Questioning the American Dream: Shonetina Benson on Raising the Next Generation of Black Women
From a false eviction to housing insecurity to being undervalued in the workforce, Shonetina Benson has experienced a number of the economic barriers many Black women face every day. As a single mother, she’s worked tirelessly to provide better opportunities for her daughter, making tough sacrifices in the process. She shared her story with us – the happiness and the pain – with honesty and grace, beaming with joy as she talked about her daughter, her new business ventures, and what makes a home a home. Shonetina has a peaceful demeanor and an infectious laugh that entices you to join along, reminding you that although life is hard, there are blessings and sparkles of light in between the shadows.
Women of Cincy and the Women's Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation are teaming up to bring you six stories spotlighting the economic mobility of Black women in Cincinnati. “Questioning the American Dream: A Look at the Economic Mobility of Black Women in Cincinnati” supports the Women's Fund's “Historical Analysis of Black Women's Labor Trends and Systemic Barriers to Economic Mobility” study.
These are the stories of Black women navigating life in Cincinnati. We believe telling stories changes things; we believe listening changes things. We promised our community we would tell their stories. It's up to you to listen. Visit womenofcincy.org/economic-mobility for the full series.
The following Q&A is based on the interviewee’s firsthand account of their experiences and opinions alone.
Look for editor's notes with additional information in [bold brackets] throughout the article.
Interview by Kristyn Bridges. Photography by Chelsie Walter.
What top three words would you use to describe yourself?
I would say I'm always a hard worker. Very strong – sometimes probably too strong. I'm always dedicated. So, strong, dedicated, and ambitious.
Where did you grow up? Where do you live now?
I live here in Cincinnati, but I was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas.
What brought you to Cincinnati?
Oh, that's a long story. To make it short [laughing], when I left Kansas, I moved to Illinois to be with my daughter's dad. My goal was to only be in Illinois for five years; if I didn't feel successful, I was going to leave. Within that five-year period, I ended up moving to Cincinnati.
Cincinnati was supposed to be a pit stop, but it's been a very, very long pit stop. The main reason I stayed here for so long is because once my child got into school, she made a lot of friends and was really good in school. I was going to move, but when I spoke to her teachers, they were like, “She's a good student, she gets along with everybody, and you don't want to mess that up for her.” I took that into consideration, and I ended up staying. Now she's gone! She went to college and left me here. [Laughs.]
So, your daughter's in college now. Where is she going?
She just left for North Carolina A&T. It's her junior year.
Where did she go to school here and what was her experience?
Princeton School District. That was the thing about being a single parent – a single Black parent. Not making much money and not having a degree, being in Princeton School District helped me out a lot. The community and the teachers helped me and my daughter look in a positive direction. She just intertwined with all the students and teachers. The teachers loved her, from elementary school all the way to high school – even teachers she didn't have. That made me feel good. The teachers took her on a college tour, and I went with. It was the most amazing experience I've ever had with my daughter. Seeing her off to college, an H.B.C.U. [Historically Black College or University], was a hard job to do, but I'm proud at the same time. Being a single parent, it's just hard raising a kid in this time and age. But the school district helped me out through everything.
Can you talk about your experience as a single mom?
Being a single parent here in Cincinnati, having no friends or family, I had to learn how to make friends. Of course, when you move somewhere you don't know anything about, you have to learn your streets, neighborhoods, where the doctor office is, the grocery stores. When I first moved here from Illinois in 2002, when my daughter was two, it was hard. But I'm a Cancer, so when you set your mind on something, you go for it, and you don't stop until you succeed.
My first interview was at Fifth Third Bank downtown. I got that job on the spot, thank God. I was looking for apartments and settled on the West Side. Because I only got like $530 every two weeks, it was hard. So, I tried to get public assistance for the first time ever. When I went there, they told me I was only eligible for $11 a month in food stamps. I was so upset. I was like, “You know what, I don't want it. Keep it.”
