International Women's Day Cleveland rally and march draw nearly 400 people and are both led by Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition, an activist, journalist and the key organizer of the event, and with some 15 speakers, including keynote speaker Genevieve Mitchell, who saluted legendary Black women, and Cleveland Councilman Zack Reed....The organizers for the rally and march were Black women and grassroots activists....Speakers spoke on violence against women, immigrants, Black people, public education, mass incarceration, reproductive rights, the LGBT community, racism, sexism, Obamacare, police brutality, children, the legal system, and President Trump, one speaker from Refuse Fascism.Org calling on Trump supporter Steve Loomis, the union head for Cleveland police, to resign....Other speakers included activists the Rev Pamela Pinkney Butts, who did the opening prayer, Susan Schnur, and Larry Bresler, Muslim activist Julia Shearson, immigrant activist Olga Rosado, teacher and activist Melissa Svivelj Smith, and activists Rose Driscoll, James Sullivan, Al Porter Jr., Nina McClellan, Miniater Gwendolyn Pitts, Patricc Brown, and Princess Diccie Moore....Also there were members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Women's Caucus and its chairperson, attorney Cindy Dempsey, though they were not organizers of either the march or rally....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of www.clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
Longtime Cleveland journalist and activist Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition, also editor-in-chief at ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNnewsBlog.Com , led hundreds of participants at the International Women's Day rally and march in downtown Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday, March 8, 2017. Above Coleman speaks to participants at the rally at the Free Stamp at Willard Park in downtown Cleveland next to Cleveland City Hall . Coleman is the one who thought of doing the rally and march and organized others, even paying a political organizer $300 to help her, partly because she wanted issues impacting Black women that were not addressed during the Jan 21 Cleveland rally for women that mirrored the national rally to be addressed. The organizers were Black women and grassroots activists Women's rights activist the Rev Pamela Pinkney-Butts delivers the opening prayer at the International Women's Day rally held on March 8, 2017 in dow
