President Shayla L. Davis

"We have the data, and the data is not ambiguous," said former State Representative Shayla L. Davis, President and CEO of OLBCF. "Black Ohioans are not sitting out because they do not care. They are sitting out because the path to the ballot keeps getting narrower. Issue 3 takes that narrowness and carves it into the constitution, where it becomes nearly impossible to undo. We are asking Ohioans to widen the door, not weld it shut."

This Juneteenth, the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation releases The State of Black Civic Power in Ohio, the first county-level look at how many Black Ohioans step back from our midterm elections. The number is 603,000, more people than live in the entire city of Cleveland, in a state where statewide races are decided by a handful of points. I want to be clear about what that number is not. It is not a story about apathy. The people behind it are our family, our neighbors, our...

OLBCF President Shayla L. Davis joined WOSU 89.7 to discuss the foundation's new report, The State of Black Civic Power in Ohio, and why more than 600,000 Black Ohioans sat out the last midterms. The interview has since been carried by public media stations across the state. Listen to the full interview on WOSU