Columbus is growing by leaps and bounds. So why is it 700 years behind in racial equality?

By Danae King
The Columbus Dispatch

When it comes to racial parity, Columbus lags behind other cities — by hundreds of years.

A study shows that it will take Black Columbus residents 700 years to get opportunities to improve their wealth and quality of life equal to their white neighbors.

On average, it will take Black Americans 300 years to catch up, said Duwain Pinder, a partner at the Columbus office of consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which did the research released earlier this year.

So why the 400-year difference for Columbus? Pinder said centuries of discrimination have caused huge differences in how much residents of each race earn annually in Columbus, whether or not they own a home, what level of education they receive and what opportunities they can access.

To arrive at the gap between races in different American cities, the study analyzed how all residents fared when it comes to standards of living, financial stability, quality education, stable homes, and job and skills development opportunities.

“Our gaps are larger than other places,” Pinder said, and they’re widening as the pace of progress for Black Columbus residents remains slow. “Columbus is growing economically; it’s thriving, but that growth is not being equally distributed.”

Columbus also wasn’t having “real conversations” about race and equity when other cities were, said Stephanie Hightower, president and CEO of the Columbus Urban League, who said she wasn’t shocked by how long it will take for Black Columbus residents to catch up.

Those conversations didn’t really start locally until after the murder of George Floyd Jr. in May 2020 by since-convicted Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and three other officers that sparked social justice protests against police brutality and calls for racial equality, she said.