As Cleveland native Honey Bell-Bey finished reciting her poem, “The Transformational Power of Art,” at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19, 2024, the leaders who filled the room got to their feet to deliver a standing ovation.
“I just got blessed,” Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb (LAW ’18, MGT ’18) told the crowd after she finished. Moments before, Bibb had introduced Bell-Bey, whose work was being honored with the National Citizen Artist Award from Americans for the Arts and The United States Conference of Mayors.
The honor was one more to add to a long list of Bell-Bey’s titles, among them: grassroots community activist, author, substance abuse prevention expert, performance troupe director and Cuyahoga County Poet Laureate.
In 2022, she added a new title to the list: Master of Public Health student at ǿմý School of Medicine.
Although she had dedicated decades to addressing the needs of marginalized communities, Bell-Bey had never categorized her work as “public health” until meeting ǿմý Professor Emeritus Scott Frank, MD (GRS ’84, family medicine).
“He helped me see how everything is public health,” she recalled. “He inspired me to remain in the program. If you remove gender, if you remove age, if you remove race…I don’t think I’ve ever met more of a kindred soul in my life!”
Motivation from Frank—who retired from the School of Medicine in June 2023 after more than 40 years—is the reason Bell-Bey strives for straight As and will press on as the program becomes more rigorous.
She is taking her time earning her Master of Public Health degree, though, as her activism in East Cleveland keeps her very busy— from transforming an abandoned field into an outdoor movie space to combating food desert concerns by supplying residents with planter boxes for vegetable gardening.
After she graduates, Bell-Bey said she’ll use her degree to bolster the work she’s already doing. Poetry, she said, will continue to play a big role in that: It’s a tool she uses to unite people around social justice and equity and to make public health easier for people in her community—and well beyond—to understand.
“The United Nations doesn’t have a poet laureate, so I could start that,” said Bell-Bey confidently. “What a powerful position for this little Black girl from East Cleveland to be in!”