Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner held and chapter President Michael Nelson Sr. defends LeBron James' response to racist graffiti on his LA home as hundreds attend the event where actor and author Hill Harper was the keynote speaker and Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam was honored for making the Browns franchise one of the most diversified in the country....Some Blacks and community activists opposed the billionaire Haslam, who is White, getting the group's most distinguished Civil Rights award......National NAACP President and CEO Cornell Wiliam Brooks will step down this month following criticism that he was not aggressive enough during a Trump presidency that is harming Black America.... Nelson's resurrection of the Cleveland NAACP follows his support of the controversial Q- Deal and prior infighting between members of the old Cleveland NAACP leadership regime and a decline in membership...By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of www.clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leaders

American actor, author and intellectual Hill Harper, who played a key acting role on the hit television show CSI: New York for nine seasons, has three ivy league degrees, including a law degree, and who attended Harvard Law School with former president Barack Obama, was the keynote speaker for the Cleveland NAACP's Freedom Fund Dinner held Saturday, June 3, 2017

Cleveland Browns franchise owner Jimmy Haslam speaks at the Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner held Saturday, June 3, 2017 at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland. A White billionaire, Haslam was honored by the Civil Rights organization with the group's most distinguished Civil Rights award, amid opposition from some executive board members, media-types, and Black community members

Cleveland NAACP President Michael Nelson Sr at the Freedom Fund Dinner held by the Cleveland NAACP at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland on June 3, 2017

Retiring Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ron Adrine, the administrative and presiding judge of the 13-member predominantly Black court, who was among those honored Saturday June 3, 2017 at the Cleveland NAACP's Freedom Fund Dinner

Cleveland Cavaliers megastar LeBron James, whom Haslam and Nelson praised on Saturday at the Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner for his sophistication in addressing racist graffiti on his Los Angeles home on the eve of the NFL Finals, Cleveland losing Game 1 of the Finals on Thursday night to the Golden State Warriors and Game 2 of which is today, June 4, at 8 pm at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. 

Hundreds were in attendance Saturday, June 3, 2017  at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland for the Cleveland NAACP's Freedom Fund Dinner

National NAACP CEO and President Cornell Williams Brooks, who has led the group since 2014, and was fired last month by the national executive board, which says he was not aggressive enough in taking on a Donald Trump presidency that is harming Black America. Brooks, who will officially step down this month, said his dismissal caught him off guard and that he thought he was doing a good job, including getting peacefully arrested earlier this year with five others for picketing and refusing to leave the then Mobile, Alabama district office of then U.S. senator Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. attorney general with the Trump administration. CLICK HERE TO READ THE CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM ARTICLE ON THE ARREST OF CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS AND FIVE OTHERS AS TO THE PICKET AND SIT-IN REGARDING NOW US ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS

Pictured are Cleveland NAACP  First Vice President James Hardiman (wearing turtleneck sweater), former Cleveland NAACP president the Rev. Hilton Smith (wearing red tie and no eyeglasses), former Cleveland NAACP first vice president the Rev. Dr. E. Theophilus Caviness  (wearing  red bow-tie), former Cleveland NAACP third vice president Sara J. Harper, who lost a bid for branch president against Nelson in October 2015,  and George Forbes, a former longtime Cleveland NAACP president and former Cleveland City Council president (wearing blue tie).

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 4.5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Cleveland NAACP on Sat., June 3 honored Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam with the organization's Freedom Fund Award for making the Brown's franchise one of the most diverse in the county, the football team now led by Black head coach Hue Jackson.

Hundreds were in attendance at the group's Freedom Fund Dinner at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland Saturday evening, including corporate types, business groups,  Black leaders, and elected officials,

Those in attendance include Black Cleveland councilpersons Zack Reed, Jeff Johnson, Blaine Griffin and Kevin Conwell, state Rep. Janine Boyd and Stephanie Howse, Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Chantel Brown, the Rev. Eugene Ward, Cleveland Browns player Josh Cribbs, Michael House, Cleveland Municipal Court judicial candidate Sheila Turner-McCall, and Cleveland Municipal Court judges Janet Colaluca, Michael J Skindell and Ron Adrine, Adrine also among those honored.

Councilmen Johnson and Reed are among a crowded field of potential mayoral candidates seeking to unseat three-term Black mayor Frank Jackson this year, candidate Brandon Chrostowski, also a mayoral candidate, and also among those in attendance at the event.

The mayor did not attend. 

A longtime Cleveland NAACP affiliate, Adrine, the presiding and administrative judge of the 13-member largely Black Cleveland Municipal Court, is in his last year on the bench due to the state law age limit for judges of 70,  and was also among the honorees. 

