First Lady Michelle Obama visits Cleveland to thank campaign volunteers and hold Obama campaign fundraiser at Progressive Field, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, State Sen Shirley Smith, retired judge and former county recorder Lillian Greene, Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGraph, Cleveland Councilman Jeff Johnson, others attend fundraiser

First Lady Michelle Obama

Below, the first lady walks the Terrace Room at Progressive Field in Cleveland on May 21 to thank volunteers for the Obama for America campaign before attending an afternoon fundraiser. (Photo by Johnette Jernigan)

By Johnette Jernigan, Cleveland Urban News.Com Staff Reporter

(www.clevelandurbannews.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Slim and poised, First Lady Michelle Obama, the most photographed first lady in American and world history, thanked a group of approximately 150 Obama campaign committee volunteers from Cleveland and its surrounding suburbs before attending an intimate fundraiser of roughly 250 supporters at Progressive Field on Mon. afternoon in Cleveland.  (Editor's note: Read First Lady Michelle Obama's comments midway through this article).

    

Campaign organizers said that the volunteers, who were invited as special guests to meet the first lady, have made tons of phone calls and knocked on more than 8,500 doors in Cuyahoga County, the state's largest county and a Democratic stronghold.

Cleveland media and Obama campaign volunteers (left) wait for the entrance of First Lady Michelle Obama to the Terrace Room at Progressive Field, the stadium for the Cleveland Indians. The first lady met volunteers to thank them for their support and hard work before attending a fundraiser, also at Progressive Field, with tickets ranging from $100 to $10,000. (Photo by Johnette Jernigan)

"You guys are the backbone of this campaign," said Aaron Pickrell, senior adviser to the Obama campaign in Ohio, before introducing Mrs. Obama at the meet and greet session for the volunteers to the chant of "Fire it up! Ready to Go!" 

Cleveland Urban News.Com Reporter Johnette Jernigan (above left) and Obama for America Campaign Ohio Regional Press Secretary Laura Allen

   
Dressed in a casual sundress, Mrs. Obama, 48, entered the Terrace Room at Progressive stadium on the off day for the Cleveland Indians with a smile and to the tune of "Let's Stay Together," the Al Green classic that President Barack Obama sang during an impromptu but memorable performance at a campaign fundraiser earlier this year.

     
She then began to to walk the room, shaking hands, giving hugs, and taking pictures with vounteers.


Larsenia Cannon, a volunteer campaign worker in Obama’s Euclid office, commented at the event to Cleveland Urban News.Com that Mrs. Obama makes you feel comfortable and that she shows a lot of compassion and gratitude.

  

That sentiment was shared by others.

    
"She is an awesome first lady," said Jackie Goins, a retired registered nurse who worked on Obama's campaign for president in 2008 and now volunteers at the president's campaign headquarters in Shaker Square in Cleveland. "She is approachable, caring, and down to the earth, and when you get a hug, it is genuine."

Karolyn Isenhart, an Obama campaign organizer in the western suburb of Lakewood, said that the first lady connects with the Cleveland crowd because she is a "Midwest girl from a working class family and she shares our stories as working and middle class people."


Trichelle Connor said that she was moved by the first lady's persona, and her graciousness. 

"The first lady is a warm person and I have always been a fan of hers," said Connor, a neighborhood team leader for Cleveland's Ward 9. "She said that what we are doing is important work and thanked us."

Michelle Obama spent about 25 min. with the volunteers and managed to acknowledge nearly each and every one of them, and once she had spoken to the last one, she exited the room for the fundraising reception. 


The Rev. Ledra Bigelow, an associate pastor at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, one of the city's most prominent Black churches, introduced Mrs. Obama.

"I want to thank all of you, truly, for taking the time out of your busy lives and your busy days to join us here today," the first lady said during a speech at the fundraiser. "And we're here not just because we want to win an election -- which we do.  We're here and we're doing this because of the values we believe in. We’re doing this because of the vision for this country that we all share."


Tickets ranged from $100 to $10,000, and it sold out,  campaign officials said. 



Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, whom Michelle Obama thanked along with is wife for attending, State Sen. Shirley Smith (D-22), Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGraph, Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson, and Lillian Greene, a retired Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Court Judge and former Cuyahoga County recorder, were among a host of members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party at the reception.

