In reading the updated Oct 17 VOTER GUIDE from the Columbus Dispatch it’s important to notice the choice of words author Jordan Laird used to describe the UNDEMOCRATIC VOTING SYSTEM our city uses for City Council.

“Under Columbus' unusual district system, first rolled out in 2023, all nine city council members are elected citywide.”

“Unusual.” UNUSUAL is the word that Jordan Laird used. Why? Because it only favors the party in power and because candidates are forced to run a city-wide campaign. Remember the earlier primary of three candidates? Vogel won District 7 that time. The citizens that live in District 7 have already chosen him to be their next member of City Council; not Ross. It’s the MOST CREATIVE GERRYMANDERED SYSTEM INVENTED and it eliminates all competition from grassroots candidates (unless you have money). Franklin County Democrats LOVE IT since they normally don’t have to spent a single dime to get their “endorsed candidate” elected.

Celebrating our 55th year, the Columbus Free Press will honor five outstanding community activists and a community organization at our November 2025 Salon and Awards event on Saturday, November 8 from 1:30-4:30pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Road. One honoree for the Free Press 2025 Outstanding Community Activist is Paul Becker. Facebook Event.

Paul Becker is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Dayton, where his research focuses on political extremism and violence, and activism in the 21st century.

Beginning with Occupy Columbus he has photographed over 550 protests, marches, rallies, and vigils. Most of these were in Central Ohio, but he has also documented activism in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, and other cities.

He lives in Central Ohio with his wife, Cathy, an environmental activist, and their two cats.

To quote the blues singer Big Maybelle, “There was a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on” in 1963. It began in January, which marked the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, and President John F. Kennedy hosted a number of prominent African Americans at a reception in the White House–taking great pains to ensure that the famous black entertainer, Sammy Davis Jr., and his white wife, Mai Britt, were not photographed together–and ended with the cessasation of the thirty-day mourning period for the assassinated president.  In between there were more than a dozen incidents of nationwide importance that affected the fight for black freedom in America. Included among them were the Woolworth sit-ins, George Wallace’s stand in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama, Malcolm X’s famous speech, Message to the Grass Roots, the Chicago school boycott, the demonstrations in Birmingham, and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.