By Geoff Raker

Rolling With The Punches

Alicia Reece likes a good fight. Her lifelong hobby is rollerskating, and she first made her mark in high school basketball. But it's a sport Reece only briefly pretended to participate in -- boxing -- that best illustrates her real passion.

In 2001, during the first city elections after the uprising earlier that year in Over-the-Rhine, "healing," "unity" and "reconciliation" were the buzzwords constantly used by most candidates. But in one of the campaign's most talked about -- and thereby most successful -- commercials, Reece took a different tack.

The ad showed Reece warming up in a boxing ring, promising to fight. It wasn't the work of political consultants trying to concoct a memorable image, according to Jene Galvin, a Democratic Party activist and CityBeat columnist. The idea came straight from the candidate herself.

"We sat one morning at her campaign headquarters during her second council race, and the small group around the table was trying and ditching one TV commercial idea after another," Galvin says. "During a silent moment, Alicia looks at me and says, 'Jene, is it a bad thing to be portrayed as a fighter in politics?'

" 'Are you kidding?' I answered. 'As long as it resonates, meaning it's true, it's the best way to be seen.' Alicia then describes a commercial in which she dons female boxer's togs and boxes at the camera with video type reinforcing the message that she'll 'fight for you.' Wow! A great candidate-made commercial that helped her jump to No. 2 that year (in council election results)."

A tiger emerges
In the arcana of Cincinnati political structures, finishing second in a city council race is a victory. Voters elect a field of nine every two years.

While a second-place finish in the mayoral primary Sept. 13 would also be a success, thrusting her into the runoff election, second won't be enough on Nov. 8, when voters pick the city's next mayor.

If Reece wins the job, it won't be because she raised the most money or because she has a record of picking popular causes. A recent WCPO (Channel 9) poll showed her with the highest negative rating -- 36 percent -- of all seven candidates for mayor. If she wins, it will be because she fought for it.

Struggle is more than a reality of her political career; it's central to Reece's value system and self-concept, something she admires in and of itself.

"To me, what makes people great is not what they achieve but the trials and tribulations they come through," she says.

Ask her what trials and tribulations she's known, and Reece has a ready list. When she was a child, her family lived in Westwood, one of only four African-American families in her neighborhood, she says. After finishing Mount Airy Elementary School, she went to Withrow High School for its international studies program.

"I took two buses every day," Reece says. "I would have to get up earlier than all my friends to go to school. What was amazing was when I would get home, people would say, 'What are kids like on the East side of town?' I kept saying, 'What's the big deal? We talk about the same things. We're all kids.' "

Crossing the storied east/west divide in Cincinnati was a big deal in young Alicia's mind. Twenty years later, her father, Steven Reece, paints it as the first of many struggles in her development, along with her decision to attend college in Louisiana, where she had no relatives.

"Alicia, to me, has strength in her ability to live in a diverse environment in Westwood and Mount Airy, then moving to Withrow on the East side of Cincinnati, then leaving to go South," he says. "Her perspective is different from many people's."

At Withrow, Alicia Reece played basketball. The team's mascot, the Tigers, was an apt model for her own determination.

"I had to work really hard at it," she says. "I didn't have any natural ability at basketball. I didn't even know why they had two baskets. My father used to have a rule: If you're going to do something, you have to do the best you can. That became my work ethic for everything. Every morning at 5 a.m. my daddy would show me the rules of the game, technique."

The hard work paid off. In her senior year, Reece became captain of the Withrow girls' basketball team, and the Tigers won the city championship.

Photo By Sean Hughes/photopresse.com

Alicia Reece believes the measure of a person "is not what they achieve but the trials and tribulations they come through."

'Are you sure?'
After graduation, Reece surprised her family by her choice of colleges. She wanted to go to Grambling State University, a historically black institution.

"I knew I had some leadership abilities, but I wanted to start outside Cincinnati," she says. "I went down South, my first time away from home. A lot of folks said I couldn't do it, because I'm from the North. I didn't have any relatives down there."