Cuyahoga County Executive                                Cleveland Police Chief 
Ed FitzGerald                                                     Michael McGraph

                             Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson


 State Sen. Shirley Smith (D-22)                              Retired Cuyahoga County 
                                                                            Judge Lillian Greene                                           

 Later in the evening Mrs. Obama hosted a campaign fundraising dinner for about 250 contributors, one that did not include the media, said Laura Allen, an Obama for America regional press secretary for Ohio and the Cleveland area. 


A Princeton University law school alumnus, Michelle Obama was once the president's boss, before er husband gave up fancy law firms to become a community organizer on the inner city streets of Chicago. He was later elected to the Illinois state senate, and then an Illinois state senator, and after that,to congress as a U.S. senator.


She is, without question, a fashion trendsetter, following in the footsteps of former first ladies like Jacqueline Kennedy, and Nancy Regan, but offering her own flavor of style and dress.


She has national approval ratings that are as high as 70 percent by some polls.


President Obama and Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney will battle for the White House for the November 6 presidential election, and Ohio, as it has been for more that a half a century, remains a pivotal state.    


Reach Cleveland area journalist Johnette Jernigan by email at jernj@aol.com. 


Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

Green Bay Packers Wide Receiver Donald Driver Wins ABC's Dancing With The Stars, is second Black to win, watch the video of his electrifying and winning performance with pro partner Peta Murgatroy

Green Bap Packers Wide Receiver Donald Driver and his pro partner Peta Murgatroy. Driver won Dancing With the Stars Tues. night, the second Black to take home the coveted mirrorball trophy


By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)


LOS ANGELES, CA-Green Bay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver won ABC'S Dancing With The Stars 14th season mirrorball trophy last night, the second Black man to take home the coveted prize next to NFL player Emmett Smith. 


Driver's limber pro partner Peta Murgatroy, who is White, was just as talented as the duo performed a free style country kickin dance during this week's finale that rocked the house and sealed their victory. 


Driver, 37,  beat out his fellow finalists, Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins and Cuban actor William Levy.


 Watch the video below of  Driver's electrifying and finale winning performance.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

Ohio lawmakers remove amendment to budget bill that required that Ohioans on food stamps be drug tested, Cleveland NAACP officials, Black Cleveland lawmakers like State Sen. Shirley Smith suggest that the bill is racist, sexist, elitist and unconstitutional, State Sen. Nina Turner had threatened a bill for Ohio lawmakers to be drug tested in response to requiring it only for poor people on food stamps and other welfare

  

Ohio State Sen. 
Nina Turner, left (D-Cleveland)


Ohio State Sen. Shirley Smith, right (D-Cleveland)


By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)


COLUMBUS, Ohio- The Ohio State Legislature last week removed an amendment added a day earlier to the budget bill that required that Ohioans on food stamps and other welfare be drug tested for potential illegal drugs in order to get or to continue getting federally allocated public assistance, a proposed state law pushed mainly by Republicans that some Ohio lawmakers and community activists say is racist, sexist, elitist, and an unconstitutional stretch that goes too far.


"It's unconstitutional and targets Blacks, women, poor people and other minorities," said Dr. Eugene Jordan, an East Cleveland dentist, community activist and second vice president of the Cleveland NAACP. "It is ludicrous."


State Sen. Shirley Smith (D-22), a Cleveland Democrat, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, that poor people and minorities were being harassed by the bill and that it  is "crazy."


She did not return phone calls seeking comment from Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com.


State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), also a Cleveland  Democrat,  got so angry over the insensitive legislative gesture that she told her colleagues that if they continue to seek to undermine poor people and minorities with the drug testing bill that she will counter by introducing a bill that requires that state employees and elected state officials are drug tested too.


“If we are going to be sincere in preventing individuals from obtaining public funds while also using illegal drugs, then we should start with the people who have the greatest impact on state dollars, politicians,” said Turner, in a press release.


The proposed legislation follows a national trend with 22 other state legislatures introducing, and some adopting, drug testing provisions for welfare recipients.


How state legislatures can dictate federal funds is puzzling some say, and possibly lacking in authority, particularly since federal law, by most authorities, tramples state law in a conflict, absent some collective bargaining and other type of provision that specifies otherwise.


Race, sex, age, religion and  discrimination due to national origin, however,  are plainly addressed independent of a collective bargaining agreement and by state law, under the constitutional provisions of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and by federal statutes such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as Amended . 


