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CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Former Cleveland Municipal Court judge Pauline Tarver, a Democrat and former executive director of the Cleveland NAACP turned judge, died Wednesday while a candidate this year as a favorite in a four-way race to regain a seat on the 13- member largely Black Cleveland Municipal Court bench after she lost it in 2015 to the late Ed Wade, a Black Republican who succumbed to cancer in 2016. She was 63.
She was endorsed in her most recent bid for judge by 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat and one of two Blacks in congress from Ohio.
Both Fudge and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson issued statements commending Tarver for her community service, the mayor saying that she was one of the most committed public servants he has had the privilege of knowing, and Fudge saying that Tarver was hardworking, upstanding, caring, and "a true guardian of the law."
Tarver had been a judge for 12 years when she lost to Wade in a close race two years ago.
The circumstances behind her death were unreported at press time. She was briefly on life support, and was taken off Wednesday, sources said.
Memorial services are Saturday morning Aug 5 at Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland beginning with a 10 am wake followed by services at 11 am.
While once campaigning for judge she said for an article for a University of Akron blog that she had prepared all her life for the bench.
"My entire life I have prepared to be on the bench," said Tarver. "I have been involved with the community my entire career, working as a community organizer and the going on to work with all facets of the community, victims of crime, police departments, and grand juries."
Tarver continued.
" I worked five years with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center counseling victims, training law enforcement and grand juries in rape evidence collection while volunteering with Women Together, the battered women’s shelter in the late seventies and early eighties."
As executive director of the Cleveland NAACP Tarver fought tirelessly for the Civil Rights of Black people, sources said. And she was resilient.
"Pauline Tarver served the Cleveland NAACP well for years and was an unusual and independent-minded jurist, and she steered her own ship," said state Rep. Bill Patmon, a Cleveland Democrat and mayoral candidate who said he was sadden to learn of her passing behind the death last week of retired Cleveland judge Jean Murrell Capers at the age of 104, and the first Black woman elected to Cleveland City Council. ( CLICK HERE TO READ THE JEAN MURRELL CAPERS ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM )
Charles Bibb Sr, a former East Cleveland councilman and Cuyahoga County Democratic Party operative who leads the Carnegie Roundtable said that he was " glad to see that Pauline Tarver had been elevated from executive director of the Cleveland NAACP to a Cleveland judge."
Cleveland activist and journalist Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition, who knew Tarver, called her death "a loss to the judiciary and to the Civil Rights and women's rights movements"
Francess Caldwell, executive director of the Cleveland African American Museum, said she volunteered under Tarver with the NAACP and that Tarver "was a fair judge when some of these Black judges are unfair to the Black community."
Tarver's sudden death sent shock waves throughout the Black community since she was well-known in the community and in political circles as a judge and a longtime former executive director of the Cleveland NAACP under the reign of the once powerful George Forbes, now a part time local attorney and former longtime Cleveland City council president who lost a mayoral run-off to his protege, Mike White, in 1989. He then served 20 years as president of the Cleveland NAACP branch until he resigned in 2012.
Tarver graduated from John Adams High School in Cleveland and went on to earn a bachelor's degree from John Carroll University and a law degree from Cleveland-Marshall School of Law.
She never married, and had no children.
She is survived by siblings, among others, and was close to her her mother, Sarah Massengill-Tarver, a Civil Rights advocate who died in 2013.
Tarver was first elected to the Cleveland Municipal Court bench in 2003 and was reelected for a second six year term in 2009 before losing a third term to Wade in 2015. She was the executive director of the Cleveland NAACP from 1982-2003, and was also a prior grant writer and community organizer.
Additionally, Tarver was a member of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, the Black Women's Political Action Committee, and the National Council of Negro Women, among other organizations.
Clevelandurbannews.com and 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