Reece didn't let the unfamiliarity last, according to Audrey Warren, adviser for the Student Government Association and coordinator of special projects at Grambling. Warren met Reece when Reece was a sophomore on the basketball team and active in campus radio.

"She gained popularity on the campus very fast," Warren says.

In 1992, Reece's senior year, students elected her Miss Grambling.

"She was from the North and went South and won," Steve Reece says. "That's the first time someone from the North won."

But her ascendance to the throne was just the beginning. Reece transformed the role of queen from unofficial ambassador to campus activist.

"We traveled the country together and became very close," Warren says. "I have worked with a lot of queens. She was a different kind of queen. I had not experienced a student who was so innovative. She had so many community service projects. The typical queen just smiles and waves. I was so impressed by the kinds of things, at her age, that she was interested in becoming a part of or spearheading.

"She took it to the hilt. She took every advantage of having that title to visit local politicians to get them to visit the university and donate funds to the university. She got a lot of mileage from that one title."

When Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, a one-time candidate for governor of Louisiana, targeted the black college, Reece entered the fray. Duke proposed turning Grambling into a prison, according to Reece. She reacted by organizing students.

"I organized a get-out-the-vote campaign," she says. "I created this program called 'Vote Where You Live.' We organized 7,000 young people to register and vote."

Her mother, Barbara Reece, marvels at the things her daughter has done.

"It shocked me when she came out of her shell to do the things she's done," she says. "It was like seeing a new person."

Alicia Reece's political work as a college student clearly had a long-term impact.

"I love the hands-on, the actual grassroots campaigning, how you turn people out and register them and mobilize them," she says.

So did the more subtle lessons she gleaned while attending a historically black institution.

Photo By Sean Hughes/photopresse.com

(L-R) Steven Reece, Alicia Reece and basketball star Cheryl Miller in 1987.

"I learned in college about self-determination and self-confidence," she says. "I remember my teacher saying, 'You'd better get used to lifting yourself up.' "

Given the circumstances under which she first practiced the political arts -- as an outsider in a student popularity contest, as an African-American confronting a KKK stooge -- it isn't surprising that Reece casts her entry into professional politics, running for city council in 1999, as yet another personal ordeal.

"Running my first time was a real trial," she says. "We didn't have any money. There were a lot of doors slammed in my face. I had to deal with people constantly saying, 'You can't win.' I even had to deal with my father saying, 'Are you sure that's what you want to do?' "

'It was my mom'
Asked to provide the names of friends who might be willing to talk about her, Reece gives a list that is heavy with politicians -- former Councilwoman Marian Spencer, political consultant Brewster Rhodes, a county commissioner in Alabama, a congresswoman from California. Asked to give the names of personal friends instead, Reece says, "Those are my friends."

Although much is made of Reece's relationship with her father, it was her mother who encouraged her during the campaign to become Miss Grambling.

"My husband was kind of hesitating," Barbara Reece says. "He wanted Alicia to concentrate on her school work. She kind of sneaked into the race. Alicia had to call home every day and let us know she was alright. She would talk to her dad about school, but she talked to me about Miss Grambling."

Steven Reece says he has been surprised over the years that people have overlooked his wife's influence. He says a CityBeat interview for this story was the first time a reporter had talked to Barbara Reece about their daughter.

"Alicia's relationship with her mother has always been very close," he says.

Barbara Reece not only taught Alicia how to rollerskate but directed much of her educational development. It was her mother who insisted she take Spanish in elementary and high school, Alicia Reece says.

"She thought if I had Spanish as a second language it would help me," she says. "Actually I could spell better in Spanish than I could in English at the time."

Although no one expected her to go so far from home, it was her mother who pushed her to leave town for college, Alicia Reece says.

"It was my mom who put her foot down and said, 'You're going to go away for college, ' " she says.

Alicia Reece is the oldest of three children. Efforts to interview her siblings, Tiffany and Steven Jr., were unsuccessful.