Whether state legislatures can require unprecedented mandates like drug testing for food when a wide portion of those impacted like Blacks, single  women and other minorities are members of a protected class under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, remains to be seen, if civil liberty groups upset over the trend like the American Civil Liberties Union sue over the controversy. 


Ohio State Sen Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster)



The  now removed budget amendment, added last Tuesday to House Bill 487, the mid-biennium budget review, was introduced by state Sen. Tim Schaffer (R-31), a Lancaster Republican and conservative White lawmaker who routinely introduces bills, such as gun toting legislation and now the welfare drug testing bill, that most Black lawmakers and many Democrats find offensive and detrimental to the Black community and other disenfranchised groups. 

Data show that while most Americans on food stamps and other public assistance are White, a disproportionate of recipients are Black, partly, say historians, because racism is still alive in America and the vestiges of slavery and racial discrimination have never been remedied to the extent practicable. 


Advocates of the bill claim that the federal government should not be used to fund illegal drug use.


Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

National NAACP passes resolution supporting President Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage, citing the equal protection clause of the14th Amendment, polls show Americans closely divided, most Blacks still oppose it, 31 states ban it, six states and the District of Columbia allow it

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)


MIAMI, Florida-The national NAACP at its meeting yesterday passed a resolution backing President Obama's recent endorsement of gay marriage, saying that it is a Civil Right protected under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, though the equal protection clause, while recognizing people because of race, age, religion, national origin and gender as members of a protected class that can seek court redress for discrimination because of it, does not on its face pertain to sexual orientation.


“The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure the political, social and economic equality of all people,” said Roslyn M. Brock, chairman of the board of directors of the NAACP, in a press release. “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.”


Benjamin Jealous, the head of America's oldest and most well known Civil Rights organization and a former journalist and Rhodes Scholar, says the Fourteenth Amendment does protect  persons subjected to discrimination based upon sexual orientation, and stands firmly on the NAACP's  position that the right to marry, regardless of whether marriage is to a person of the same sex, is a Civil Right.


National NAACP President Ben Jealous

“Civil marriage is a Civil Right and a matter of civil law. The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people.” said Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP.


Obama announced his support of same sex marriage two weeks ago,  a decision that follows a change over the past decade on how Americans typically feel about it.


But Black leaders have routinely said that they object to gay people having protection as a class under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, often claiming that it takes away from the significance of the struggle that Blacks have endured to ensure their constitutional and statutory rights in a country that once enslaved them. 


That posture, however, is not as solid as it use to be with sophisticated Black leaders like Obama pushing for fair play for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status or sexual orientation.


Polls show that the American public is closely divided on same sex marriage.


 A newly released Gallup poll puts the numbers  at 5o percent  in favor and  48 percent opposed, and a Pew Research Center poll released three weeks ago found Americans divided at 47 percent to 43 percent.


While it is clear that most Blacks oppose gay marriage, they too are embracing it more so now than in previous years.


Public Policy Polling.Com reports that some Black Americans are following Obama's lead with a decrease in opposition to it from 63 percent to 59 percent since his  announcement for it.


Massachusetts became the first state to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. Currently, thirty-one states, including Ohio, ban gay marriage, while six states and the District of Columbia allow it.


The five states that permit it, in addition to Massachusetts, are Connecticut, Iowa,  New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

Black on Black Crime, Oppressed People's Nation, Carl Stokes Brigade, other activist groups to picket on Sat, May 19, 1pm at Cleveland Clinic's Stephanie Tubbs Jones Health Center in E. Cleveland,13944 Euclid Ave, over death of innocent Black woman shot looking at gunfight who died after the ambulance road pass Cleveland Clinic to take her further away to Metro-Health Hospital

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio-Community activists groups including Black on Black Crime Inc, the Oppressed People's Nation, Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party and the Carl Stokes Brigade will picket at 1 pm tomorrow, May 19, in East Cleveland in front of the Cleveland Clinic's Stephanie Tubbs Jones Health Center,13944  Euclid Ave, over a 44 year-old innocent bystander killed by a bullet to the hip when she was looking out the window at a  gunfight on E. 95th St in Cleveland two months ago.


The contacts for the rally are Community Activist Art McKoy at 216-253-4070 and  Community Activist Judy Martin at 216-990-0679.


