Former DNC chair Donna Brazile keynotes the 2019 Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner and says Ohio and Cleveland are pivotal to the 2020 presidential election that will be won by "a razor thin margin"....Cleveland Channel 5 News Anchor Danita Harris was the mistress of ceremonies for the fundraising event and Danielle Sydnor is president of the Cleveland NAACP....View the event pictures here, including Black people and others dressed to the nines....They include judges, Cleveland NAACP members, Black greater Cleveland mayors, political affiliates, attorneys, P.h.D's, and Black "beauty queens".....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog

Pictured is former Democratic National Committee  (DNC)  chair and veteran political strategist Donna Brazile, who was the keynote speaker at the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner on Saturday, June 22, 2019 at the  Grand Ballroom of the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland

The crowd at the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 22, 2019

Former Cleveland NAACP president and Cleveland Judge Michael Nelson Sr, his wife, Donna Kelso Nelson, Cleveland Channel 5 News Anchor Anita Harris, who was the mistress of ceremonies for the event, and Yvonne Pointer- Triplett at the reception before the Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner on June 22, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio

The judges Sheehan, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brendan Sheehan and his wife, 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Michelle Sheehan

Ariane Kirkpatrick, Dr. Jacklyn  Chisholm, and Yolanda Armstrong 

Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell, center, poses with family members and constituents, Blackwell the first Black mayor of the largely Black Cleveland suburb

Lisa Payne Jones, Ariane Kirpatrick and Cleveland Judge Emanuella  Groves

Top from left: Cleveland NAACP President Danielle Sydnor, Cleveland Judge Emmanuella Groves, Attorney Greg Groves, Angela Groves and Greg Groves

        Bottom from left: Brian Siggers, Cleveland Judge Lauren Moore, and Cleveland            Judge Jazmin Torres-Lugo

Rachael Talton, Lorna Wisham, Rachael Taylor and Meredith Turner

Black "beauty queens" were in attendance at the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner on June 22, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio, and were dressed  to the nines in African cultural garb 

Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Anita Laster Mayes, Cleveland Judge Michael Nelson Sr., and Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Deborah Turner

Black women were well represented at the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner on June 22, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio

Black men were well represented at the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner on June 22, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 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. Coleman is an experienced Black political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com. 

Donna Brazile

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com–Former interim Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair and veteran political strategist Donna Brazile, also the campaign manager for former vice president Al Gore's unsuccessful bid for president in 2000, was the keynote speaker at the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner at the Grand Ballroom of the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland on Saturday, June 22, 2019. 

Elected by branch members in February 2019, Danielle Sydnor, 36 and  a former banker who heads the nonprofit Economic and Community Development Institute, leads the local NAACP chapter. 

The event was the who's who of greater Cleveland, including judges, other elected officials, attorneys, educators, and Civil Rights advocates.

The mistress of ceremonies was popular Cleveland Channel 5 News Anchor Danita Harris. 

Brazile told an audience of more than a thousand people that the 2020 election will be determined by "a razor thin margin and that margin will ultimately be determined by what happens here in Cleveland."

She said Cleveland and Ohio  are pivotal.

"Eighteen electoral votes," she said of Ohio. "The road to the White House comes through this state."

She said Ohio is the buckle in the rust belt and "the soul of the industrial heartland."

And she said that "no state is more important to the presidency and winning it than Ohio."

Brazile stressed the importance of the Black vote in 2020 and joked about her role as a political commentator for the Republican-leaning Fox 8 News, a departure from her previous position as a political analyst at CNN, a more liberal cable television channel.

"People said why are you on Fox," said Brazile. 

"I like middle-aged White men," Brazile said, in a joking manner.

She said the NAACP is necessary these days as it has always been, and that she joined the Civil Rights organization in her youth.

" I joined the NAACP when I was a little girl," said the former DNC chair. "It was $5 back then."

Tri-C President Dr. Alex Johnson 

Dr. Alex Johnson, president of Cuyahoga County Community College (Tri-C), was recognized at the largely Black gathering, along with Tri-C as its corporate honoree.

Tickets were $150 for the after -five fundraiser of the local chapter of the nation's most prominent Civil Rights organization. 

Brazile's visit to Cleveland, and the pivotal state of Ohio, comes as the 2020 presidential election nears and the Black vote is crucial.

Former vice president Joe Biden, who served under former president Barack Obama, is the front runner for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Bernie Sanders trailing in second place, Biden and Sanders among some 30 Democratic candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and  Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, a Youngstown area Democrat.  . 

The Black vote fell seven percentage points in 2016 when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whom Brazille supported, lost a close election to Republican nominee and current president and presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Blacks making up 12 percent of the electorate that year.

Some 4 million Obama voters, Obama the country's first  Black president who left office in 2017 after serving two terms, stayed home in 2016, an indication that courting the Black vote in 2020 may take some hard work and grassroots campaigning for both Democratic and Republican party operatives.

Event sponsors for Saturday''s  Freedom Fund Dinner include the Cleveland Browns, First Energy, Key Bank, Tri-C , Fifth Third Bank , Medical Mutual, the Eaton Corporation, Torchbearer, Pioneer, Justice Seeker,  the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the law firm of Kohrman, Jackson and Krantz.

Brazile with former vice-president Al Gore in 2000  
during his unsuccessful campaign for president 

Brazile, 59, is the first African-American woman to direct a campaign of a presidential nominee, Al Gore, who lost to former president George Bush nearly two decades ago, that election historical via Bush v. Gore, a decision of the United States Supreme Court that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election, Bush winning Florida to edge Gore for the presidency. 

 . 

Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016 was a repeat of Bush v. Gore in some respects, Gore winning the popular vote over Bush but losing the electoral college, and thus the presidency, and Trump winning the electoral college over Clinton, who won the popular vote but lost her second bid for president, the first bid against Obama in a Democratic primary in 2008, Obama later choosing the former first lady and former U.S. senator as his secretary of state.

A native of New Orleans, and the third of nine children,  Brazile, who is Black, volunteered for the Jimmy Carter-Walter Mondale presidential campaign as a teenager and continued her political activism in college.

She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Louisiana State University and after graduation she worked for several advocacy groups and helped to make Martin Luther King Day a national holiday.

She has worked on the Democratic presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson and then Walter Mondale in the general election, both in 1984, and Dick Gephardt in 1988. 

Brazile was interim chair for the DNC in 2016, after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in July of 2016, and amid controversy. 

A former assistant attorney general for Civil Rights and secretary of labor under Obama, Tom Perez has led the DNC as its chairman since 2017.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 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.