Pictured are Greater Cleveland activists Donna Walker Brown of the Republican Inner City Movement (wearing eye glasses), Mariah Crenshaw of East Cleveland (wearing Afro with no mic in her hand), Betty Mahone of the Black Women's Federation (wearing blue shirt), and Latonya Goldsby of Black Lives Matter Cleveland (wearing Afro with a mic in her hand), all of whom were recipients of the Mamie Till Memorial and Courage Award at an event on Aug 28 at the African-American Museum in Cleveland
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.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio- Greater Cleveland activists Donna Walker Brown, Mariah Crenshaw, Betty Mahone and Latonya Goldsby of Black Lives Matter Cleveland were honorees of the Mamie Till Community Memorial and Courage Award at an event Tuesday evening at the African American Museum on Crawford Road on Cleveland's east side.
Each award recipient was also presented with a bouquet of three red roses.
Produced by community activist Genevieve Mitchell, the event, which activists say will be annual, was free and open-to-the-public, and was sponsored by the museum and its executive director, Frances Caldwell, in cooperation with the Black Women's Center, an arm of the museum.
"We will fight you in the streets and take you down before you take everything that belongs to us," said Crenshaw in her acceptance speech as she took on the establishment. "We contributed to this country with our blood, our sweat, our tears, and our children."
Walker Brown, head of the Republican Inner city Movement of Cleveland, told Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, that receiving the Mamie Till award was an exceptional honor since Till, a young African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, after being accused of flirting with a White woman in her family's grocery store, lost his life because of racism, White supremacy and bigotry.
"Ms. Till was my hero," said Walker Brown, in highlighting the fight by Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till, for justice for her young son.
The keynote speaker was Cassandra McDonald, a community activist and president and executive director of the Euclid NAACP.
McDonald, who has a law degree, outlined the Till case to the audience and said that to this day Blacks rarely receive justice for the arbitrary "taking of their lives."
Cherima Chungag, who leads the Black Women's Center, and Mikki Smith were the mistresses of ceremonies.
Pastor Barbara Elkins did the prayer and Karen Abdul Nafi of Black Lives Matter Cleveland also spoke
Activist groups associated with the gathering include the Euclid NAACP, Carl Stokes Brigade, with its vice president, David Patterson, also making a presentation, Black on Black Crime Inc and its founder Art McKoy, Black Man's Army, Black Women's Federation, the Cleveland Peace Makers, and the Inner City Republican Movement of Cleveland
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.
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