Elissa "Goldie" Hereford was taken to Metro-Health Hospital and later died, and activists say that the ambulance road right by Cleveland Clinic on E. 98th St  on Cleveland's east side and took her to Metro- Health, which is on the west side of the city.  The extra miles drive, they say,  contributed to or caused her death.


These same activists are also still upset because Cleveland Clinic closed Huron Hospital in East Cleveland last year, with its Level 1 trauma unit,  forcing poor and minority victims of trauma in East Cleveland and Cleveland's inner city neighborhoods to be taken additional miles to Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield or Metro-Health Hospital.


The Stephanie Tubbs Jones Health Center opened last year amid controversy and following community protests against the Cleveland Clinic and its officials over the closing of Huron Hospital. It does not have a trauma center and activists said that they are not picketing over the erection of that medical clinic.


 "This is not about the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Health Center," said McKoy. "But it is about driving pass one hospital to go miles away to another to put patient's at risk, and they lied when they said that closing Huron Hospital would be okay."


Police arrested an 18-year-old man in connection with the homicide of Hereford. Three other people were taken into custody but were released pending further investigation, police said.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

Cleveland community activist and Imperial Women Coalition member stabbed and seriously injured, she fought around the Imperial Ave Murders, the Trayvon Martin case, and against the theft of new born Black babies by Cuyahoga County officials to hand to affluent Whites, Cleveland, CMHA police ignored cries for help from stabbed woman and from community activists prior to the stabbing, activists want negligent policemen fired

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)


CLEVELAND,Ohio-A community activist and member of the Imperial Women who fought for changes in public policy around the Imperial Ave Murders and attended rallies on that and other community issues such as the Trayvon Martin case was stabbed in the back and seriously injured last week allegedly by a teen whose mother was arguing with her over an ongoing feud between that teen and one of the stabbed woman's teen daughters.


Angelique Cunningham, 39, was taken to University Hospitals Friday night and then flown by helicopter to the trauma unit at Metro- Health Hospital in Cleveland, a family spokesperson said.


After nearly a week in intensive care with possible bleeding from her liver, she was released from the hospital yesterday afternoon.


The teen accused of the stabbing was arrested, taken into custody, charged with attempted murder,  and given house arrest.


No trial date has been set.


Both Cleveland police and Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Authority police ignored Cunningham's cries for help, even after the teen that allegedly stabbed her had allegedly broken out the glass to her CMHA apartment front door in Cleveland near the Morris Black Housing Project where the incident occurred,  as well as her windows to her automobile.


Cunningham was featured in Dec. as a spokesperson to national news outlets, including the Huffington Post, on behalf of  grassroots organization called the Imperial Women when city officials tore down the home on Imperial Ave. where since convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell, raped, murdered and dismembered the 11 Black women.


"We want the police that ignored her complaint fired," said Community Activist Ada Averyhart, 77.


"I personally called both the Cleveland police and the CMHA police prior to this ill fated tragedy and can testify to the fact that both ignored my request for help for Angelique and her family," said Community Activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition. "They ignored her, we collectively believe, because she is Black, poor and a community activist who has fought with us on pertinent issues of public concern and who would not let the establishment steal her grandchildren without a fight, and we call for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to demand a full investigation around the apparent negligence relative to this seemingly preventable matter."


Denise Taylor, a member of Black on Black Crime, the Imperial Women, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party and the Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, said that she too was aware that Cunningham sought police help and was ignored.


"It had been going on for more than a month," said Taylor during a telephone interview on Thurs.


Art McKoy of Black on Black Crime Inc said that activists groups are still looking into the situation.


Cunningham became active in grassroots ventures when she sought help about two years ago after the Cuyahoga County Department of Family and Children Services stole two of her grandchildren, Jamela and Jamyla, as healthy new born babies to hand to an affluent White couple with the famous last name of Gallagher, though state law requires that they be given to qualified family members that had applied for temporary custody of them.


Data show that county officials never really provided justification for taking the children..


Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd has the cases and has not yet ruled on whether the children, who are first cousins and now three years old, will be returned to their biological mothers.


"When a community activist is stabbed after fighting for her family and on community issues, and after police blatantly ignore legitimate cries for help, that concerns us," said Coleman, who led two protests last year around the  alleged theft of the Black babies, both of whom have been allegedly forced to call the Gallagher's of Solon, Oh., "mommie and daddy."