"They're not willing to do an interview," she says. "They're quiet, behind-the-scenes people."

The family runs a handful of small businesses, including Integrity Hall, a banquet facility in Bond Hill, and Communiplex, a marketing and public relations firm of which Alicia is vice president.

The family is close knit, gathering for every birthday, always attending youth sports games when the children were involved, collaborating and praying together before all major decisions, according to Reece's parents.

Photo By Sean Hughes/photopresse.com

Steve and Barbara Reece say their daughter's childhood education exposed her to diverse groups of people.

"If nobody is there, the family is there," Barbara Reece says. "If you can't depend on anybody, the five of us are there. I'm a stickler for family, because I found out when I became ill, if you can't count on anybody, you can count on family. When everything else is gone, all you've got is your family."

Having requested an interview with Barbara Reece, CityBeat got a bonus; Steven Reece joined the conversation from the start. The intense family unity is hard to miss -- but so is an attitude of "us against them."

"Alicia didn't grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth," Barbara Reece says. "We had hard times. We had to handle it. She always worked hard in everything she did. She was a very quiet person, even though she was a leader in her high school class. She's very competitive and independent."

When Reece decided to run for city council in 1999, it was the result of a suggestion from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), she says.

"Maxine Waters came in for Roxanne Qualls' fund-raiser," Reece says. "This was my political hero. She said, 'I've been watching you. You want more young people to get involved. They need a candidate. You're the candidate.' I kind of brushed it off. I prayed about it."

Having decided to run, Reece turned immediately to her family.

"Alicia shocked all of us," Steven Reece says. "I was in the bed sleeping. Barbara was cooking. She said, 'Daddy, you have helped a lot of people run for office. I've been thinking I'd like to run for city council.'

"I was not in favor of it. That's a very difficult race. She said, 'Well, if you can help everybody else, why not help me?' I wanted to make sure she really wanted to do it, because she always talked about owning a media outlet."

'We have to go'
Steven Reece is a former Democratic congressional candidate and aide to former Mayor Ted Berry, Cincinnati's first black mayor. He managed the Rev. Jesse Jackson's local presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988.

He's also the target of some of the harshest backbiting in Cincinnati political gossip, which holds that Alicia Reece is merely the instrument of her father's political ambitions and ideas.

He bristles at the notion. While many point to the number of African-American men who have fathered children and then abandoned them, he is criticized for being too active in his children's lives, Steven Reece says.

"Here I am staying with my family, and what do people say? 'Steve Reece is terrible,' " he says. "People say I tell Alicia what to do. How can I tell her what to do? I don't whisper in her ear, 'Vote for this' or 'Vote for that.' She's a grown woman. She makes her own decisions."

Both of the other Democratic mayoral candidates also have famous fathers. State Sen. Mark Mallory is the son of William Mallory Sr., who was Ohio House Majority Leader. City Councilman David Pepper is the son of retired Procter & Gamble Chairman John Pepper. But Steven Reece reaches for a larger metaphor to describe his own family's political efforts.

"How are we different from the Tafts or the Kennedys or the Bushes?" he asks.

Galvin, a longtime friend of the family, has a similar view.

"About her dad politically mentoring her so tightly that some criticize it, I have a different take," he says. "He's one of the best political brains in Cincinnati, so she'd be nuts not to hold his ideas closer than anyone else talking to her. And his helping her is no different than Tom Luken guiding Charlie or Bill Mallory doing so with Mark or John Pepper helping David or Joe Kennedy pushing and channeling all his political sons."

Photo By Sean Hughes/photopresse.com

Reece campaigns from a convertible during the 4th of July parade in Northside.

Alicia Reece doesn't hesitate to acknowledge her father's role in her political career.

"Obviously I grew up in politics," she says. "Dad did work for Ted Berry, who I think was the greatest mayor ever. I wouldn't be here without my dad bringing me to City Hall. I liked to go to Jerry Springer's office on the third floor because everybody was young up there."

