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U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Cleveland endorses Kathleen Clyde for Ohio secretary of state, Clyde the only Democrat in the race...Senator Brown said that "Kathleen Clyde is a leader who will fight back against extreme gerrymandering"

26 February 2018

Kathy

Pictured are United States Senator
Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat,
and state Representative Kathleen Clyde,
whom Brown endorsed Monday relative to
her bid for Ohio secretary of state
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

CLEVELANDURBANNEW.COM-COLUMBUS, Ohio-Today, Ohio’s senior U.S. senator and former Ohio secretary of state Sherrod Brown announced his endorsement of state Rep. Kathleen Clyde (D-Kent) relative to her campaign this year for Ohio secretary of state.

Clyde currently represents the 75th Ohio House district in Portage County and is the only Democrat running for secretary of state.

“As a former Secretary of State of Ohio, I’m proud to endorse Kathleen Clyde,” said Brown. “Kathleen Clyde is a leader who will fight back against extreme gerrymandering, foreign cybersecurity threats, and illegal voter purging."
A Cleveland Democrat, Brown added that "I’ve never met someone more committed to ensuring that Ohio’s democracy remains strong in the face of so many obstacles. We need Kathleen as our next secretary of state.”

Clyde said she is elated by the endorsement from such a distinguished United States senator who, throughout his career, and particularly in Washington, has fought for the nation's most vulnerable.
“Sherrod Brown is a voting rights champion and his commitment to fighting for Ohio’s working families is unparalleled," said state Rep. Clyde. “I’m thrilled to earn Sherrod’s endorsement and look forward to working with him as Ohio’s next secretary of state to strengthen Ohio’s middle class and safeguard our elections.”.
While serving in the state legislature and throughout her career, Clyde has been a strong
advocate for redistricting reform and voting rights.
The state lawmaker has also fought against Senate Bill 5 and other attacks on working families.
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

A Black History Moment From Cleveland Urban News.Com: Barack Obama is America's first Black president, Crispus Attucks was the first Black man to die in a major American war, and Blacks still feel the vestiges of slavery

28 February 2018

Kathy

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.

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-It’s Black history month, so let's talk a little bit about Black history. Do we really know the true history of the plight of African-Americans and their African ancestors?

We know without reservation that former president Barack Obama is the first Black president of the United States of America and Michelle Obama is the first Black first lady. And we recognize and remember some the true greats that have touched the lives of Clevelanders. They include the late Carl B. Stokes, the first Black mayor of a major American city, whom Cleveland voters elected in 1967.

Stokes later held the post under former president Bill Clinton of U.S. Ambassador to Seychelles and was a Cleveland Municipal Court judge. His older brother, the late Louis Stokes, was the first Black congressman from Ohio and led the 11th congressional district until his retirement in 1998.

The late Stephanie Tubbs Jones, of Cleveland, was the first Black Cuyahoga County prosecutor. She followed Stokes to congress and was the first Black woman in congress from Ohio. Her successor is Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, who is also Black, and who currently leads the predominantly Black 11th congressional district, which includes Cleveland and several of its eastern suburbs.

But how much do we really know about Black history, particularly since eurocentric curricula dominate teaching in elementary and secondary schools across the country, and in our institutions of higher learning?

History reveals that Black people were enslaved initially by Black people in Africa and then sold to be brought to America for further slavery to work our fields and to perform other subservient measures. But remember that it was White men that brought our ancestors to America in chains. The aftermath of those chains still plagues the Black community in various ways, including through high unemployment, disproportionate incarcerations of Black men and women, and underfunded public school districts that serve majority Black and poor children, among other systemic problems.

Blacks have long contributed to the greatness of America.

The very first Black killed in a major American war was a Black man named Crispus Attucks, who died in the Revolutionary War. Hundreds of Black soldiers were among the casualties at Bunker Hill.

Blacks were at one time, if not even now in some situations, counted as 3/5 of a person. And while the slavery of Blacks is not mentioned in the constitution, it is implicated under the 14th Amendment, which demands equal protection under the law for members of a protected class like Black people, and women.

President Abraham Lincoln’s executive order of the Emancipation Proclamation did not start the American Civil War, but it help to end it. President Lincoln was a Republican, as was Civil Rights activist and historian Frederick Douglas.

Jim Crow laws kept Blacks traditionally enslaved and the Ku Klux Klan was started in part because racist Whites wanted to keep former slaves in line and were angry that slavery had ended in the official sense.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s served to stop the Jim Crow laws. King gave his life to better America, and the official holiday named in his honor is well deserved.

The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was signed by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, with some saying he did so solely under threat of an override veto. Still, Johnson pushed the federal act through Congress, along with Dr. King, and a host of others.

What will children in our schools be taught this month about Black history? Will it be that Michael Jackson was a great man? How do we define greatness? Do we forgive major flaws? Yes we can. Pop singer Michael Jackson knew his craft, and was truly a great musician and songwriter of all time.