"I do believe that police disregarded Angelique Cunningham's request for help because she is a community activist," said Roz McAllister, a member of the Imperial Women who also leads the grassroots group dubbed  Ohio Family Rights.


Coleman said that activists may need to picket to bring more attention to Black on Black crime that is sometimes perpetuated by some insensitive police that are seemingly not doing the job that they have been hired to do.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

Updated Breaking News: First Lady Michelle Obama to visit Cleveland on Monday, May 21, event is sold out

First Lady Michelle Obama


By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com) 

CLEVELAND, Ohio-First Lady Michelle Obama will visit Cleveland on Mon, May 21 for an 1:00 pm fundraiser reception at Progressive Field at 2401 Ontario St  in Cleveland, the Obama for America campaign announced last week.


Progressive Field is the Cleveland Indians sports stadium, though no ball game is in session for that day.


Tickets  for the event begin at $100 and it is sold out, Obama for America campaign officials said Sun.


The telephone number to the Obama for America campaign headquarters in Shaker Square in Cleveland is 216-416-2017.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

A one-on-one interview with CNN contributor and TV-One commentator Roland Martin on President Obama, Romney, and whether First Lady Michelle Obama is 'too Black,' latest CBS poll has Obama and Romney in statistical tie

Roland Martin

By Johnnette Jernigan

Cleveland, Ohio-This is a one-on-one interview with CNN contributor and TV-One commentator Roland Martin, a nationally known Black political analyst.

In this short but engaged interview Martin gives his views on the Democratic and Republican campaigns for President of the United States of America. He also discusses his take on the suggestion by some right wing conservatives that First Lady Michelle Obama is "too Black."

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, will face former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, for the upcoming November election for president.

The below interview was undertaken during the heat of the fight for the Republican nomination for president and before Romney became the presumptive nominee.

It is printed here because it still has significance as America's Black community and others prepare for a showdown as to a tight race for the White House, with the latest CBS poll on the election putting Obama and Romney at a statistical tie. 

Journalist Johnette Jernigan:

Who will get the Republican nomination?

Roland Martin:

Mitt Romney will win the nomination because the Republicans always choose the next person in line. Since Romney lost to McCain in 2008, Romney is next in line for the Republican nomination.

Jernigan:

What states must the president be more aggressive with to obtain votes?

Martin:

President Obama really needs to do well in the western states and regain the Hispanic vote. They’re angry because of the Dream Act and immigration reform.  The President has deported more Hispanics in three years than Bush did in eight, so that’s a hurdle that the president has to overcome.

Jernigan:

 

What about Ohio and the eastern states?

Martin:

The Electoral College has changed. Some of the states that the President won in 2008 have lost somewhere between 8-10 electoral college votes like Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Indiana  He only won Indiana by less than one 1% and only won North Carolina by 14,000 votes.  He lost Missouri by less than 1%.  You can take those states off the board.  With regard to Ohio, Kasich came in and became aggressive against the unions and woke up a sleeping giant which may have given the president an in that he needs.

Jernigan:

Would Ron Paul have  been a better Republican candidate than Mitt Romney?

Martin:

Ron Paul’s views are far too strident when it comes to the budget and the war.  He doesn’t make the left happy because of his views on the economy; he won’t make the right happy because of his views on foreign policy.  He has a core constituency.  If he runs for a third party, he clearly could take a significant number of votes and it could be a remake of 1992 when Ross Perot ran for the presidency.

Jernigan:

Who will the Tea Party support?

Martin:

The Tea Party will support the Republican nominee.  The Tea Party is not the Tea Party. It’s the Republican Party that is largely made up of people that are fiscal conservatives.  If you go back to Ross Perot’s campaign, you’re dealing with the same group of people calling themselves the Tea Party, which are basically blue collar democrats or Reagan democrats.

Jernigan:

What do you think about the attack against First Lady Michelle Obama saying that she is too black?

Martin:

All the people that talk about Jody Cantor’s book, they have not read it.  I read her book.  She does not make her out to be an angry Black woman. Anyone that reads that book will see that she is a confident, assertive woman who worked in corporate America and understands that she must plan and also must not simply do things haphazardly.  Anyone that read that book will understand that she is a woman that is very clear on what she wants and it does not make her out to be some angry Black woman.

Jernigan:

How close do you predict this race is going to be?

Martin:

This is going to be an extremely close race and it’s crazy for anyone to think this election is over – there are no guarantees.


