Long before health equity became a familiar phrase in state government, Ray Miller helped give it an office, a budget and a permanent place in Ohio law. Miller, the former Democratic legislator and Senate minority leader who helped create the Ohio Commission on Minority Health and establish state funding for Head Start, died on August 28, 2026, at 77, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

The clearest measure of Miller's politics was not a campaign result but a set of public hearings. After a 1985 conference laid out major health disparities, he worked with Gov. Richard Celeste to begin a statewide task force. It listened in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Youngstown, Cincinnati, Toledo and Akron, drawing about 2,000 participants whose testimony helped shape a new state agency.

In July 1987, Miller sponsored and passed an amendment to the state budget bill that created the Ohio Commission on Minority Health. The commission began with a $3.5 million biennial appropriation, according to the Ohio Commission on Minority Health. It converted concerns gathered at those hearings into a continuing channel for research, community programs and policy.

That work sat at the center of a 24-year legislative career. Miller served 16 years in the Ohio House and eight in the Senate, becoming Senate minority leader in 2008. Richard Celeste, who first knew Miller as a young legislative intern, told the Statehouse News Bureau that the mental health reform Miller carried was probably his most important bill for the governor.

Miller sponsored the law creating the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services and the Community Mental Health Act of 1988. He established Ohio's first state funding for Head Start and helped create the Institute for Urban Education at Central State University and the Ohio African-American Hall of Fame. He also directed tobacco-settlement money to minority-health initiatives and pressed for a Statehouse memorial to George Washington Williams, Ohio's first Black legislator.

After graduating from Columbus East High School, Miller earned bachelor's and master's degrees at The Ohio State University. His work also included AFSCME Ohio Council 8, Columbus State Community College and service as a deputy special assistant on President Jimmy Carter's White House staff.

The public record held a long friendship, too. State Sen. Hearcel Craig knew Miller from seventh grade, when they attended school and played basketball together. After Miller's death, Craig said, "I love him. I love him with all of my heart and I am grateful for his friendship." Craig later helped sustain funding for the minority-health work Miller began.

After leaving the Senate, Miller returned to the press that had fascinated him as a boy. He recalled hours at Raleigh Randolph's Mount Vernon Avenue newsstand reading Black-owned papers from several cities. "My priority was always reading," he told Policy Matters Ohio. On January 10, 2011, he founded the Columbus African American news journal, which later expanded to Dayton and covered government, schools, health and neighborhood life.

Miller kept investing in leadership beyond his own office. Ohio State created the Ray Miller Institute for Change and Leadership in his honor, and his Progressive Leadership Academy helped bring the combined programs to more than 400 graduates. In February 2026, Columbus City Council named him a James Preston Poindexter Award recipient.

Across Ohio, Miller's work remains visible in concrete forms: the Commission on Minority Health, public support for Head Start, the African-American Hall of Fame, the George Washington Williams Room at the Statehouse and a Black newspaper built to give readers useful context. Together they show the method that defined his career, listening to communities and constructing institutions strong enough to carry their concerns into public life.