Legendary singer Nat King Cole, boxing legend Muhammad Ali, poet Maya Angelou, Malcolm X , pop icon Michael Jackson, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are also among Black notables, as are the following:

-Native Clevelander Garrett A. Morgan invented the traffic light and gas mask

-George Crum was inventor of the potato chip

-Frederick McKinley Jones invented the refrigeration unit for trucks

-Dr. Patricia Bath invented laser eye surgery for cataract removal

-Thomas L. Jennings invented dry-cleaning products

-Hiram Revels (R-MS) was the first Black in Congress as a U.S. senator

Imperial Women Coalition supports jury's recommendation for death for 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze's murderer, activist Kathy Wray Coleman saying that convicted teen rapist and murderer Christopher Whitaker must be held accountable for his crimes

24 February 2018

Kathy

Pictured are 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze of Cleveland, and her killer, 45-year-old Christopher Whitaker

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-A Cuyahoga County jury on Friday recommended death for convicted murderer and teen rapist Christopher Whitaker, the sex offender who kidnapped, raped and dismembered 7th grader Alianna DeFreeze at an abandoned home in January of last year in the Kinsman neighborhood on Cleveland's largely Black east side.

Two weeks ago, that same 12-member jury convicted the 45-year-old Whitaker on all counts, including aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping.

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Friedland, per state law, will decide, following a sentencing hearing on March 5, whether to accept the jury's recommendation or to sentenced Whitaker to life in prison.

Whitaker, of Cleveland, confessed to the crimes, saying he was high on cocaine and acting out the morning of the gruesome murder. And he has apologized to the victim's family.

But Whitaker and his lawyers do not want him put to death, the height of punishment in the state of Ohio for aggravated murder.

Cleveland community activist organizers want Whitaker, who literally dismembered Alianna's body with lawn tools, including a saw, punished to the hilt under state law, and they are upset.

"We are pleased with the jury's verdict as well as its recommendation for the death penalty for Mr. Whitaker," said community activist Kathy Wray Coleman of Cleveland, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition, a women's and children's rights group founded relative to heightened rape and murders of Black women and girls and other women and girls in Cleveland since 2009.

Coleman said that Whitaker "must be held accountable for his crimes against this young and innocent Black girl that he kidnapped, raped, tortured and dismembered and we hope he rots in hell."

The 14-year-old Black girl, whose dismembered body was found in January 2017 by police in an abandoned home at the the 9400 block of Fullmer Avenue, was snatched by Whitaker in the 3400 block of East 149th Street as she was getting off the RTA bus headed to school.

Alianna never arrived at school, and her mother, notified some 10 hours later, filed a missing person's report.

The child's maimed body was identified by the Cuyahoga County medical examiner's office through dental records.

Whitaker used his sex offender's address of South Euclid, Ohio but lived in Cleveland, investigators said. He served time in prison for sexual battery, among other convictions, and is in jail held on a $3 million bond.

DNA linked Whitaker to the crime.

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidates Dennis Kucinich and Richard Chordray differ on bill to ban assault weapons introduced in the the Ohio Senate this week that makes it a criminal offense to own assault weapons

22 February 2018

Kathy

Pictured are Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidates Richard Chordray (wearing blue shirt) and Dennis Kucinich

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-Cleveland, Ohio-Yesterday, Democratic members of the Ohio Senate introduced a bill that would outlaw assault weapons in Ohio and make it a criminal offense to own or acquire weapons like those used in the mass slaying at a high school in Parkland, Florida last week and in dozens of other similar fatal shootings across the country.

Whether the bill ever becomes law remains to be seen, given that both chambers of the Ohio state legislature, the Ohio Senate and Ohio House of Representatives, are controlled by Republicans.

The proposed legislative measure comes on the heels of a rally and press conference on Monday in Cleveland spearheaded by Democratic candidate for governor Dennis Kucinich, and his running mate, Akron Councilwoman Tara Samples, to demand that assault weapons are banned statewide by the state legislature.

A former Cleveland mayor and former congressman who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004 and 2008, Kucinich faces Richard Chordray, a former state attorney general and state treasurer and consumer watchdog who recently quit his job in Washington, D.C relative to his bid for governor, state Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-33), former state representative Connie Pillich, and former Ohio Supreme Court justice Bill O'Neil in a five-way race for the Democratic nomination for governor.

If the bill were enacted, Ohio would become the sixth state to outlaw assault weapons.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has reported that five states now ban assault weapons: California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

The Democratic candidates for governor, however, are on very different sides of this politically, socially, and emotionally charged public safety issue.

So far, Kucinich and Samples have enlisted the support of more than 2, 000 volunteers to lobby their city councils and boards of educations to pass resolutions supporting state legislation to ban assault weapons.

Exactly one year ago yesterday, the 4th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals upheld the state of Maryland’s ban on 45 different types of assault weapons and on a 10-round limit on gun magazines.

“Put simply, we have no power to extend second amendment protections to weapons of war,” wrote Judge Robert King for the majority in that decision.