Editor's note: Ohio is a pivotal state where no Republican in modern times has won the White House without first winning Ohio, and the last Democrat to do so sucessfully was the late John F. Kennedy. 

Reach Cleveland area Journalist Johnette Jernigan by email at jernj@aol.com and Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

Cleveland NAACP in quandry since former president George Forbe's resignation on whether to postpone June 23 annual freedom fund dinner

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-After accepting the resignation of former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes two weeks ago amid controversy over whether he had resigned by letter last year or not, organization officials are now seemingly confused over whether the annual freedom fund dinner will go forward as previously planned for June 23 at the Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland.

According to a story that ran earlier this month at Newsnet 5.Com, James Hardiman, a Cleveland attorney who by the group’s by-laws went from first vice president to president when Forbe’s resignation was ultimately acknowledged via a unanimous vote of the executive board, said that the freedom fund dinner has been postponed until an unknown date in Sept.

But a woman that answered the telephone at the Cleveland NAACP offices on Stokes Blvd. in Cleveland Monday afternoon said that the June 23 fund raising dinner was on, and then said, upon being told about the news report of Hardiman allegedly saying it has been postponed, that she would investigate the issue further and get back with Cleveland Urban News.com on the matter.(Editor's note: Since this article Cleveland NAACP officials have confirmed that the group's executive board voted to postpone the freedom fund dinner util sometime this fall, Cleveland Urban News.Com was told).

Forbes and Cleveland NAACP officials had come under fire in recent years by community activists and others for ignoring Black issues of public concern, including malfeasance around the Imperial Avenue Murders, harassment of Blacks by the common pleas and municipal courts in Cuyahoga County, illegal foreclosures, and the denial of construction and other work to a representative number of Black contractors and other Blacks on lucrative projects such as the Cleveland Medical Mart and the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, which opened in downtown Cleveland this week.



Reach Editor and Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and phone number: 216-932-3114.

Political pundits, gay, lesbian rights activists in Ohio, Cleveland City Council members, community activists, Civil Rights leaders, Black community members react to President Obama's announcement to support same sex marriage

United States President Barack Obama

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (http://www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com/) and (http://www.clevelandurbannews.com/) 

WASHINGTON D.C.-  President Barack Obama publicly announced his support of same sex marriage last weekend, causing a furor of debate over the controversial issue and gaining accolades from gay and lesbian rights groups, Civil Rights activists such as former National NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and political pundits like CNN Political Contributor Donna Brazile, who called the announcement “a historical decision for justice and equality for civil and human rights."

And Cleveland area affiliates,  from Cleveland City Council members to community activists, spoke out, with many supporting the president, though Black preachers collectively remain homophobic.

"He’s out of town but I can tell you that he does not support it,"  a woman answering the phone at the main campus of the Word Church in Warrensville Hts said when asked the position of Word Church pastor the Rev. R.A. Vernon, who leads the only Black mega church in greater Cleveland and is one of Cleveland’s most influential Baptist ministers.

Prominent Cleveland Black ministers such as the Rev. Larry Harris of Mount Olive Baptist Church, Greater Love Missionary Baptist Church Bishop Eugene Ward Jr., and Cleveland Chapter SCLC President and Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church Senior Pastor The Rev. E. T. Caviness did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Other people had a lot to say about it.

“It is a courageous move that is long over due,” said Sharon Danann,  a White community activist and gay rights advocate with a master’s degree from Harvard University who is a founding member of the Imperial Women and belongs to other grassroots groups such as Black on Back Crime Inc. and the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network.

“I don’t support it because it is not a destiny that is meant to be," said  East Cleveland Community Activist Art McKoy, a founding member of Black on Black Crime.

“It will promote monogamy,” said Larry Bresler,  a west side Cleveland community activist who leads Organize Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Cleveland councilpersons Mamie Mitchell and Jeff Johnson, both licensed attorneys, said that they support it.

”If two people are in love and happen to be of the same sex, who are we to interfere in their affairs," said Mitchell, who represents Cleveland’s Ward 6. “I support the president’s decision."

Mitchell said that opposition to gay and lesbian rights is sometimes rooted in male machoism and that states across America that have outlawed same sex marriage might be violating the separation of church and state clause of the First Amendment by interfering in an unconstitutional fashion beyond the necessary scope in marriage, which she says is a religious based institution.