I just figured out how to make it work. I talked to people. I was able to get WIC, so that helped in the meantime. [The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) is a supplemental nutrition program. To be eligible in Ohio, a participant’s income must be between 100-185% of the federal poverty level. In 2020, for a family of two, that’s less than $31,894 a year.] I just worked and worked until I was able to get back on my feet. I got child support, but it still wasn't enough because my rent was $575. And then I had daycare, which costs. It was a struggle; it was really hard. When you're short on money, you want to just worry about your kid. You have to pick and choose food, rent, transportation, or daycare. But over time, I did make it. I became a bartender as another way to make my ends meet. I worked seven days a week for about five years. [Daycare for one child can cost about $300/week, or $15,000/year, in Cincinnati where the median income is just over $38,000.]
When my daughter started full-time school, it was wonderful. I ended up getting a new job at Hamilton County, and that was so much better than working at Fifth Third Bank because they didn't want to give you raises. The first raise I got was five cents [an hour] after being there for a whole year. It's a struggle when you're trying to stay on the straight and narrow. People just belittle you. I'm working really well, I come in every day, I don't miss a day, but they don't take that into consideration. My mom sometimes was able to help by sending me $100 or so. I had to ask Girl Scout members and teachers to help me because I had no help.
As a single parent, as a Black single parent, we have to get two, three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and get food. We can't sit down and do homework with our kids. We can't go to all of our kids’ events.
When I worked at the county, I had full benefits. I got a better car. Moving to Princeton School District changed things for the better – seeing my daughter light up, having all these friends and having birthday parties. I had to cook for all these kids; don't ask me how I did it. [Laughs.] But I did it. Just to see her having those great conversations on the way home or going to the grocery store was a wonderful thing that kept me going.
But even today, I still struggle to get her to college. I went homeless last year for about seven months just to get her in college. If I was to die tomorrow, at least I know that I did my best to make sure she succeeds in life. And I told her to get that degree because as African American women, they look at us differently and still make us work harder for less pay. And that's why you should at least get your degree in what you're passionate about and maybe you can open your own business and so forth. I try to educate her and her friends because I'm living proof of how it is, and it's not fair all the time.
What support systems have you leaned on throughout your life? Do you feel you have the support systems you need now?
I never had any. I guess that's the hard thing about being a single parent, or just somebody who's not from the area. I don't know if it's because I didn't fit in a certain way or do the same things people did... It was always me. Just me and my daughter. Sometimes when I was really sick [with Crohn’s disease], I couldn't get out of bed. My kid helped me out. She knew when I would get sick, I'd go to the doctor and tell them I can't go to the hospital because I got a kid. I really didn't have that support to help me. And that's why we work so hard to try not to get sick because we know we don't have that support.
You mention that you have Crohn’s disease. What has been your experience with that? How has your relationship with the healthcare system been?
In the last four years, maybe, my Crohn’s has been decent. I guess after living with it for 20 years, I've learned over time what I cannot do and what I can do to make it better, to keep myself from having to get $6,000 treatments every six weeks and going to the hospital every year and being there for two months. So I've just learned how to manage my health to survive.
Crohn's disease is no joke, but at the same time, I'm not disappointed that I have it or anything like that. I'm grateful because that's something God is showing me I can make it through – and I was able to cope and deal with it. I've been three years without medication; I just do a lot of natural stuff. I feel good about that. I even got my hair to grow back – at one point, I lost my hair and had to get medicine for that. I haven't been taking any steroids, so thank God for that.
Have you felt supported by the healthcare system through that journey?
When the economy first took a hit in '09, I had to get on CareSource [Medicaid]. Being on that health insurance with Crohn's disease was a nightmare. The doctor I had always seen couldn't see me because they didn't take CareSource. So I had to go elsewhere to find a G.I. doctor, which I did not like. I was scheduled to get my treatments every six weeks, but I stopped getting them. It took me about two years to get a real job with medical benefits to help my Crohn's disease. I told [the doctors] the situation I had gone through for two years and they were kind of upset. They did what they had to do to make sure I was manageable. They were shocked that I did pretty good without seeing the doctor for so long.
But that was the worst: having Crohn's disease and not getting medical coverage. I was like, what am I going to do? I went to St. Vincent Depaul downtown; they helped a lot. They had a pharmacy department. I was grateful because the medication I was taking at the time was $500. Thank God they had medication they donated. I was just so thankful for that. Even the treatment I was getting, I was on some type of financial assistance from Johnson & Johnson. They both helped me out greatly where I didn't have to pay for medication because CareSource wouldn't pay for it. [The Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated that 27 million people will lose access to health insurance coverage as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.]