Even as a youngster, Reece learned, politics was about struggle.

"I remember when we desegregated the police department," she says. "That was not a friendly meeting. Mr. Berry told my dad he didn't have to go up there: 'You're young. You have a family.' I remember my Mom saying, 'We have to go up there. If we don't stand up for change, who will?' "

Their determination to go to the tense meeting in city council chambers shows a commitment to ideals, but also a family that sees itself as unified in the face of adversity. That quality has well served the Reece family, which has found itself under fire for much of Alicia's six years on council.

Reece and her father were defendants in a lawsuit filed in 2002 by Angela Leisure, the mother of the youth whose death set off the 2001 uprising in Over-the-Rhine. Leisure accused the pair of interfering in her wrongful death lawsuit against the city and accused Alicia Reece of misusing the office of vice mayor to benefit her family's business interests (see "Reeces' Pieces," issue of May 2-8, 2002).

Reece was also named in an ethics complaint accusing her of using her office to benefit her father's business interests in the redevelopment of Seymour Avenue (see "More Conflict for Reece," issue of May 30-June 5, 2002).

Leisure later dropped her lawsuit. The redevelopment case is still pending in U.S. District Court.

In 2002, family crises made Reece snap. When CityBeat columnist Kathy Y. Wilson compared Reece and her father to singer LaToya Jackson and her father (see Your Negro Tour Guide, issue of April 18-24, 2002), Reece came to CityBeat to confront Editor John Fox and threatened to have black firefighters silence Wilson. After the threat became publicly known, Reece apologized at a city council meeting, giving a bizarre interpretation of what Wilson had written.

"The column compared my relationship to my father to that of Joe and LaToya Jackson," Reece said at the time. "LaToya nationally accused her father of incest, and I took the CityBeat column to be a thinly veiled attempt to imply the same thing about my relationship with my dad."

Reece said she met with Fox at an especially difficult time.

"Just hours before that meeting, I learned that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer," she said in her statement to council. "She already suffers from diabetes and multiple sclerosis. In retrospect, it was not prudent for me to have any discussions about the article at that time. I felt my family and I were under attack from a number of directions."

The apology came just after the filing of Leisure's lawsuit, the subject that dominated the second half of Reece's apology in council chambers (see "Sorry Statement," issue of May 16-22, 2002).

"It is a political attack more than a legal attack...," she told council. "Armed with the truth and good lawyers, I am confident that my dad and I will prevail in this litigation."

Last week Reece said she and Fox have "different accounts" of their meeting and restated her belief that the column implied incest with her father. But Reece said she and Wilson have both moved on, pointing to a recent encounter at The Greenwich.

During a candidates' debate Aug. 13 that Wilson moderated, she inadvertently introduced Reece as mayor, then laughed at her mistake. Reece replied in good humor.

Photo By Sean Hughes/photopresse.com

(L-R) Steven Reece, Alicia Reece and the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984.

"I accept the endorsement," she said.

The latest controversy for the Reece family is a complaint accusing them of living in Green Township while registered to vote in the city as residents of apartments at Integrity Hall. If true, Reece would lose her eligibility to serve on city council, let alone run for mayor, and could face criminal charges.

But the accusation comes from Nate Livingston Jr., whose idea of discourse includes sniping about Reece's hairdo.

After a hearing Aug. 18, the Hamilton County Board of Elections scheduled another meeting about the complaint on Friday.

Grasping at history
Reece has a bachelor's degree in mass communications and co-hosts a talk show with her father on WDBZ (1230 AM).

She knows the importance of self-promotion, perhaps too well. A self-described history buff, Reece sometimes seems desperate to establish herself as a major achiever.

Her biography on the city of Cincinnati's Web site is stuffed with her "youngest" accomplishments.

