CLEVELAND, Ohio-West side activist groups of Cleveland during a poor people's conference on Sat. called for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (pictured) to direct his appointed city prosecutor to drop all criminal charges against Occupy Cleveland members, to back off of plans to build trash incinerators throughout the city to pollute it, and called for a Cleveland School Board of Education policy that mandates parents and teachers at the table in the hiring of the school district CEO and school principals and the crafting of far reaching education plans.
WASHINGTON, D.C.-President Obama's sweeping healthcare law that was adopted by Congress in 2010 before a divided America and requires among other mandates that most Americans hold heath insurance by 2014 or face a penalty is now before the conservative leaning U.S. Supreme Court with tense oral arguments from both sides ending on Wed.
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio-About 150 people gathered for a "Trayvon Martin Skittles Rally" on Sat., March 24 at Black on Black Crime Headquarters in East Cleveland, Oh. led by Ernie Smith and Patricia Rowell of the Oppressed People's Nation in cooperation with a host of other Cleveland area activist groups such as the Imperial Women Coalition, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Cleveland African American Museum and Occupy Cleveland. (Editors note: Watch the videos below of the rally with speeches by Smith and other community activists such as Art McKoy and Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman)
Media such as news channels 3 and 8 were there as well as a cadre of young people and some other seasoned community activists like Cleveland NAACP President Dr. Eugene Jordon, former Plain Dealer Reporter Richard Peery, Ada Averyhart, Laura Cowan, Susan Schnur, Genevieve Mitchell, Bill Swain, Priscilla Cooper, Valerie and Stewart Robinson, Leatrice Tolls, Denise Taylor, Brett Jackson, Marva and David Patterson, Frances Caldwell and Debi Brown.
Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was gunned down in Sanford Fl. last month by a neighborhood watchman, whom police have not charged because he is White and Travon was Black, Civil Rights activists such as the Rev Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and National NAACP President Ben Zealous have said.
The murder of the unarmed teen has increased racial tensions nationwide and sparked protests with calls for Zimmerman to be charged, arrested and forced to trial before a duly impaneled jury of his peers.
Video Clip below of March 25, 2012 "Trayvon Martin Skittles Rally" in East Cleveland led by Ernest Smith of the Oppressed People's Nation
CLEVELAND, Ohio-A employee in the child support enforcement department for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason (pictured) is under fire by community activists for calling Blacks "nigger," demanding that Black men be hanged, and promoting White supremacy with White masks that are considered offensive to Blacks.
And data show that Mason, a White man who resides in Parma, Oh., an overwhelmingly White Cleveland suburb where Blacks dare to go or be subjected to routine harassment by police and where a federal district court once found that the city had discriminated against Black firefighters and ordered a consent decree approved by the Cleveland NAACP, has ignored the racially hostile issue since it surfaced in Oct. of 2011 and was brought to his attention.
The commotion began when Lily Miller, a former deputy bailiff for Cleveland Municipal Housing Court Judge Ray Pianka and current county employee under Mason, put up a poll on the Internet social media web site of RealNeo.Us asking if it is okay for Whites to call Blacks nigger with an option of selecting that being called nigger "is legal," and another option of whether it is okay because being a "nigger is what it is."
CLEVELAND,Ohio-Leaders of the Cleveland NAACP, the Cleveland Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Women's Political Action Committee and the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network greater Cleveland Chapter will rally today (March 25) at 6 pm at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, 1161 E. 105th St, in support of murdered unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin (pictured).
And community groups will join Black on Black Crime, The Imperial Women Coalition, the Carl Stokes Brigade, Peace in the Hood, Occupy Cleveland, activist college groups and any other pro-Democratic organizations for a mass protest 4 pm March, 3o at the Southwest Quadrant at Public Square in Cleveland from 4-6 pm. (Editor's note: Plans for a march to the Justice Center have changed and the march will be around Public Square).