Press Release: 2nd Protest By Activists On Theft Of Black New Borns To Hand To Whites, Etc., Thurs., Sept 29, 3 pm, Jane Edna Hunter Center

Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd

From the Metro Desk of the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

The Imperial Women, Govabuse.org, The Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Family Connection Center, The Oppressed People's Nation, People For The Imperial Act, Black on Black Crime and other grassroots and community organizations will rally for a second time on Thurs., Sept. 29, 2011 from 3:00 pm to 3:55 pm at the Jane Edna Hunter Center for Cuyahoga County Family and Children Services, 3955 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland. At issue is what community activists say are actions by the social services agency in stealing Black and poor new born babies in violation of state law to hand to affluent Whites when qualified family and extended family members have petitioned for the children, and in alleged efforts to tear Black and poor families apart to accommodate affluent White ones seeking to make their own families at the expense of the Black and poor communities. Community activists also say that vulnerable poor families and those that lack clout are also being misused at times by agency officials.

Contacts for the rally are Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-932-3114, Pastor Ray Parker at 216-509-4377, Art McKoy at 216-253-4070, Angelique Cunningham at 216-645-8408, and Nancy Rolfe at 216-671-3999.

Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads The Imperial Women, said that the rally is not against Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd, who has a reputation of keeping Black and other families together in compliance with the law and is presiding over the case at issue, but against the Cuyahoga County Department of Family and Children Services.

"We must keep this issue at the forefront of the community until Jamela and Jamyla are brought home and children and their families are treated fairly by agency officials and their subordinates in compliance with sound agency policy and state and federal law," said Coleman. "This necessary fight has just begun and we come in peace and will, unlike the culprits at hand, respect the law."

A previous rally, held on Sept 9 at The Jane Edna Hunter Center, drew some 80 supporters, including community activists and others such as families that say they have been victimized by the system.

"We will fight until we get justice for these children and others," said Nancy Rolfe, who leads Govabuse LLC and held a national protest last month on governmental mistreatment by children and family services agencies across the country.

Rolfe said that the malfeasance against innocent children and their families transcends racial and ethic lines.

Highlighted at the rally will be the mistreatment of an innocent Black family by the taking of the granddaughters of Angelique Cunningham, whose 19 and 16 year old daughters have allegedly been victimized by the agency where their children, Jamela and Jamyla, were handed to a well-to-do White couple with the last name of Gallagher (Note: Gallagher is a popular judicial name with one in the Court of Common Pleas and one serving as a judge in The Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals). And it was done under the guise of temporary arrangements and foster care. The young affluent couple with no children of their own to date and of whom community activists say they are not targeting, are accused of making the two two-year-old children that they secured as new born babies call them mom and dad and then seeking legal custody, though Nelson Floyd denied the custody petition and the couple have hired a lawyer to appeal that decision. A hearing is set for late Nov. for Nelson Floyd to decide who will get the children.

Cunningham said that the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family services has harassed her family repeatedly to try to justify stealing Jamela and Jamyla though she, the now foster kids grandfather, Cunningham's mother, the paternal great grandmother of the stolen two- year- old girls, a great uncle and a host of cousins, many qualified under state law to have temporary custody of the children, were overlooked because the agency said that the White couple could pay for a college education for the children.

Journalist and Community Activist Kathy Wray Coleman can be reached at 216-932-3114 and ktcoleman8@aol.com