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MY LATEST STORY, A THREAD:
A few weeks after moving to Cincinnati, I happened to be driving through this neighborhood called Avondale that immediately caught my attention. I was mystified by its streets that were lined with large, often vacant and dilapidated houses.
Despite their shabby appearance, the homes were grand and beautiful. I could sense they belonged to affluent families in their prime because of their impressive architecture. I wanted to know how and why this neighborhood had become a shell of itself.
When I eventually learned that Avondale was the scene of one of America’s many race riots during the late '60s, and that those riots has regressed the economic and real estate development of Cincinnati’s largest Black neighborhood for decades, I wanted to do a story about it
The long hot summer of 2020 felt like a repeat of the long hot summers of 1967 and ‘68 that have all been firmly planted into the history books for their uprisings against racial injustice.
The prospect of doing a report that tapped into what the people of Avondale felt about those riots excited me. I also thought that exploring their thoughts on 2020’s racial reckoning and what needs to happen next for today’s movement was a no-brainer.
Plus, as Black millennials and Gen Zs were engaged in heated debates over whether riots should be used in conjunction with peaceful Black Lives Matter protests, I thought it would be wise to seek answers to this question from the older Black Americans who...
...had already lived through, and later dealt with the consequences of, riots from years past.
This was inarguably my most intense and deeply-researched story yet.
I spent weeks studying Avondale’s history, talking to and getting to know my interview subjects in the area (some of whom I’m proud to call new friends) and combing the corners of the internet for information about the civil rights movement I never learned in school.
My favorite parts of my reporting were going through WCPO’s archived footage of the ‘67/’68 riots to feature in my own package, as well as spending time at the Cincinnati Museum Center to go through old photos, newspaper clippings, and documentary footage to piece together...
details of how the riots unfolded and gather visuals for my digital report. Avondale has an incredibly rich history, and consolidating the boundless intellect, energy and passion of my story subjects from the area into one article was a really daunting and challenging feat.
Special thanks to the @CincyMuseum History Library and Archives, the legendary photographer C. Smith, and to all of my interview subjects for sharing your archival photos, multimedia and wealth of information that helped put this story together.
I’d also like to thank Ben Brody of @GroundTruth and @Report4America for advising me in my original photography for the feature, @Fulbright_R for helping me nail down WCPO’s archival video, Jeremy in Creative Services for creating the promos for the project and...
my manager @MeghanWesley for her undying support in what was an extensive editorial process. Here’s to this report being one in a long line of more ambitious, in-depth report tackling Cincinnati’s important, sensitive and complex issues. REPORT 
