbow to elbow: black, white, Hispanic. Millennials, Gen Xers, baby boomers. Pastors, businessmen, parents, students.
And they began to talk. About race relations. About experiences with police, both bad and good. About the need to understand each other a little bit better. About not giving up hope for a better future in the midst of despair.
Over the past week, America has been defined by events in Baton Rouge, La., St. Paul, Minn., and Dallas. Two dead black men. Five dead white cops. Television and newspaper headlines and social media filled with racial violence that has stunned a nation.
But this was America, too. An Akron neighborhood where 150 people wanted to stop feeling helpless by uniting for one warm summer evening.
The call went out on Facebook the day before.
“We are looking for those of you who shout ‘black lives matter’ and ‘all lives matter’. We are looking for those of you who aren’t a minority, and don’t know how to help. Please come, so that you can experience a different perspective,” the Facebook invite said.
It came from Wesley Ian, a soul musician and beekeeper and community activist. It came from Jeremy Lile, a 30-something pastor who left his job at St. Luke’s Ministries in Copley Township to found City Hope, a grass-roots mission that organizes activities for West Akron families.
A year ago, Lile and wife Christy moved their ministry out of their Highland Square house and into a vacant building that last served as an art gallery. It’s on the corner of Grand and Exchange, so they named it The Grand Exchange.
On Monday, it lived up to its name.
“This is the dream of this space,” Lile told his neighbors.
He and Ian laid the ground rules for the discussion. Expect to feel uncomfortable. Expect to hear things you don’t like. But listen carefully to each other, and assume the viewpoints of other people are valid.
And when all is said and done, “expect to feel differently than when you came to this parking lot,” Ian said.
So they did. For the next two hours, strangers shared personal experiences, heartfelt emotions, intimate peeks into their diverse lives.
No one came seeking a solution to racial tensions in the country. No one came seeking justice for the dead.
But an honest conversation among well-intentioned neighbors on a patch of broken asphalt seemed, to many of them, to be a good place to start healing.
So said Wallhaven dad Jose Delgado. And Christ Community Chapel pastor Marshall Brandon. And West Akron resident Sheena Mays.
And so said Staci Shelton, a business consultant who admitted to being a little apprehensive about the public meeting “because tensions are high.”
But at the end of the day, a different emotion won out.
“I feel like if people are willing to come from a place of wanting to fix things, then I owe it to myself and everyone else in the community to at least show up and participate,” she said. “I am invested in making things better.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.