Only a few months earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case that which would have overturned that Maryland ban.

"Ohio attorney general and candidate for governor who led the legal battle in Ohio to invalidate a Cleveland law banning assault weapons and make it impossible for any other city to enact a similar law apparently remains opposed to such bans," said Kucinich.

" He talked about appointing a gun violence prevention czar and promoting practical, common sense measures to address gun violence, [but at] no point did he express support for a ban on the deadly, military style assault weapons," he said.

Kucinich said that Chordray's past pro-gun positions earned him the endorsement, support, and an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association, the Buckeye Firearms Association, and similar groups.

"Cordray’s refusal to support an assault weapons ban in Ohio puts him on the wrong side of recent federal court decisions, and the wrong side of all Ohioans who want to see these weapons off the streets," said Kucinich.

Dennis Kucinich and Councilwoman Tara Samples host Cleveland rally to ban assault weapons where Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell says guns are easier to get than jobs in his neighborhood, a rally with gun control advocates and community activists

20 February 2018

Kathy

Pictured are Ohio candidate for governor Dennis Kucinich (wearing bow tie) and his running mate for lieutenant governore, Akron Councilwoman Tara Mosley Samples, and Cleve;and Wward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, South Euclid Councilman Marty Gelfand, community activists, mothers fed up with gun violence, local clergy, and a host of others joined Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dennis Kucinich and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Akron Councilwoman Tara Samples, for a rally in an effort to ban assault weapons statewide at the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel in downtown Cleveland Monday afternoon, an event that was relocated from the steps of Cleveland City Hall due to imminent rain.

The mainstream media were there in droves and activists in attendance include Kathy Wray Coleman, Yvonka Hall, Rico Dancy and Nina McLellan.

"Those who have opened the door for these assault weapons to flood our cities and to flood our state and to be freely available in America are about to have an accounting, a day of reckoning themselves," said Kucinich.

Kucinich and Samples want the state legislature to pass legislation to ban assault rifles statewide, which comes on the heels of the shooting deaths of 17 people Wednesday by a gunman in Parkland, Florida.

They introduced a resolution to that affect during a press conference at Monday's rally.

"Today, Dennis and I take an aggressive stand demanding that assault weapons be banned," said Samples, who is Black.

"This is not a request," said Samples. "It is a demand for action."

Samples cited statistics on gun violence nationwide of 271 mass shootings in 2014, 323 in 2015, 383 in 2016, and 317 just last year.

Councilman Conwell, one of 17 members of Cleveland City Council and the former chair of council's safety committee, said guns are often easier to obtain than viable employment,

And he vowed to fight with Kucinich and Samples for public policy changes to seek to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of irresponsible persons..

"You can get guns before you can get jobs in my neighborhood," said Conwell, one of eight Black east side Cleveland councilmen.

Elizabeth Kuncinich. the wife of Dennis Kucinich, a former Cleveland mayor and former congressman, said Ohio can take legislative action regarding gun control, independent of its respective cities, villages and townships.

"It is not legal for cities to ban assault weapons but it is legal for states to ban assault weapons."

In the midst of the Florida shooting that has rocked the country and has heightened calls by policy makers and gun control advocates to curb gun violence, Ohio Gov John Kasich, a Republican who, is term- limited and leaves office next January, has lobbied President Trump and congressional leaders to take a harsher stance on guns.

Asked by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com his response to a proposal by some teachers unions that calls for guns in classrooms for every teacher and what grade he would give Kasich on gun control, Kucinich said he did not want to make the issue political or partisan and that all stakeholders must come together to seek to eradicate the growing problem of gun violence.

But he also said that "those who have been in public life and have taken positions that have opened the door to this moment of tragedy will be held accountable."

Kucinich faces Richard Chordray, a former state attorney general and state treasurer and consumer watchdog who recently quit his job in Washington, D.C relative to his bid for governor, state Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-33), former state representative Connie Pillich, and former Ohio Supreme Court justice Bill O'Neil in a five-way race for the Democratic nomination for governor.

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Welcome to the Frontpage

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Cleveland endorses Kathleen Clyde for Ohio secretary of state, Clyde the only Democrat in the race...Senator Brown said that "Kathleen Clyde is a leader who will fight back against extreme gerrymandering"

A Black History Moment From Cleveland Urban News.Com: Barack Obama is America's first Black president, Crispus Attucks was the first Black man to die in a major American war, and Blacks still feel the vestiges of slavery

Imperial Women Coalition supports jury's recommendation for death for 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze's murderer, activist Kathy Wray Coleman saying that convicted teen rapist and murderer Christopher Whitaker must be held accountable for his crimes

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidates Dennis Kucinich and Richard Chordray differ on bill to ban assault weapons introduced in the the Ohio Senate this week that makes it a criminal offense to own assault weapons

Dennis Kucinich and Councilwoman Tara Samples host Cleveland rally to ban assault weapons where Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell says guns are easier to get than jobs in his neighborhood, a rally with gun control advocates and community activists

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