When WYSO launched the Senior Voices series with the Dayton Metro Library and Rebuilding Together Dayton a few years ago, we connected with staff from CityWide Development Corporation. They knew there were important stories of strength and resilience yet to be told, and suggested we continue collecting stories from Dayton’s west side neighborhoods, especially those of elders living within the Germantown Street corridor.
After several years of discussions, the West Dayton Stories project was born. We met with civic groups and neighborhood activists at churches and libraries to come up with a plan. Eventually we brought together a creative, committed group of community producers to train during the winter and spring of 2020.
And then, as everyone knows, the pandemic hit.
But the project has continued, even though we aren’t able to meet and train and conduct interviews in person right now.
Meet our first WDS community producers. They begin by sharing thoughts on life, living, and community during the time of covid. In the months ahead, look for more commentaries and profiles that tell West Dayton Stories.
Jocelyn Robinson of the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices is the project director. Our theme music is “Inheritance,” written and performed by Dayton’s own Mariah J.
CityWide has been our partner on "West Dayton Stories," providing in-kind support through fundraising, community outreach, and relationship-building. WesBanco, Fifth Third, and the City of Dayton provided financial support.
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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. -
Dayton is known for invention and innovation, and there’s a new wave of creative energy coming from the West Side. Young people are making art, with deep commitment to community building and social justice.
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The Edgemont Solar Garden on Miami Chapel Road has a long history on Dayton’s West Side. Lately it’s experienced a regeneration of sorts, with partners like Central State University and Agraria in Yellow Springs joining in to support urban agriculture.
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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.
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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.
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Community producer Loveyah Stewart’s family is deeply rooted in West Dayton. Her grandparents came up from Mississippi and Alabama in the 1940s, and now three generations have lived in her home on West Third Street.
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We’ve been reflecting on Black Joy on West Dayton Stories and our final commentary on the topic is from amaha sellassie.
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Our community producers have been considering the notion of Black Joy on West Dayton Stories, and this week, Tiffany Brown uses the performance art of spoken word poetry in her piece, “Stillness…to Joy”.
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We’re exploring Black Joy on West Dayton Stories. This week, community producer Loveyah Stewart talks about seeing her Black Joy when looking in a mirror.
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We’re exploring Black Joy on West Dayton Stories, and this week community producer Omopé Carter-Daboiku, known to many as Mama O, tells of a lifetime of dipping into that deep well of spirit and pride.