You have two jobs, working at U.C. Hospital and night shift at Kroger. Can you talk about what you do for a living?
Well, I actually have three jobs: I work at U.C. Health (the hospital), Kroger, and at a car wash. At U.C. Health, because of coronavirus, they kind of cut our hours. So what I do now is clerical work. But prior to corona, I would basically reconstruct people's accounts for surgical procedures. After I leave U.C. Health, I go to Kroger or the car wash. It all depends on what day it is. I'm kind of floating in Kroger right now because they're trying to say they don't have hours... so that's another thing that makes it hard. I was in the meat department; then I was in the produce department, and now I'm in deli. This is what I'm going through to try to get money to pay my bills. When I leave U.C. Health on another day, I go to the car wash. I'm a car wash attendant; I make sure people can go to the car wash okay and sometimes I spray the cars off and clean the parking lots.
Have you felt supported in these roles? Especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic?
No. For instance: When corona first took effect, I told them I didn't have a place to use a computer [to work from home] because I was staying with someone like 40 miles away. But that wasn't my place of residence, and I didn't feel comfortable taking the computer from the hospital to someone else's house because I lived in the basement. I told them that I was homeless and I was kind of living in and out with somebody and was struggling because I had no money. I told four people at my job and they didn't support me. They didn't care. I'm not saying they're bad employers – they're good people – but you say that you help the community, you do this and do that, but I'm an employee and I ask for help and they just didn't help. Not saying that they have to, but now we're in a pandemic and one of your employees needs help. Can you help me? They couldn't give me a referral to a hotel or maybe say, “I can give you an extra $100 to get you on your feet,” instead of taking hours away? They cut our hours, so I got less money. I lost eight hours of pay. That's a lot of money to me because I'm struggling, I have a kid in college, and I was displaced.
I don't let that discourage me. I just keep going. I've stumbled a couple of times but I get back up and go. I gotta set an example for my kid so she can do better than me.
So that made me have to keep my second job at Kroger. The people like me in the three departments I've worked in at U.C., we all have to have a second job to survive. My white counterparts, they don't have to have two, three jobs to survive, which I think is unfair. And I can't prove it because, you know, you're not supposed to discuss your pay rate. But I know they see that.
So, I worked nights at Kroger, which is hard because I'm not a night person like that. [Laughs.] I like to sleep at night. I did that for about two or three months; then it got to the point where they said, “Well, we don't have any more hours for you.” So, Kroger took me off their schedule for a week or two. I was like, “Oh, my God, this is not fair.” I told Kroger [about my situation]; they have a program that's supposed to help you once you're there for a year (which I have been) and that program didn't help me. They didn't say, “Here, let me get you a care package,” or something. Again, I'm not saying they're bad companies, but they didn't assist. In the middle of that, I was still looking for a place to live but I had to work during the evenings. And not knowing if I was going to have a job at Kroger, I got another job at the car wash. It's really hard to keep track of what day it is.
What could employers do better to support their employees?
U.C. should maybe try to find where people are at. Rent’s going up, gas is going up, food is going up, tuition. People need a little bit more pay. It's really hard because you have to pick and choose rent, bills, food, car, or tokens for the bus. It doesn't give you room to buy clothes or even get your health checked or your teeth cleaned.
Then at Kroger, they said they have these programs to help you get phone bill discounts, jury discounts, or food discounts. And they say they can help you if this happens, but when you go to them with it, they take you through all these chains and then they won't help you. Or they look at you like, “Well, maybe you should just go ahead and take off.” I'm not asking to take off; I'm not asking to have less hours. I'm asking what things I can do to get help, or which direction I need to go in to get help to support me and my family. But they're not really supportive, even though they say they are and they donate to all these organizations. Sometimes they have employees right there who really need help.
We gotta figure out another way to check on your employees. Our employers do background checks [when we’re hired], but maybe do a background check to see if your employees are okay after two, three months. I know some employers have over a thousand employees, but sometimes it could be one or five employees who really need help. It could be medical [issues] and they’re really sick but they don't want to miss work because they need to pay for their medical bills. Or they really need to work because they need to get the kids to college. Employers should pay a little closer attention to their employees instead of making them feel belittled when they're trying their best to make your company do well.
