The purpose of Project Noir 2024 is to amplify the voices of black women in Northeast Ohio. Enlightened Solutions conducted a phenomenological survey and report to determine whether the Cleveland-Lorain-Youngstown-Akron rural, suburban, and metropolitan areas remain the "worst" region in America for black women.

The document provides a comprehensive overview of demographic, social, health, and economic indicators related to women and girls in Adams County, Ohio. The data presents the age distribution of women and girls in various counties of Ohio, highlighting significant population segments. It shows variations in age percentages compared to state averages across different counties.

Groundwork Ohio, with support from CareSource, built this report from a statewide survey of more than 3,000 Ohioans about their birth experiences, plus listening sessions with 86 community members in Montgomery County, 72 percent of them Black women. Forty-one percent of Black respondents said their race negatively affected the care they received from physicians. Black infants in Ohio still die at more than twice the rate of white infants, and that gap has widened.

Policy Matters Ohio applies the Black Women Best framework to Ohio data on wages, poverty, health and incarceration, and attaches a state policy agenda. Between 1979 and 2022, Black women's median hourly wage in Ohio rose $1.81 to $17.40, while white women's rose $4.90 to $20.00. In 2022, Black women in Ohio died of pregnancy-related causes at 29.5 per 100,000 births, compared with 11.5 for white women.

This report presents a survey of 503 Black women from around Ohio, run by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and analyzed by Policy Matters Ohio, on cost, access and treatment in health care. Nearly 48 percent said they had felt discriminated against because of race, and 44.7 percent had delayed or skipped medical tests because of cost. It is primary Ohio data on everyday care, not maternity alone.

The National Women’s Law Center ranks all fifty states on what Black women are paid relative to white, non-Hispanic men, using 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey estimates. Black women working full time, year round in Ohio are paid 66 cents on the dollar, falling to 60 cents when part-time and part-year workers are counted. Ohio ranks sixteenth.

The Government Accountability Office analyzed federal civil rights data and found Black girls were 15 percent of girls enrolled in public schools but received 45 percent of out-of-school suspensions and 43 percent of expulsions. Most of the gap came from how Black and white girls were treated inside the same schools. A state-by-state figure lets Ohio check its own suspension ratio.

Higher Heights Leadership Fund and Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics track Black women’s officeholding at every level of government. As of July 2025, 401 Black women serve in state legislatures, while only 10 hold statewide executive office and none has ever been governor. Ohio appears through Congresswoman Joyce Beatty and through Toledo, one of the large cities that elected its first Black woman mayor since 2014.

Higher Heights Leadership Fund commissioned HIT Strategies for this national survey of 852 registered Black women voters, fielded February 14 to 22, 2024. It found 76 percent describe their vote as powerful, while 29 percent believe their voting power is decreasing and 58 percent say Black women are underrepresented in political power. Women 18 to 49 were less trusting of institutions.

This issue brief from the National Partnership for Women & Families sets out what paid leave, child care and direct care policy mean for Black women, who hold many of these jobs and do much of the unpaid caregiving too. Black women take only 62 percent of the leaves they need, and about 42 percent of the leaves they do take are unpaid, costing an estimated $3.9 billion in wages each year.