CLEVELAND — As President of the Cleveland NAACP, Danielle Sydnor often speaks strong words.
"If you care about this region as much as you say you do, you have got to care about the condition of Black people, because the region will not advance if Black people don’t advance," she says.
Her mission is to bridge racial gaps through education and activism.
"My purpose is to try and be a voice for those that don’t often get invited to the table," Snydor told 3News, "and be willing to shoulder the burden of what that means in terms of being the face of difficult conversations."
Snydor's biggest motivators for her work are her two teenage sons.
"Them seeing me do this work gives them hope," she said. "It also gives them a roadmap for how they can use their voice today in engaging with other young people."
Sydnor had been in her role a for little over a year when, in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, Cleveland was activated. Many marched peacefully, but others also rioted.
After the flames died down, the city organized with Sydnor at the table to influence leaders to declare racism a public health emergency.
"It’s not a 'one and done,'" she declared. "We can't have a summer of uprising and think that that we've solved the problem. That's just laying the foundation for the greater work that we must do."
To help with that work and meet a need during the pandemic, Sydnor was inspired to start a new venture – the We Win Strategies Group.
"I wanted to look at my finance career plus my work in community and economic development and really marry them together," she explained. "To be a voice at the table where often times, especially Black folks are not at the table helping to create what these next plans and strategies look like for recovery."
Snydor's working hard every day to bring Cleveland together.
"[There are] communities, organizations, corporations that have made pledges and commitments to this social justice movement that are also really centered around trying to ensure that there is equity in terms of economic conditions," she said.
While it will take years of work, Sydnor truly believes if Cleveland learns from history, we can come together to set up systems of success for people who have been historically and systematically discriminated against and disenfranchised.
"If we have more people in all these different systems who know how to be advocates, who learn to pay attention to microaggressions and small things that compound overtime, I believe we can make more progress," she said.
