Polish Americans deserve respect, not blame for a crime their ancestors didn’t commit.
In a grotesque display of historical revisionism and community exploitation, the Black Environmental Leaders (BEL) have announced a series of remembrance events for John Jordan, a man they claim was lynched in Cleveland in 1911. Their centerpiece? An Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) Dedication Ceremony at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. A historically Polish enclave Slavic Village with no connection to the alleged crime. This is not just a misstep—it’s a deliberate, vile attempt to smear a proud immigrant community with a narrative that doesn’t belong to it. Let’s rip this apart and expose the truth.
Black Environmental Leaders’ Campaign Falsely Implicates Slavic Village in a Distorted History
The Black Environmental Leaders (BEL) have launched a campaign to commemorate John Jordan, a man they claim was lynched in Cleveland in 1911, with a centerpiece Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) Dedication Ceremony at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Cleveland Ohio, as reported by Signal Cleveland. This initiative is a blatant misrepresentation of history that unjustly targets Slavic Village, a historically Polish neighborhood with no connection to Jordan’s death. By staging their events in this community and inflating Jordan’s death into a lynching narrative, BEL distorts facts, exploits a tragedy for publicity, and sows division in a vulnerable neighborhood. Let’s dissect this with verifiable evidence and expose the harm.
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| signalcleveland |
The Facts of John Jordan’s Death
BEL claims John Jordan was lynched in Cuyahoga County, the only such case in the region’s history. Their story, amplified by Signal Cleveland, portrays a young Black man chased and killed by a white mob for stealing cherries from a farmer’s orchard on June 27, 1911. But contemporary accounts paint a different picture. According to a detailed Cleveland.com report, Jordan and two others were caught stealing from John Decker’s orchard in Brooklyn Township, near modern-day West 98th Street and Lorain Avenue. A mob of up to 500 pursued them, and during the chase, Jordan allegedly fired a revolver, wounding a farmer. The mob then shot and killed him.
The Equal Justice Initiative defines lynching's as “public acts of racial terrorism” meant to terrorize Black communities. However, scholarly analysis, such as Marilyn K. Howard’s 1999 dissertation Black Lynching in the Promised Land: Mob Violence in Ohio 1876–1916, cited in academic reviews, argues Jordan’s death doesn’t fit the traditional lynching model—no rope, no tree, no premeditated ritual. It was a spontaneous mob killing triggered by a crime in progress. The Cleveland Gazette, an African American newspaper, reported on July 8, 1911, that Jordan’s actions, including shooting at the farmer, escalated the situation. While the mob’s violence was inexcusable, calling it a lynching oversimplifies a complex incident and serves BEL’s agenda over truth.
Slavic Village: A Polish Enclave Wrongly Dragged In
BEL’s choice to host their EJI marker dedication on June 22, 2025, at Elizabeth Baptist Church is a calculated insult to a neighborhood with no ties to Jordan’s death. Slavic Village, historically called Warszawa, was a Polish immigrant stronghold in 1911, built by families who fled European oppression. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History documents its growth as a hub for Polish and Czech immigrants, centered on Fleet Avenue with landmarks like St. Stanislaus Church, founded in 1873. The West Side site of Jordan’s death, a semi-rural area in 1911, had no documented Polish involvement in the mob, per Cleveland.com and other reports.
Why Slavic Village? BEL’s talk of “racial and cultural barriers” in the neighborhood, as quoted in Signal Cleveland, falsely implies Polish Americans are complicit in a 1911 tragedy. This is baseless and inflammatory. By placing their marker here, BEL smears a community that’s already struggling—U.S. Census data shows a 34% poverty rate in Slavic Village in 2020. A ceremony at the actual site, like West 98th Street, would be honest. Instead, BEL’s choice fuels division and paints Polish Slavic Village as a scapegoat.
BEL’s True Aim: Publicity, Not Truth
Founded in 2020 by Jacquie Gillon, BEL claims to champion environmental justice, but their website is light on specifics, offering buzzwords like “advocate, inform, incubate” with scant evidence of environmental impact. The John Jordan project, tied to EJI’s Community Remembrance Project, is a publicity stunt. Their events—art workshops, youth summits, luncheons—are less about honoring Jordan and more about boosting BEL’s profile and securing donations, as Signal Cleveland’s fundraising pitch reveals. The EJI marker in Slavic Village is a prop for their brand, not a call for historical clarity.
EJI’s Complicity in the Misrepresentation
EJI’s Lynching in America report, which documents over 4,500 lynchings, uses a broad definition—any racially charged mob killing—that can obscure context. Jordan’s case, one of 15 in Ohio, was initially listed as “unknown” in their records, only identified through local research by Hope Lane and Terry Metter, per Cleveland.com. EJI’s Community Remembrance Project encourages groups like BEL to erect markers, but their oversight is lax, allowing distorted narratives to take root. By backing BEL’s project, EJI endorses a framing that exaggerates Jordan’s death and misplaces its commemoration.
BEL’s campaign cheapens the memory of true lynching victims by equating Jordan’s death with Southern lynchings—public, ritualized murders designed to terrorize. It also harms Slavic Village, a community of Polish immigrants who faced their own discrimination in early 20th-century Cleveland. By falsely tying this neighborhood to a West Side tragedy, BEL risks inflaming racial tensions instead of fostering healing. Polish Americans deserve respect, not blame for a crime their ancestors didn’t commit.
Conclusion: Demand Historical Accuracy
The Black Environmental Leaders’ John Jordan campaign is a shameful distortion of history that unfairly targets Slavic Village. Jordan’s death was a tragic mob killing, not a lynching by historical standards. Holding events in Slavic Village, far from the West Side site, falsely ties an innocent neighborhood to a crime it didn’t commit. BEL should relocate their ceremony to the actual location, present the full historical context, and cease exploiting a Polish community for their agenda. Cleveland’s history demands truth, not divisive narratives.
Sources:
- Signal Cleveland, “Community remembrance events scheduled for John Jordan,” April 25, 2025, https://signalcleveland.org/black-environmental-leaders-release-schedule-of-community-remembrance-events-for-john-jordan
- Cleveland.com, “‘Unknown’ no more: The story of Cleveland’s only documented lynching victim,” February 12, 2022, https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/02/unknown-no-more-the-story-of-clevelands-only-documented-lynching-victim-chased-and-killed-in-1911-after-stealing-cherries-from-west-side-orchard.html
- Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, “Slavic Village,” Case Western Reserve University, https://case.edu/search-results/?q=Slavic+Village
- Equal Justice Initiative, “Lynching in America,” https://eji.org/reports/lynching-in-america/
- U.S. Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Cleveland city, Ohio,” 2020, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/clevelandcityohio
- https://www.blackenvironmentalleaders.org/
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