The Gold Ticket

It is only a 3-by-9 inch slip of goldenrod paper, but the Gold Ticket carries considerable weight with many of Cincinnati's African-American voters.

For decades, the Baptist Ministers Conference of Cincinnati, an unabashedly political organization of black ministers, has put out the Gold Ticket just before Cincinnati council elections.

You can be assured that every person who parked a car in the parking lots of Cincinnati's black churches Sunday morning found a Gold Ticket flier stuck in his or her windshield after worship services were over; and those same church-going folks may well have heard a word or two from the pulpit about who to vote for on Tuesday.

Everyone who attended Saturday morning's candidate breakfast at Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Avondale had a Gold Ticket adorning his or her car.

The interesting part about this year's Gold Ticket is that there is no mayoral candidate listed - just five African-American city council candidates. There are three incumbents, one from each political party - Democrat Laketa Cole, Republican Sam Malone, and Charterite Christopher Smitherman. Two non-incumbents made the list - Damon Lynch III and Wendell P. Young.