How do you think we could better assign monetary value to work? Do you think we’re underappreciating Black women, specifically, in the workforce?
Women are not appreciated at all in the workplace. We make less money but we're doing most of the work. You don't want to pay us; when you give us our yearly evaluation, you want to give us 20 cents. The department managers get large bonuses. We have to get a second or third job to survive when they only work one job. And they don't have to worry about how they're going to get to work or how they're going to pay a bill. In my department, 90 something percent is Black. All struggling. While struggling, we get belittled. So, we're all scared because we already knew before corona hit how hard it is to find a job to support ourselves and our children.
That's the frustration for us as parents; as single parents. That's why our children are kind of neglected, because as a single parent, as a Black single parent, we have to get two, three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads and get food. We can't sit down and do homework with our kids. We can't go to all of our kids’ events. And that's why sometimes our kids are fighting and having kids early – they're feeling neglected. Single parents have to sacrifice life, work, or child. We shouldn't have to sacrifice family time with our kids to make money. Forty hours should be enough and we should get paid enough to survive so we can get our kids educated. One of the things that I regret not doing – I started out doing when she was younger, but as she got older, I stopped doing – is reading to [my daughter] every night. I used to get Disney books in a set of five or six in the mail and I hate that I couldn't read to her every night because I had to work, clean, wash clothes. That was the part I hate. [Gets emotional.]
What are some of the big barriers keeping Black women from upward economic mobility?
We're told that we can't. This negativity from generation to generation – sometimes the generation before us, it could be our mother or our aunt, will tell us, “You will never get this.” And we don't have that set standard to do better. If we had our grandma and aunt living on Section 8, living on food stamps and making it look easy as the young ones were growing up, we think that was okay – not saying that it's not okay, but things were a struggle for a lot of parents. My parents struggled.
We don't hear that you can do this, you're strong, you're creative, and you're smart. We're only hearing, “Well, if you work at this and only get 16 hours a week, you'll still get $1,000 in food stamps if you have four kids.” There's nothing wrong with having four kids, but as Black women and men, we need to think of bettering ourselves so we can be better than the last people in our group. My grandmother and my mother both had children at the age of 16. I know that's hard, but I didn't want to be like them. My number-one goal was not to have a kid at 16. My second goal was to finish high school without a baby. That was something that was always on my shoulders. My mom and my grandmother are beautiful Black women, and they were strong, but I didn't want to have a baby at a young age. So I had to be a little bit better than them. And that's how, as Black women and Black families, I think we need to have better structure to better ourselves.
I heard you’re working toward starting your own business. What is the business and what are you doing to prepare for that?
That was a journey. [Laughs.] I've always had creative ideas to start a business. But being a single parent, it kind of didn't work out. I came up with five different ideas, came up with names, colors, and business plans. [I was] networking, meeting with African American Chambers, SCORE [mentoring], and just people in those areas. Everyone was saying, “You gotta start with one [business],” but I don't want to start with [just] one! They were like, “No, just one.”
So, I started with one idea which is called Firm Start Up. Firm Start Up is basically an online platform for businesses. I got pretty much all the paperwork together, as far as the initial stuff. But the biggest part I'm having trouble with is the funding. Corona kind of messed that up for me. [Laughs.] But in due time, I'm going to get that together. Every day, I come up with something new to add on to my business to make it bigger and better than the next. I'm excited to get that started.
With all that going on and being an empty nester, what are you the most excited about in this stage of your life?
I'm still struggling with the empty nester thing. Even the dog goes to college – they just left Thursday. He's a little white dog, a Shitzu. And usually when I walk in the door, he greets me. I don't get that no more. I’d love to see my daughter and my dog every day, but I also enjoy knowing they're not here for a good reason. They're at school. I am proud of that. That's the thing that makes me happy.
What are you most passionate about? What makes your soul happy?
I wake up every day – that's the biggest thing. Just waking up and coming up with new ideas for my business. I'm passionate about telling myself that I'm going to be a famous Black woman. [Laughs.] My focus and passion are on making a name for myself, almost like Oprah. It's going to take me some time, but I'm going to be in at least the top 20. [Laughs.] That's another reason I'm working so hard: I'm trying to keep the bills and stuff going, but also get my business going so I can say, “Oh my goodness, I did this.” And I have four other businesses I want to do and I'm excited to do that. So, I tell God, “Please wake me up. Thank you,” and I keep going. I have to stay positive because the negative isn't going to get me anywhere.
