What happens when the "protectors" become the source of terror? When the very agency sworn to keep you safe is the one traumatizing your children, your elders, your entire community — for 76 straight years? Carlton Robert Collins grew up in Lincoln Heights, Ohio — the first Black-incorporated city in America — where gunfire wasn't coming from the streets. It was coming from the Cincinnati Police Department's open-air gun range that had been dumping 38,000 hours of gunfire into the village since before he was born. Voyage Ohio Magazine For decades, residents said the same thing: "Gunfire is the soundtrack to our lives." Medium Every day. Every week. Every year. The sound of police training echoing through a historically Black community, normalizing violence, embedding fear, and creating a psychological war zone that nobody asked for. Carlton wasn't just mad — he went to battle. A Morehouse College graduate who became a teen father, was abused and abandoned by his mother, and was raised in a single-father household Voyage Ohio Magazine — he knew what it meant to fight through impossible circumstances. In 2011, he founded EDUC8theWORLD, a culture and social impact firm that has served dozens of clients nationally, designing educational models and innovating recruitment pipelines while building a network of thousands of educators across the world. Voyage Ohio Magazine But Lincoln Heights kept calling him back home. As Director of Programs & Special Projects at The Heights Movement, Carlton led the charge to get that gun range moved. LinkedIn For five years, they organized. They researched. They exposed the connection between that constant gunfire and the culture of violence it created in Lincoln Heights. As Carlton says: "We are living through one of the worst modern-day illustrations of callous disregard to the economic, educational, emotional, mental, and psychological health of a Black community in America." Medium And they won. Carlton's activism secured $31.6 million in funding to relocate the gun range through city, county, state, and federal sources. The fight got national coverage in The Washington Post, Slate Magazine, CNN, and beyond. Voyage Ohio Magazine Through The Heights Movement, Carlton and his team launched My Brother's Keeper Lincoln Heights — the first official chapter of the MBK Alliance in partnership with the Obama Foundation in the Cincinnati area. Medium He published his first book in 2017, Resist Every Bias on Every Level (REBEL), which focuses on achievement, critical thinking, identity development, and outcome management for Men of Color. His patented DNI goal-setting framework has led to millions in scholarships, hundreds of job placements, and dozens of college graduates. Voyage Ohio Magazine Now he's focused on two people-powered initiatives: Healing 15 and 15 Strong. The former creates a continuum of care for all harmed communities, backed by research and structural support systems that heal all Lincoln Heights residents, past and present. The latter rebuilds the economic foundation of Lincoln Heights through financial literacy, history excavation, and global storytelling. Voyage Ohio Magazine This episode isn't just about a gun range. It's about what systemic oppression looks like when it's loud, constant, and ignored. It's about a man who refused to accept the status quo and built an entire ecosystem of change around his people. It's about Lincoln Heights — a village that's been written off, overlooked, and left for dead, but still has people willing to fight for it. This is what it looks like when you refuse to let your community die. This is what it looks like when you turn pain into power. This is a FlipSide story. 🎙️ FlipSide Podcast 513 — Real Stories. Real Redemption. Real Cincinnati.
