Black Cleveland activists slated to picket Cleveland 19 news and its reporter, WOIO reporter Kelly Kennedy, whom they say systematically excludes Black women organizers of Cleveland and Black activists from news stories she covers in a biased fashion in support of the establishment....Activists say that Kennedy is slick, distrustful and anti-Black

Cleveland 19 News WOIO reporter Kelly Kennedy

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland activists are slated to picket and boycott Cleveland 19 News and reporter Kelly Kennedy of WOIO television, whom community activists of Cleveland say is slick, distrustful and anti-Black. Cleveland 19 news cut all Black activists and organizers out of its March 28, 2023 coverage as to the 10-year anniversary of the Cleveland East 93rd Street serial murders using reporter Kelly Kennedy, who also cut out Black women and Black women organizers in a television news story when Women's March Cleveland protested this past summer with nearly 300 people at the Cuyahoga County administration building for reproductive resources, which were later granted by county council, the county board of control, and then county executive Armond Budish Kennedy, say activists, is allegedly operating to undermine them and to cover up their concerns as to the lack of police and other accountability regarding the heightened murders of Black women in Cleveland and the failure of politicians to address the problem.

The daughter of East 93rd Street Serial Murders murder victim Christine Malone, who asked Imperial Women Coalition to organized the annual rally as they usually do, said that both 19 News and News 5 Cleveland called the family ahead of Tuesday's anniversary rally and tried to interview them away from activists but the family said no This is according to Angelique Malone, Christine's daughter. After efforts failed to divide activists and the murder victims families News 5 Cleveland did not cover the event but 19 News and reporter Kelly Kennedy showed at the rally and cut out all Black activists and the march in subsequent news coverage. This was done in bad faith, say activists, and with malice and likely racial animus too

The activists say that it is time to picket and boycott mainstream media racism and sexism in Cleveland against Blacks and Black women of Cleveland They say that Blacks should not be systematically excluded relative to mainstream media coverage in Cleveland This is the 21st century, they say.

Below is our story by Black Cleveland community activists leading up to the 10th anniversary of the Cleveland East 93rd Street Serial Murders rally on March 28, 2023 that caused the aforementioned controversy. Activists say that Kennedy stole their story leading up to the anniversary rally as her own and that of Cleveland 19 News, a WOIO affiliate, and then shut Black activists and Black women organizers out of her news story.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

Staff article-March 26, 2023

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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, Ohio- Tuesday, March 28, 2023 marks the 10-year anniversary of  the Cleveland East 93rd Street Serial Murders and community activists, led by Imperial Women Coalition, which has organized every anniversary rally and vigil since 2014, will hold a vigil at the intersection of East 93rd Street and Bessemer Avenue on the city's largely Black east side The event will also include the family members or supporters of murder victims Jazmine Trotter, Ashley Leszyeski, Christine Malone, and Jameela Hasan,  and  will be led by Malone's daughter, Angelique Malone, one of her surviving eight adult children.  Trotter's twin sister and mother will also speak, organizers said.

All four were killed along a two mile strip near East 93rd Street and Bessemer Avenue up to Harvard Avenue and 14 year- old Aliana Defreeze, a fifth murder victim, was also killed nearby, her killer caught, convicted, and now on death row. Other than Alianna, a teenager abducted on her way to school and later murdered, the killer or killers remain at large, and all of the murder victims were Black but Leszyeski.

"Our family will continue to participate in rallies to remember the victims and to work to bring their killer or killers to justice and we thank Kathy Wray Coleman and other community activists, and the media, for keeping this issue alive" said Angelique Malone, a daughter of murder victim Christine Malone, She added that "we want our mother's killer found and brought to justice as well as those of other Cleveland women whose killers are still out there running free."

Seasoned Cleveland activist Kathy Wray Coleman of Imperial Women Coalition, a grassroots group founded as to the murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Avenue by the late serial killer Anthony Sowell, has organized every rally and vigil and said that "something has to be done about these cold cases as well as escalating heinous violence against Black women in a predominantly Black city  like Cleveland." She said further that "we have been patient for so long as we continue to seek redress and public policy changes for the betterment of Black women of Cleveland, poor women, other women of color, and children who are subjected to unnecessary violence."

Hasan, 37, was  stabbed 17 times and murdered in December of 2012 in an east side apartment, and Malone, 45, and Trotter, 20, were both killed in March of 2013. Leszyeski, 21 at the time of her death, was murdered in May of 2013, and DeFreeze, a teenager, was murdered in January of 2017 in an abandoned home. Leszyeski was White and resided on the city's West Side, her body discovered in a vacant field on the city's east side, and with her hand cut off. 

Malone's body was found in a field at the intersection of East 93rd street and Bessemer Avenue on March 28, 2013 where Tuesday's 10-year anniversary event will be held and Trotter's body was discovered under an abandoned home. March 28, 2023 marks 10 years to the day since Malone's body was found and her family is most active of the murdered women in rallying annually with community activists where her body was discovered to keep the unsolved murders before the public. 

Alianna DeFreeze was murdered by previously convicted sex predator Christopher Whitaker, who was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge  Judge Carolyn Friedland. He chopped her body  into pieces in an abandoned home.  

Affiliated greater Cleveland activist groups relative to the anniversary rally and vigil include Imperial Women Coalition,  Women's March Cleveland, the Laura Cowan Foundation, International Women's Day March Cleveland, Black Women's Army,  and Black on Black Crime Inc.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.