"Alicia Reece became the youngest woman in history to be elected (at large) to Cincinnati City Council at the age of 28, in November of 1999," the biography says. "She was re-elected to City Council (at-large) by placing first in 16 out of 26 wards and became one of the youngest African-American female vice mayors in the country. Ms. Reece has been recognized at the state and national level as she became one of the youngest females to make the short list for lieutenant governor on the Ohio Democratic ticket in 2002 and was courted for a run for Secretary of State."

She doesn't hesitate to ascribe historical import to herself, sometimes grasping at the absurd.

"History in the making: Vice Mayor Alicia Reece makes Groove Newz as first (roller) skater to run for strong mayor of Cincinnati," her campaign Web site proclaims.

Her March 5 campaign announcement was equally grandiose: "Reece launches historic candidacy to build a progressive and more inclusive city."

Anyone who talks as much as Reece does -- a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer once chided her for thanking 37 people, including her hairdresser, in a single speech -- is bound to trip over her tongue from time to time. In 2003 she asserted this shocking axiom: "Illness is a leading cause of death."

Her ambition sometimes seems the most important cause in Reece's platform. In the March 9 issue of Black Enterprise, she laid out her three-phase plan for changing Cincinnati, beginning with her 1999 election to council.

"I became a council member in 1999 because I thought it was important to get involved and be a part of a system to change some of the things that were occurring in our city," she said. "Phase one was to begin to understand how it works and how to make changes. I became vice mayor so I could learn the system, run meetings, and learn how to get legislation passed. Now it's time for phase three, which would empower me to implement the vision I have for the city."

Asked to assess incumbent Mayor Charlie Luken's performance since the 2001 election, Reece answers by praising his decision to appoint her vice mayor. Otherwise the only praise she offers Luken is for his handling of the 2001 uprising -- ironically, one of the chief sources of criticism of him.

"When we had the unrest -- some people call it a 'riot' -- I went to his office and had a chance to see how he gave himself a timetable and didn't rush when people were saying, 'We need the National Guard,' " she says. "When you call in the National Guard, obviously a lot of people are going to get hurt. Bringing in the National Guard means 1960s riots and bodies in the streets. I thought that was the right thing to do, to not rush in."

Photo By Sean Hughes/photopresse.com

At her office in City Hall, Reece outlines her plan for revitalizing Cincinnati.

Otherwise her allusions to Luken's final term -- he isn't running for re-election -- have the feel of oblique disdain.

"The next mayor's got to be more hands-on," Reece says. "If I want the police out walking the streets, I will also be out walking the streets. ... We don't have a voice in the mayor's office saying small businesses matter. ... During the collaborative agreement, I was the person in negotiations, not the mayor. I was brought into it because the mayor was out of town. He was at Spring Training. They told me everybody was going to walk (on strike). I had a sweat suit on. I was at Pizza Hut. I had to go to the Cintas Center and find the right words to keep everybody negotiating."

'I didn't hide'
It's hard to deny that Reece is a fighter. She's taken some ballsy stands.

When an angry crowd took over city council chambers before the streets erupted in 2001, Reece gushed, "I love it!" Her reaction to the outrage over the police shooting of an unarmed black teen angered some whites, who accused her of pandering to the black vote, but it contrasted with Luken's response, which was to leave the meeting. The first violent confrontation with police came hours later.

"The unrest didn't happen just in a year," Reece says. "It was many years of lack of attention to race relations in the city. It was many years of some neighborhoods that had no economic investment. I barely had time to unpack my boxes. But there's no ducking, there's no hiding on tough decisions. That council didn't hide, and I didn't hide. I was one of the few people who walked the streets and saw hopelessness face to face."

In 2003, Luken pushed a $52 million subsidy for the Convergys Corp. through council. Reece cast the lone vote in opposition (see "The Convergys Giveaway," issue of July 30-Aug. 5, 2003).

But it was the civil rights boycott of Cincinnati that proved the greatest test of her political character. A determined cadre of activists, including Livingston, succeeded in getting Bill Cosby, Wynton Marsalis and author Barbara Ehrenreich to cancel appearances in the city.

