Buckeye-Shaker residents had been meeting monthly with Huntington Bank officials, trying to persuade them to reopen the Buckeye Road branch. 

Sometimes the residents left the meetings optimistic that the shuttered branch would again welcome customers. At other times, they had a feeling that the green and white Huntington signs would be coming down. Keep Huntington on Buckeye, the residents’ committee lobbying to reopen the branch, knew it was rare for any bank to reconsider its decision to shut a branch. 

On Monday, Huntington called a meeting with residents. Since it was less than two weeks after the monthly meeting, many of them suspected bank officials would announce the fate of the branch. The residents were seated in a room at the nonprofit Providence House on Buckeye Road waiting for a Huntington official to tell them what would become of the branch. 

Jerrod Amir Shakir was among the committee members waiting. He lives in Buckeye-Shaker and wanted his neighborhood branch to reopen. His home mortgage is with Huntington.

“Many of the meetings felt contentious,” Shakir said. “There was a lot of eye-rolling, and people were kind of holding the line. But the meeting before last was one of the best. Everyone was sort of amicable with each other. I wasn’t sure what to think.”

Then, Sean Richardson, Huntington’s regional president in Northeast Ohio, told the residents the branch would reopen at the end of October. After 20 years in the neighborhood, it was staying put.

The residents couldn’t contain their happiness.

“There were tears of joy and I was really excited,” Shakir said. “It was as if we had won a championship ring.”

One could argue that they got something even better. The residents proved that everyday people can fight back and win. Through organization and persistence, they were able to persuade everyone from elected officials to apathetic neighbors, and eventually bank officials, that the branch should reopen.

“I think it’s important that people understand the importance and the power of their voice,” said the Rev. Jimmy Gates, pastor of Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church, part of the successful lobbying effort to reopen the bank. “What we did over the last eight months can be a model that can be patterned throughout this country, throughout this world.”

Residents pushed back against the decision to close Huntington’s Buckeye branch 

Late last year, Huntington officials announced that the Buckeye Road branch would permanently close. Mary Boyle was among the customers who were ready to push back against it. The former Cuyahoga County commissioner and former state representative ended up at Huntington on Buckeye after the branch of another bank on nearby Shaker Square, where she was a customer, closed.

She had unsuccessfully fought the closing of that branch.

“I then go to Huntington and this was happening all over again,” Boyle said. 

And again, she was ready to fight. It was the principle of the matter. 

“I didn’t have hope and optimism,” Boyle said. “I was sure that they were going to walk away, given the history of what happens in many neighborhoods.”

A Signal Cleveland analysis showed that banks closed branches at twice the rate in Cleveland than in the suburbs.

Huntington officials said they were closing the bank because of high crime in the neighborhood, some of which had spilled onto bank property. Most of the residents didn’t accept that reason.

Gates, who banks at the branch, said he joined the fight to save it  because he believes disinvestment from city neighborhoods needs to stop. His church, in the nearby Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, has accounts at Huntington Buckeye. Gates said some of his parishioners without cars live near the branch and banked there because they could walk. They were irate that Huntington wanted to close the branch. So was he.

“I felt that once again, here in the African American community, that corporate America is turning a blind eye to us — as if we don’t need services like everybody else!” Gates said.

“I’ve seen grocery stores close,” he said. “I’ve seen banks close. I’ve seen pharmacies close. It has to stop. The narrative has to change.”

Keep Huntington on Buckeye mapped out its strategy of organizing residents, enlisting community groups to the cause, persuading elected officials to support them and contacting bank regulators.

In October 2023, shortly after Boyle received the letter Huntington sent to account holders telling them the branch would be closing in a few months, she attended a community meeting sponsored by the nonprofit Neighborhood Connections. Robert Render III, a precinct committeeman and president of the East 128^th Street Block Club Association, was also at the meeting. He banks at the branch and the block club has an account there. He had received the same letter as Boyle.

They told those at the meeting that they were ready to fight the branch closing. They relied on subsequent meetings to help in forming the residents’ committee and getting the word out about the effort to keep the branch in business.

An early victory was Huntington’s decision to withdraw its application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to permanently close the bank. Bank officials said that the branch would temporarily close in February. It could reopen in six months if the city came up with a safety plan. 

The community and others eagerly supported keeping the branch open

Early on, Boyle could tell the endeavor to save Huntington Buckeye was different from her past effort to save a branch. Keep Huntington on Buckeye didn’t have to make a hard sell to win people to their cause.

Shirley Thompson, who owns Rudy’s Mini Mart on Buckeye Road, banks at the branch, which is only a few minutes from her business. As an entrepreneur, she uses the branch frequently. Once the branch closed, Thompson often had to drive a few miles out of her way to other branches. The ATM at the branch remained open, but that didn’t always meet her needs as a business owner, especially when she needed to speak with a manager.

As soon as word of the bank’s closing traveled throughout the community, the topic became constant conversation among customers at the mini mart.

“They didn’t like it,” Thompson said. “They said it wasn’t right for the neighborhood to lose a bank.”

Keep Huntington on Buckeye asked her to circulate petitions to keep the bank open at her business. They quickly filled up with signatures. The group would eventually collect about 1,200 signatures, Render said.

The momentum for the campaign to save the branch continued to grow. Community groups and other nonprofit organizations joined the effort. They include: Burten, Bell, Carr Development, Inc., the East 130th Working Group, the Larchmere Community Association, the Morelands Group and the Shaker Square Area Development Corp. (SHAD).

Saving the branch became a grassroots effort attracting a diverse set of residents from the neighborhood and surrounding communities. The branch not only draws customers from other Cleveland neighborhoods but also from Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. The effort drew people of different races, ages and experiences. 

They include younger homeowners, such as Shakir, and longtime neighborhood activists, such as Render. The effort also includes Charles Bromley, who has fought for fair lending and against branch closings for 50 years. Boyle has been involved in similar issues for decades.

The residents gained the support of elected officials. They include Mayor Justin Bibb and City Council President Blaine Griffin, in whose ward the branch is located. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is on the Senate’s Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee, and U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, in whose district the branch is located, also supported the effort. 

Render went to the meeting the bank called Monday, hopeful that the residents would hear good news. The Bibb administration had implemented a safety plan in the area that included increased police patrols. Reports the city shared at the monthly meetings with residents and bank officials showed that crime was decreasing. A rumor was also circulating that bank officials had spoken with the mayor earlier that day. It was also rumored that the mayor would have only taken the meeting with Huntington officials if the bank was going to reopen the branch.

So, Render wasn’t shocked when Richardson said the bank would reopen. Still, it all seemed a bit surreal.

“People, who have been out here in the trenches, say they have never seen anything like this,” he said of the residents’ win. “We’re talking about a predominantly Black neighborhood. We’re talking about a neighborhood, Buckeye, that’s been a challenge for 30 or 40 years. We’re talking about a neighborhood that has been marginalized. 

“Who would have ever imagined what we were able to do?” Render said.