No grassroots community activists were honored, though they have been in the trenches for years on issues from arbitrary police killings of Black and other people in recent years such as Tamir Rice, Malissa Williams, Timothy Russell, Brandon Jones, and Daniel Ficker, and Tamir Rice, violence against women, education, politics, and heightened crime in the majority Black major American city where the population continues to dwindle. 

But the local Civil Rights organization and its chapter president, Michael Nelson Sr, a local criminal defense attorney, and the executive board got some flack from activists and others for honoring Haslam, a White billionaire, including some independent journalists like Roldo Baltimole, who is White, and the White managed Cleveland Scene Magazine. (Editor's note: Haslam also owns the Pilot Flying J truck stop chain, which has steeped in controversy, and has a purported net worth of $3.7 billion).

And this was after the Cleveland NAACP, this year, supported a $140 million deal to refurbish Quickens Loan Arena where the Cavaliers play, including an $88 million contribution by City Council from the impoverished city of Cleveland. (Editor's note: Community groups, led by the Greater Cleveland Congregations and the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, have submitted petitions with some $20,000 signatures for a referendum vote on the Q-Deal as to city' council's $88 million contribution and have said they will sue if city council and the mayor continue to stall on putting the measure before voters on a lame claim that contractual obligations with the Cavaliers and others preclude compliance with the city charter that permits such a referendum vote)

Nelson told the Cleveland NAACP executive board, some members voting against Haslam getting the organization's most distinguished award, that Haslam deserved the honor.

The keynote speaker was author, actor and intellectual Hill Harper, 51, who has three ivy league degrees, including a law degree, and who attended Harvard Law School with former president Barack Obama, whom he campaigned for in Cleveland in 2008, the year Obama was elected as the first Black president of the United States of America.

In addition to acting in numerous television shows and films, including Spike Lee's 'Get on the Bus,' Harper, who is Black, played a key acting role for nine seasons on the hit television show CSI: New York, and he is currently the host of HNN's cable television CNN series "How it Really Happened with Hill Harper."

Harper lectured to the tentative audience on Black empowerment and unity, among other issues, and he spoke on the need for Black people amd organization's such as the NAACP to remain strong, unified and resilient at a trying time for Blacks in America.

Both Nelson and Haslam praised Cavaliers megastar LeBron James for his sophistication in addressing racist graffiti on his Los Angeles home on the eve of the NFL Finals, Cleveland losing Game 1 of the Finals on Thursday night to the Golden State Warriors and Game 2 of which is today, June 4, at 8 pm at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. 

In response to the  N-word graffiti on his LA home James, a previous Cleveland NAACP honoree himself, said the incident "goes to show that racism will always be a part of the world, a part of America."

The annual Freedom Fund Dinner has ceased to be annual since 2013.

Nelson resurrected the local branch of the NAACP since it fell apart after longtime former chapter president  George Forbes, a former longtime city council president and attorney, quit in 2012, and the Rev Hilton Smith , that same  year, was elected to the helm of the chapter presidency.

No Freedom Fund Dinner was held under the leadership of Smith and the local chapter went virtually broke, Smith choosing to fore go reelection and Nelson elected chapter president in October 2015 over retired 8th District Court of Appeals judge Sara Harper, then the third vice president, and a Smith ally who is has no relationship to Hill Harper.

The fallout between the Nelson regime, that includes his allies of chapter first vice president and local attorney James Hardiman, and Smith's team, including Smith supporters of Harper and the Rev Dr. E. Theophilus Caviness, senior pastor at the prestigious Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland and the former first vice president, stifled the group for a while if not forever.

At one point the national chapter, which, last month, fired its  CEO and president Cornell Brooks, who has led the group since 2014, saying he was not assertive enough during a Donald Trump presidency that is harming the Black America, intervened in the election of Nelson due to heightened infighting that has caused membership to decline.

Brooks, who will officially step down this month, said his dismissal caught him off guard and that he thought he was doing a good job, including getting peacefully arrested earlier this year with five others for picketing and refusing to leave the then Mobile, Alabama district office of then U.S. senator Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. attorney general with the Trump administration.CLICK HERE TO READ THE CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM ARTICLE ON THE ARREST OF CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS AND FIVE OTHERS AS TO THE PICKET AND SIT-IN REGARDING NOW US ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS

Caviness, Harper and Smith were no shows on Saturday, and they remain discontented with chapter President Michael Nelson Sr and chapter vice president James Hardiman, sources said yesterday. 

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 4.5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.