Reece, sometimes accused of using race for political advantage, could have scored easy points by supporting the boycott. But instead she took the initiative to combat the effort, traveling across the country to urge people to visit Cincinnati.

"This is my city," she says. "I love my city. You will not find any of my opponents who will ever go against their special interest groups. If they are endorsed by the FOP, they will not stand up and say a police officer was wrong, even if the police chief says he was wrong."

Reece's objection to the boycott was mostly a matter of tactics, not philosophy. She says she worried about the people who would suffer the greatest economic impact from the boycott -- service employees and small business owners.

"It's not that I'm against all boycotts, because I have participated in some during my lifetime with Rev. Jackson," she says.

While combating the boycott, she worked to enact some of its demands, she says, pointing to her work to pass a living wage ordinance, improve funding for public health care and enact the collaborative agreement on police reform.

"What I did was go down the list, absent any personalities, and tried to get things done while still keeping people working," Reece says. "My position was let me go inside. Let me work on the legislation."

Defending her position on the boycott, she reaches for antecedents in the civil rights struggle.

"Martin Luther King marched," she says. "Adam Clayton Powell got the legislation done."

'The city is moving'
Reece knows Cincinnati is in trouble.

"When people talk about population loss, I'm not surprised," she says. "We've been through riots. We've been through boycotts. What do you expect is going to happen?"

Her concern about the homicide rate is deeply personal. One of her best friends, Aubrey Rose, was shot to death, albeit in the suburban village of Lincoln Heights. She learned about the homicide on a cell phone call to her parents while driving home from vacation.

"They were talking about him in the past tense," Reece says. "He was murdered. I remember pulling over on the side of the road. I opened the door and started vomiting."

Reece told the story at a funeral earlier this year for a homicide victim in Cincinnati.

"I shared that with them to show all the emotions I had inside, because sometimes people don't think elected officials have feelings and emotions," she says.

Like all the candidates for mayor, Reece says she intends to address the problem of violent crime.

"I believe I have the ability to connect with the masses," she says. "Everybody wants to be safe and everybody wants to be treated fairly. If we get to the point of safety and fairness, the police could stand with the community when an officer is wrong. As a community, we can't be silent with all of the gun violence and young black men killing each other. We have to speak out, and I'm expecting the same people who speak out when there's an incident involving the police."

But dealing with the city's problems is just the start of what Reece hopes to do if elected. She often says she is a person of action, and she seems determined to remake Cincinnati's image in the same light.

"I'm action-oriented," she says. "I'm not real big on a lot of studies. Cincinnati has almost 200 plans that are sitting on shelves gathering dust. When it comes to planning, we're the best in the nation. We can out-plan anybody. But we're short on action. Nobody wants to take the risk.

"When we talk about Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati, the difference is Northern Kentucky is a risk-taker. Newport on the Levee is going to fail in the next five years. But by the time it fails, they will be onto something else. If we aren't careful, we will still be planning."

Reece argues that Cincinnati's troubles can be the impetus for making it a great city.

"That's what makes Cincinnati great," she says. "People will say Cincinnati had turmoil, it was a divided city, it had unrest. But now look at where it's going. We see that now in Atlanta. Atlanta was the home of the KKK and the home of civil rights leaders. You can't be more divided than that. Because of the changes, now you have folks who are flocking to Atlanta."

She revels in highlighting Cincinnati's opportunities for tourism and recreation.

"Fountain Square has been a place for free speech," she says. "But it should also be a place for fun. We're not only coming when there's a cause. We're going to eat together. We're going to listen to music together. In Chicago, young professionals hang out at hotels. If you look at the Hyatt in Chicago, it's got the same makeup as our Hyatt. The only difference is they're packed in Chicago, but in Cincinnati people are running to get home.

"We used to talk about Indianapolis being Nap Town. Now people say, 'Man! Indianapolis is moving.' My goal is to have people say, 'Cincinnati went through some hard times, but man that city is moving.' " ©