What kind of long-term effect do you feel COVID-19 may have on the Black community?
A big damper. When COVID first came out, they were saying Black people couldn’t get it. Sometimes I wonder if people remember taking science class. [Laughs.] It drove me nuts. So if people don't start listening, it's going to kill the Black community. If Black communities don't get on their Ps and Qs to adjust to whatever comes their way, they're going to fall. This is the best time to try to restart. If they don't learn to restart or reset, the problem is not going to get better. We have to learn how to communicate. If we don't learn how to defend each other, it's not going to work. But we have to be strong and stick together and work together at the end of the day.
You mentioned earlier that you're currently paying for your daughter to be in college. Can you talk more about that and how that led to you experiencing homelessness?
In the process of being displaced, my credit score went down. I didn't know I went so far down. I was getting student loans in my name for her because her father decided not to help. He was supposed to help and then the day before, he sent a text saying, “I'm not coming.” So, I had to take all the money I had and decided to be homeless to make sure that she got to school. That was another sacrifice I've made to make sure she succeeds if I'm no longer here. I won't say that I've been here a long time, but I've been here long enough to think I did well because I raised a young lady who turned out really good and I’m proud of that. I just want her to do better than me so she can see more. So I had to take out student loans. They said grants and scholarships are out there, but you have to fill out hundreds to get help. And now that corona's here, we don't know what companies can really help.
I just got approved for another loan I can't afford, so I'm just praying that I don't have to be homeless again. That's why I'm praying the business thing is going to be successful really, really soon. And that's why I'm still doing three jobs. I want her to finish school and have something in her hand saying that she did it. It made it really hard being homeless and getting her education together. And I'm still doing it by myself. But I don't let that discourage me. I just keep going. I've stumbled a couple times but I get back up and go. I gotta set an example for my kid so she can do better than me. Even kids that are not mine, please do better than me. [Laughs.]
Have you had trouble finding safe and affordable housing?
When you look for places here in Cincinnati – I don't care what neighborhood it's in – there are five things they look for: money for your background check, which is $35-60 and sometimes $100; your pay stubs; your rental history; the color of your skin; if you got kids. [Then they] see if you can afford the rent. Rent has gone up so high – all the things they ask for are so unfair. It was so hard and so discouraging. From October [2019] to May [2020], I could not find a place to live.
And the last place I lived at, he lied and said that I owed a whole month's rent, but I didn't. To this day, I'm still fighting that because he has it on my credit as if I didn't pay but I have proof that I paid. I had to pay $22 or $25 in Hamilton County to go to court to show the judge it was paid. And I have to go back to court to file another motion for it to come off my credit, even though I told all the credit bureaus and I told the collection agency that they lied and I have proof. So that's the other thing I'm working on. I've spent about $300 on applications to apply for an apartment that I couldn’t get because he lied. ... That's another reason why I have to make sure my rent is paid on time like clockwork.
You overcame a false eviction. Can you talk about that experience?
I didn't even know until I was looking for a place to live in October [2019]. This nice guy, a white guy, said, “I want to rent to you.” Cool, great. And he wasn't going to charge me an application fee, thank God. And he ran my name through Hamilton County Clerical Courts and it had eviction under my name. I was like, “I was never evicted.” He goes, “Yes, you were.” I was like, “No, I wasn't.”
So I called where I used to live and said I was never evicted so why did you put that I was evicted?
“Well, you were late.”
I said, “But you got the check and you cashed it – I got proof.”
“Well, you were late.”
I kept in contact with the landlord [when I lived there]; we would have two-hour conversations just talking about anything and everything. So he knew I got paid every two weeks at the time. So on that 10th, he got the check but still sent it to his lawyer. And the lawyer charged $300 just to file it in Hamilton County. So when they filed it, it went to the courts – even though they were supposed to cancel it – and it showed as an eviction notice, even though they got the check and they cashed it. So it stayed on my record, but it was dismissed on the documentation.
