CLEVELAND, Ohio — People across Ohio are working to combat racial inequalities in the Buckeye State. Alfred Porter Jr.  is among them, but this battle is not new to him.

What You Need To Know

  • Alfred Porter Jr.’s community activism began shortly after 1998, when he walked into a Black on Black Crime Incorporated meeting, and was shocked and uplifted by what he heard

  • Porter says Black on Black Crime Inc.'s mission is to help people in the community in need as best they can

  • Porter is also involved in Fathers Lives Matter and Black Man Army

"Individuals questioning police brutality. Individuals going down to a police station to protest. Individuals meeting with family members and walking them through the steps or doing their best to help them find attorneys or help or other things like that,” Porter remembers from the Black on Black Crime Inc.'s meeting.

Years later, he walks into the organization’s office as its president, where he’s planning out an upcoming meeting during an unprecedented time.  

“Right now, we’re in interesting times because we are, for the first time, heavily bringing up racism. Heavily bringing up the fact that it not only does exist, but it never went anywhere,” said Porter.  

The 51 year old says the organization's main mission is to help people in the community going through difficult situations as best they can. 

"A lot of times people come to us as a last stop effort to either write letters, for us to look at the situation that they go through or that they’re dealing with and for us to be able to get them in contact with people and other organizations, and partner up so they can be helped out as well."

Porter has been on the front lines of some of the city’s most difficult moments, and he took us to one that stands out. Right next door to the organizations office is a lot owned by Black on Black Crime Inc., which was once the location of a horrific crime.”

“Men broke in. And they torched the house and burnt up two children, and it hurt," said Porter.

Peaches and Glacia were the two little girls killed in that fire in 2013. And Porter says the lot became dangerous to the community, and so they took action.

“It was like, just a cesspool of water and dirt. That was almost like, I will say, six-feet deep," said Porter. "We shut the street down. We made sure that we put tape across from the end of Ivanhoe and Kipling, and we got in the streets and we refused to move. We weren’t going to move until you knocked that building down."

He says the apartment was soon gone. And community action like attending and organizing protests and vigils are common for Porter, but so is personal development through the Man to Man Program to help people get on the right track, the way he did years ago. 

"So, I basically emancipated myself at the age of 16. And I would say within 15 years, I realized this is not the way to go. I cannot sleep at night, I cannot enjoy life," said Porter. “I had to make a change. And I knew better. And the one thing I can say: I always appreciated my education. Because even in the midst of being out there, I had gone to Tri-C and received my GED." 

And as people across the country take action to combat racial inequalities in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Porter is encouraged by progress. 

"I saw a lot of people getting out and working together as a mass movement," said Porter. "I was so glad to see people wanting to work together. That moves my heart all the way through." 

Porter considers himself a man of faith, fighting on the front lines for a stronger, and more equal Cleveland.

"The day I don’t see progress is the day I shouldn’t be doing this."