amaha sellassie
West Dayton Stories Community Produceramaha sellassie is a peace builder, social healer, freedom fighter, network weaver and lover of humanity. He’s an Associate Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Applied Social Issues at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.
amaha is a practitioner-scholar dedicated towards building bridges of trust, healing historical wounds, and harnessing the unique gifts and talents of every human being as we press towards a just and equitable society. As the former chair of the Dayton Human Relations Council Board, his areas of interest include health and education equity, praxis, dismantling structural violence and getting the voice of marginalized communities into the center of public policy in order to emerge structures of belonging that acknowledge the dignity and worth of every human being.
He is co-founder and board chair of the Gem City Market, a community driven effort to address food apartheid through a food coop dedicated to increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables within west Dayton. He is also co-founder of West Dayton Strong an afterschool/summer program in Desoto Bass public housing that is focused on math and reading development utilizing a S.T.E.A.M. curriculum. Currently he is working towards his Ph. D. in Sociology at the University of Cincinnati with an emphasis on utilizing community based participatory research (CBPR) towards emerging health equity and community transformation.
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In the premier issue of “West Dayton Stories Zine,” producers of WYSO’s popular series “West Dayton Stories”—including amaha sellasie, Tiffany L. Brown, Omopé Carter Daboiku, Love’Yah Stewart, and Jaylon Yates—briefly introduce themselves and give readers useful tips for everything from photography to fashion to gardening. Readers also can scan QR codes that will take them to archived episodes (some of them longer than those that first aired) from the inaugural season of the series. -
West Dayton residents were without access to healthy foods, to quality fresh fruits and vegetables. But when the community decided to no longer accept the unacceptable, the Gem City Market emerged. And it's so much more than a grocery store. -
The Great Miami River and Wolf Creek are natural boundaries that once defined the borders of Dayton’s West Side. The artificial boundaries of I-75 and US 35 further shaped it. But there’s another boundary created by the practice of redlining, the intentional denial of opportunity to residents of an area based on race. -
We’ve been reflecting on Black Joy on West Dayton Stories and our final commentary on the topic is from amaha sellassie. -
It’s pretty clear voting is important, but is it enough? Activist and educator amaha selassie considers what else it takes to truly make positive change in our communities.
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Few people have contributed more to building community than sociology professor and activist Amaha Sellassie. From co-founding the West Dayton Strong after school program to the Gem City Market, he can be found at the front of efforts to make Dayton an equitable and just place. But sometimes, that comes at a price.
