State Representative Barbara Boyd (D-Cleveland) of the 9th District boasts a storied political career that now sees her serving the area of northeast Ohio that includes Cleveland Heights.
Rep. Boyd earned a bachelor’s degree in education from St. Paul’s College in Virginia in 1965. Her passion for public service, though, began with volunteer work on Jimmy Carter’s Presidential campaign in 1976. Her activities there encouraged her to stay active in her community, and she began to volunteer in Cleveland Heights and in countywide political activities.
In 1983, Rep. Boyd became the first African-American elected to the Cleveland Heights City Council. During her tenure, she worked as a Community Relations Officer for the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Courts, undertaking countywide outreach activities for one of the oldest courts in the nation. She served on various Council committees before becoming Vice Mayor, and finally mayor of Cleveland Heights.
Her friends and colleagues convinced Rep. Boyd to run for State Representative, and in 1992, the voters in the 9th District sent her to the Ohio House for the first of four terms. She is most proud of the establishment of kinship care during her tenure.
Term limits forced her out of the House, but she continued her public service as an executive assistant to the Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. In 2005, Rep. Boyd joined the Children’s Defense Fund as the Regional Manager for Northeast Ohio.
An overwhelming majority of 9th District voters returned Rep. Boyd to the Ohio House in 2006. She is keenly involved in legislation concerning health care, foster care, predatory lending, human services, children and families, kinship care, Alzheimer’s disease and aging, schools and education funding reform, economic development and juvenile justice. She is also working to obtain a memorial statue or plaque in the Statehouse in honor of Ohio’s Tuskegee Airmen.
Rep. Boyd Chairs the Ohio House Health Committee, and serves as a member of the Finance Committee and its Human Services Subcommittee, as well as the Judiciary, Rules and Reference and Housing Urban Revitalization Committees
She also serves on the House and Senate Cancer Caucus, the Joint Legislative Committee on Health Care Oversight, the Ohio Hepatitis C Advisory Commission, the Second Chance Trust Fund Advisory Committee and the Dentist Loan Repayment Advisory Board. She also has been reappointed to the Human Services Committee of the Midwestern Legislative Conference of The Council of State Governments.
Rep. Boyd is a founding member of the Black Women’s PAC, and she is an active member of the League of Women Voters. Rep. Boyd is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, St. Andrews Episcopal Church, the Cleveland Heights Democratic Club and the 11th District Caucus. She currently serves as President of the Black Women’s Political Action Committee. She is also past Vice Chairperson of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
Rep. Boyd has received numerous awards and recognitions for her contributions to the community, including Legislator of the Year and the Alzheimer’s Award. Cleveland Magazine named her one of its 50 Most Interesting People in 1998. In 2007, Rep. Boyd received recognition for her commitment to and support of kinship caregivers in Ohio from the Ohio Grandparent/Kinship Coalition at the 1st Statewide Kinship Care Conference.
In her spare time, you can find Rep. Boyd at home in her kitchen with her husband Robert and daughter Janine, as family members and friends drop by for food, fun and a side dish of politics.