So this new guy with the house I was applying to rent, he said he saw the dismissal but he still didn't want to have any problems. I said it was dismissed and I never went to court. He goes, “I don't care; I don't want those problems. You're really nice, but you were late on your rent so I don't want to deal with you.” That's the stuff that we go through. I understand that places have to pay their mortgage and their property taxes. And then why pay $300 for an attorney and still mess up a person's credit or a person's life? So when these people go look for new homes or a place to rent, they can't get it. Before corona, I think over 10,000 people in Hamilton County were evicted over the last four or five years. [From 2014 to 2017 in Hamilton County, more than 50,000 people were evicted from their homes.]
And it's so hard for them to find another place to live because it can be false, or one day late, or five minutes late, and it's not fair. And some people have kids – that's why these kids are homeless and their parents are doing drugs or sleeping with different people. Because they feel like there’s nothing else they can possibly do to stay above water because of this situation they had at their last place of residence. And it's really, really, really hard. [In 2017 the national average age of a person experiencing homelessness was 9 years old.]
And now some rental places [make you] pay your rent online. Where I used to live, they wouldn't take money orders in the slot box anymore for whatever reason, and it’s $30 to pay your rent online. That's why people struggle. I can understand maybe $5.99 or $1.95. But $30 to pay your rent online because you took the drop box off the counter? And you have to pay it before they leave at five, but some people work first or second shift, or some people travel. They make it inconvenient for people who have other sorts of lives versus theirs and it's not fair; everybody doesn't work on the same schedule. Everybody doesn't get paid on the same day. So it's not fair that they make you obligated to be on their schedule, which is hard. Just think of the single parents that don't drive. I've known people who have had to have sex with their landlords just so they won't get evicted or the rent could be paid – it shouldn't have to be like that. For Black women, we have to go through that. And it doesn't make sense. They need to have an app for bad landlords. [Laughs.]
But as a Black person, I've gotten looked at, judged if I had kids, judged if I had a dog, judged for what type of car I've had, [judged for] everything while looking for an apartment. Even downtown, this apartment [I was viewing] wasn't worth $975. The washroom they had somewhere down in the basement… it was the most nasty and disgusting thing in the whole wide world. I was like, “You want me to pay how much for this?” And he's like, “It's $975 and you need to give us $75 for a background check.” And some places, I was just like, “Okay, Imma try it because we need a place to live.” But the places I went to and what these landlords were charging and how they judge you? Unbelievable. I could not believe what they do to people looking for new places to rent.
I couldn't even go live in the white neighborhoods because they looked at me and was like, “Nope, you gotta do this and do that before you even fill out the applications. If you don't provide this information, you can't fill it out.” Or if they see what I look like after sending the application, they're like, “Oh, sorry, we've already rented it out to somebody.” And then if I look online, it's still available. I mean, it's unbelievable what you have to go through just to find a place. You shouldn't be so discriminative based on what [renters] look like or if they have kids. I know you only got one place to rent out, but if I'm here, I have the money; I have a job; what else matters? I just don't get it. I don't understand why people are like that to this day. People need to grow up and come to reality. We all need to be together no matter what color you are – let's work together. That's all I wish we could do.
What makes a home, a home for you?
Decorating it and making it smell the way you want it to smell. Right now I have peppermint and lavender; it smells so good and it’s relaxing. You can set it up the way that you want so you can be comfortable and relaxed. No matter if you live in an apartment or a studio, that's your kingdom; that's your palace. And then when you cook, like spaghetti or something, and you be like, “Oh, my God, that smells so good.” Just to have your own home to be comfortable and know that you're safe.
Tell us about an influential woman in your life.
Tiffany Haddish. She's phenomenal. She didn't let anybody stop her: men, not having a home, not having enough money. She just kept going. And she’s living her life, laughing and smiling the whole time, and look where she is. A beautiful Black woman doing her thing with movies and books. I just want to be the same. She's so funny; she's doing well. I'm not even talking about “rich” well, but she's “blessed” well. And I saw on Instagram she has a garden, like a vegetable garden. So one day, I tell myself, I don't want no big mansion (if it happens it happens) but I want a nice little house and my own little garden and I'll be like, “Tiff, do you want to come over for some greens or some cornbread?” I just want to do something like that. I just want to be polite. Even now if I had my own little house, I'd invite her over for some greens. [Laughs.]
Continue exploring “Questioning the American Dream: A Look at the Economic Mobility of Black Women in Cincinnati” at womenofcincy.org/economic-mobility.