Black in Cincinnati: 'This is my story'

Mona Harrison Morrow is a native Cincinnatian and WCPO's director of community affairs. This is my home and I love it here. This is my story. I grew up in Kennedy Heights with two parents and a brother in a single-family house. I had a fairytale childhood with wonderful parents who worked and took us on vacations every summer. We loved Kennedy Heights and lived in two different houses there. In fact, we just sold my parents’ home on Woodford Road a few years ago. Kennedy Heights was a neighborhood designed in the 1960s to be a multiracial community. I attended Kennedy Elementary School, which had a diverse population of black, white and Jewish students. In elementary school, I knew I was black and it made no significant difference in my life. 'Just part of who I was' Being black was just part of who I was. I never thought of others as better or worse than me. I didn’t understand segregation because my neighbors and school friends were diverse. I wasn’t aware of bigotry or racism against me, but thinking back, it probably happened, I just didn’t internalize it. However, I do remember that most of the birthday parties I attended were all black.