They also knew they wouldn’t solve the community’s racial divisions in what turned out to be a couple of hours of televised town hall meetings on the subject.

A suggestion emerging from that brief talk, however, has the potential to continue the discussion and create real understanding among blacks and whites that will benefit the future, organizers say.

The notion of a study circle program on race arose during the first televised forum in September. Study circles took on a higher profile at a second forum on Nov. 30. There was agreement among the nearly 85 audience members that the city needs ongoing, open talk about race.

Study circles are groups of eight to 12 people, explained the Rev. Jim Ray, a Presbyterian minister who lives in Poland. They meet regularly to hash over a topic an hour or two at a time. The groups are a mix of residents: young and old, black and white, rich and poor, community leaders and average citizens.

Study circles create understanding by giving people on all sides of an issue the chance to express their needs, concerns and frustrations. A facilitator keeps the group focused.

Participants — sometimes totaling hundreds or thousands of residents — have a big community meeting at the end of a round of study circles to act on ideas aimed at improvement.

Other cities have had race as a topic, but study circles also have been used to explore additional community issues such as education, crime and sprawl.

Blacks and whites gathering to talk about race would remove the fear that each has about the other, said Jeff Green, a black audience member at the Nov. 30 forum. That fear blocks understanding, he said.

The Rev. Mr. Ray, who retired after 30 years in campus ministry with the last 12 at Youngstown State University, tried the concept of a study circle on race in the city a few years ago.

A Martin Luther King Day event spawned a desire for continued discussion.  Mr. Ray, who is white, figured a handful of people would show up for the follow-up talk. Instead, more than 100 people came.

“That told me there was a problem,” he said.

Group conversations continued for about 18 months, but reached no conclusion, he said. That happened mostly because the participants meant well but didn’t have enough influence in the community to create change, he said. Local leaders who could make a difference weren’t part of the effort, Mr. Ray said.

Any successful study circle on race in the city needs to involve “movers and shakers,” he said.

Leaders who have used study circles say the method has helped address difficult, long-running problems in their cities, said Jay Williams, city Community Development Agency director and a 2010 planner.

“That’s exactly what we need in this community,” he said.

In Syracuse, N.Y., banks improved their service to the black community after such a discussion, he said. More than 4,000 of the 40,000 residents in Lima have participated in study circles on several topics since they started there, he said. In Decatur, Ga., residents ask to create study circles when problems crop up, Williams said.

“That’s powerful,” he said.

Even if a study circle on race doesn’t solve any problems here, ongoing community discussion removes the topic as an underlying hindrance to fixing the city’s other ills, said Williams, who is black.

“It disarms people who would want to use race as a divisive issue,” he said.

Williams and Mr. Ray expect to talk in the coming weeks about starting a study circle on race in the city.

Williams hopes to launch the effort when the city unveils its draft of the Youngstown 2010 plan at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27 at Stambaugh Auditorium.

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