By Kathy Wray Coleman: Community activists to meet today, Nov 20 with National Bill of Rights Defense Committee Field Organizer George Friday at 5pm, 3500 Lorain Ave in Cleveland as the first of three coalition building sessions this week to fight foreclosure malfeasance, discrimination against minority contractors, legal system inequities, etc., second meeting is also today but at 7:30 pm at Black on Black Crime Headquarters at Euclid Ave and Lee Rd in East Cleveland, third meeting is Sat., Nov 23, 2-4 pm, MLK Public Library in Cleveland, 1962 Stokes Blvd.

George Friday,  national  field organizer for the
Bill of Rights Defense Committee out of  Northampton, Massachusetts

CLEVELAND,Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com News Brief www.clevelandurbannews.com, and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com By Kathy Wray Coleman, publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND,Ohio-Greater Cleveland community activists groups will meet  on three separate occasions this week beginning today with Bill of Rights Defense Committee Field Organizer George Friday (pictured) for pointers on community organizing in the wake of abandoned homes where women have been found raped and murdered in large numbers,  rampant foreclosure impropriety,  and violence against women and nothing being done about it. Also at issue are police murders of unarmed people, inequities in the legal system and discrimination against minority contractors.

The first forum is at 5 pm, today, Nov. 20, 2013, in the basement for the Fifth Third Bank Building at 3500 Lorain Ave at Fulton Avenue on Cleveland's west side. Organizers said that the meeting will address foreclosures and abandoned homes and a coalition to deal with impropriety around them as well as the dearth of  minority contractors in housing and elsewhere in Cuyahoga County. Community activists want victims of foreclosure fraud to come forward and national legislation following congressional hearings.
 (For more  information on this meeting call the Imperial Women Activists Group at 216-659-0473 or Organize Ohio at 216-651-2606).

"I am in town to help anybody or any groups fighting for Human and Civil Rights build coalitions," said Friday, who has come into Cleveland on at least four occasions around public policy issues including the harassment of Immigrants and people of color. 

Headquartered in Northampton, Massachusetts, she first met with activist groups in 2010  relative to police neglect around the murders of 11 Black women at the since demolished home on Imperial Ave on Cleveland's east side by convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell.

Activist groups include Organizing Ohio, Cleveland Jobs With Justice, the People's Forum, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, the Imperial Women Activists Group, the Carl Stokes Brigade, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, People for the Imperial Act and Black on Black Crime Inc.

After the 5 pm meeting today, Nov 20,  meeting activists will attend the 7:30 pm meeting at Black on Black Crime Headquarters  at McCall's at  Euclid Avenue at Lee Rd in East Cleveland to begin the discussion on fallout behind a proposed merger between the cities of East Cleveland and Cleveland and to prepare for the upcoming anniversary rally on Nov 29 at Heritage Middle School in East Cleveland. That is the site where 13 Cleveland cops gunned downed unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30, and Tim Russell, 43, with 137 bullets following a car chase that began in downtown Cleveland.

Nov 29 marks the first anniversary of the deadly shooting.

On Saturday activists will meet with Friday for strategy sessions on coalition building, protest rally techniques, and how to deal with harassment by the courts, police and other authorities seeking to silence free speech against journalists, attorneys, community activists and others. That meeting is from 2 pm to 4pm at the Martin Luther King Branch Public Library in Cleveland, 1962 Stokes Blvd.

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