And Councilman Johnson , who highlighted that he is straight, told his Facebook friends that some people are born gay and lesbian and should not be penalized with prejudicial public policy because of it.

Even former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes weighed in, issuing a press release last month before the president's stunning and risky announcement where Forbes, 81, and a former Cleveland councilman and mayoral candidate, said that he supports gay marriage, a move that forced the  executive board of the Cleveland NAACP to finally accept as official his Dec. 21, 2011 resignation as the organization's president.

Whether Obama will face any serious fallout from his announcement remains to be seen, and is unlikely many have said because the president is simply pushing for fair play for gay and lesbian people.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who will square off in the November general election against the Democrat Obama as the nominee for the Republican Party, quickly announced that he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, even after saying publicly  prior to his current run for president that he supports equality for gay and lesbian people.

Reach Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at editor@clevelandurbannew.com and by phone at 216-932-3114.

Ohio State Legislature repeals part of House Bill 194 state law that slashes time for early voting this November in half by passing replacement law dubbed Senate Bill 295 that allows some early voting but keeps provision to stop early in person voting the weekend before presidential election, Congresswoman Fudge, community activists, voting rights and Civil Rights advocates demand that weekend voting be allowed, activists say Republicans are pushing last minute state laws in Ohio to silence Black, Democratic vote for Obama in Ohio, ballot initiative to seek to repeal HB194 by Ohio voters will allegedly go forward for November general election

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com(http://www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com/) and (http://www.clevelandurbannews.com/)

COLUMBUS, Ohio-The Republican controlled Ohio State Legislature passed a state law on Tues. titled Senate Bill 295 that repeals parts of a controversial election law dubbed House Bill 194 that the same group of lawmakers passed last year that restricts early voting and makes other changes, though the new law permits some early voting but keeps intact the old law's provision against it the weekend before the November general election, a measure that Democrats say should motivate Ohioans to vote to repeal HB194 at the November ballot box this year.

"HB 194 was an attack on voting rights and should never have been enacted in the first place,” said U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrenvillle Hts Democrat who, though a federal lawmaker, has been in the forefront on the bi-partisan state legislative issue, one deemed by Civil Rights leaders and voting rights advocates as a blatant attempt to restrict voting opportunities to hurt the poor and Black communities, groups that Republicans routinely target to disenfranchise in Ohio and elsewhere during presidential election season. “While I am pleased that Ohio voters will now be spared from measures that cut the early voting period in half, make it harder to vote by mail or find the correct precinct, it should be noted SB 295 is not a full repeal.  It leaves intact the ban on early voting in the three days prior to an election.  If Ohio lawmakers truly wanted to make the ballot accessible to all, this restriction must be removed as well.”

After previously passing the Senate, SB295 passed 54-42 this week in The Ohio House of Representatives, with the Democrats unanimously opposing it.

It now heads to Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is watering at the mouth in approving it, allegedly with the hope that the new law will bring the Republicans more votes from Ohio during a presidential election year by precluding weekend voting.

Whether the new law (SB295) is legal since it restricts early in person voting and that issue, among others , is also before Ohio voters via the old law (HB19), and state law requires that HB 194 must be put on hold and not implemented because it will be before Ohio voters in November, is not clear.

 Republican state legislators claim that their anti-voting rights scheme is constitutional and statutorily valid, and that in passing SB295 the state legislature has, in effect, rendered the November ballot initiative null and void, a posture that the Democrats disagree with.

Never in America’s history has a state legislature passed a new election law as Ohio lawmakers did Tues. to try to circumvent the authority of Ohio voters to potentially repeal a previous state law on the matter at the ballot box, an indication, say political pundits, of how serious the presidential election has become, and a hint that the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to try to oust the nation's first Black president from the White House by any means necessary.

“SB295 is a new law that the Republicans passed to try to stop the repeal of HB194 in November because since HB194 is on the ballot it will likely bring out more voters for President Obama and Senator Sherrod Brown,” said Larry Bresler a voting rights and poor people’s advocate who leads Organize Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Poor People’s Economic Human Rights campaign, and who helped organize activists that attended a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing in Cleveland on Mon. for testimony before Brown and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois on the pros and cons of voter suppression state laws such as SB295 and HB194 that are popping up around the country.

Reach Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at editor@clevelandurbannew.com and by phone at 216-932-3114.