Off the Wire: The Week in Black Power
The week in Black power, curated by The Power Desk. What moved, who moved it, and what it costs us — with our read on each and a link to the reporting.
RTA is cutting the bus that runs through Glenville
The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority has proposed a second round of service reductions to close a roughly $30 million budget gap. The No. 35 Lee Boulevard–East 123 line — which runs through Glenville, East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights — would be discontinued entirely. Weekend service on the No. 28 Euclid, the No. 83 Warren–West 130 and part of the No. 25 Madison would be cut in half. Together with the cuts approved earlier this year, that is roughly an eight percent reduction in service in a single year.
Our read: A bus route is not a convenience. It is how people get to work, to dialysis, to the polls. When the routes disappear from the East Side first, that is not a scheduling decision — it is a decision about whose time is worth protecting. RTA is also asking voters for a half-percent sales tax in May. Those two facts belong in the same sentence every time this comes up: the agency is asking Black Cleveland to fund a system while cutting the service Black Cleveland actually rides. The board votes on this. Public hearings are open now. Show up on the record before the vote, not after.
Referenced: GCRTA second-round service cut hearings — Ideastream Public Media, Aug. 10, 2026.
Cleveland Heights packed city hall over the license plate cameras. Cleveland did not.
Every seat in Cleveland Heights council chambers was full Monday night as residents demanded the city cancel its Flock Safety contract, arguing local guardrails cannot stop outside agencies from reaching the data. In Cleveland, council renewed its own Flock contract through Dec. 29 after reversing an earlier committee vote to end it, attaching an amendment restricting the regional fusion center from accessing city camera data.
Our read: Same technology, two different rooms, two different outcomes — and the difference was turnout. Cleveland Heights filled the seats. Cleveland did not, and Cleveland got a renewal with a guardrail written by the same body that had already voted the contract down once. That contract expires in December. The vote is coming back. The question is whether anybody shows up for it this time.
Referenced: Cleveland Heights residents pack city hall — Cleveland 19 News, Aug. 18, 2026; Cleveland council Flock renewal — Signal Cleveland and Cleveland 19 News, July 2026.
Eight Black candidates are on the ballot for governor this November
In 250 years the country has elected three Black governors. This November there are eight Black major-party nominees for governor on ballots — men and women, Democrats and Republicans — including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and, as of Tuesday, Florida Republican nominee Byron Donalds.
Our read: Watch what this does to the assumption that Black political power lives in one party. Eight nominees across both parties means the bargaining changes — nobody gets to count on the vote without competing for it. That is not a betrayal of anything. That is leverage, and leverage is the whole point.
Referenced: Associated Press reporting on Black gubernatorial nominees, Aug. 19, 2026.
Michigan just became a toss-up, and Black voters are the reason
Fox News moved the Michigan Senate race to a toss-up, with Republican Mike Rogers slightly ahead of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. The number underneath it: roughly a quarter of Black voters in the state are not with the Democratic nominee. Note the caveat the pollsters themselves flag — Black respondents are a small subsample and the margin of error is wide.
Our read: Set the polling aside and look at the pattern, because it is the same one Cleveland keeps living. A party assumes the vote, does not campaign for it, and then calls the shortfall a mystery. Black voters did not leave. They stopped being asked. The lesson travels: any operation counting on turnout it has not personally earned is planning to lose.
Referenced: Fox News Power Rankings, Aug. 18, 2026.
That is the wire. The full arguments behind these stories run on the site every week. REAL POWER.TV is Cleveland’s Black digital newsprint — who has power here, who is losing it, and what the moves mean before they hit anybody else’s feed. Subscribe to the outlet.
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