City of Cleveland to name Hulda Avenue Alma Cooper Way after the late activist Alma Cooper in ceremony at noon on August 26, 2017 at the intersection of Hulda Avenue and East 110th Street....Cooper is a sister of longtime community activist Ada Averyhart....Cooper retired from Cuyahoga County and was a former Ward 6 precinct committeewoman....She was in the trenches as to erroneous police killings of Black men, including Michael Pipkens....And she picketed as to the Feckner case where FBI officials, in the 1980s, allegedly allowed Art Feckner, a White man, to distribute cocaine in the Black community as part of a sting....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com, Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, and Imperialwomencoalition.com, Ohio's Black digital news leaders
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Community activist the late Alma Cooper
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, Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers with some 4.8 million readers on Google Plus alone. And the ClevelandUrbanNews.Com website stats reveal some 26 million hits since 2012. Tel: (216) 659-0473. 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.
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio- The city of Cleveland will name Hulda Avenue on the city's largely Black east side Alma Cooper Way at a ceremony at noon today, Aug 26, 2017, at the intersection of East 110th St and Hulda Avenue, a spokesman for Cleveland Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin said yesterday.
The street name change at Hulda Avenue from Woodhill Road to East 110th Street, which is a secondary and honorary street name, has already been erected per a city ordinance adopted by the 17-member city council on Aug 16, and following the recommendation of Councilman Griffin.
A longtime community activist, Cooper died in May of last year after a long illness.
She was 93-years-old at the time of her death, and one of 16 full siblings, three-fourths of whom have passed on.
Veteran Cleveland activist Ada Averyhart, 84, Cooper's only surviving sister, said in an interview that she moved to Cleveland in 1952 fromher native town of Brownsville, Tennessee where she and her siblings were raised because she was following Alma.
"Alma was the best sister in the world, and she died on my birthday," said Averyhart." She will be missed."
Alma Cooper, by all standards, was a change agent, and an exemplary community servant, a family member told ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog.
"My mother lived a life of significance and we are proud of the change that she helped bring about," said Cooper's daughter, Janice Turner Riley, who, along with Cooper's son, Ernest Turner, will be among the family members at today's dedication.
"She was fair and committed and she did not discriminate against the powers that be when fighting for the community," said Turner Riley.
Cooper was a homemaker who began her career later in life and retired from the homestead department for the Cuyahoga County auditor's office.
She was a longtime resident of Cleveland Ward 6 and a former precinct committeewoman who served on numerous community boards, including the Buckeye Community Congress, and for the East End Neighborhood House.
She was in the trenches with local community activists for decades on community issues, including the Cleveland police killing of Michael Pipkens, the controversial 1980s Art Feckner case, and relative to voting and other Civil Rights matters.
Feckner was White and a big time cocaine dealer on the city's largely Black east side and activists and Black community leaders were upset that police and FBI authorities allegedly allowed the drug sales to prosper as part of a sting operation.
Pipkens was killed in December 1992 by two Cleveland police officers, Michael Tankersley and Jeffrey Gibson, who put the 23-year-old Black man in a choke hold following a car chase on the east side of town.
The Pipkens killing gained notoriety and unleashed community protests. It also heightened tensions between police and the Black community, tensions that are still in existence today.
Retired Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals judge Sara J. Harper, also a longtime Cleveland NAACP affiliate, commented on Copper shortly after her death last year and said that Alma was a religious woman who was dedicated to her family and the community, and that she was "a calm activist."
Cooper remained active in the community until illness slowed her down. She is preceded in death by a son, her husband, and siblings, and survived by three grown children, Ernest Turner, Janice Turner Riley and Tracy Cooper, four siblings of Ada Averyhart, the Rev Thomas Averyhart, Dr. Willie Lewis Averyhart, and James Henry Averyhart, 10 grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and a host of stepchildren, other relatives, friends and associates.
ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com , Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers with some 4.8 million readers on Google Plus alone. And the ClevelandUrbanNews.Com website stats reveal some 26 million hits since 2012. Tel: (216) 659-0473. 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.
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