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.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor behind the late Carl B. Stokes and Michael R. White, was inaugurated for a historic fourth term at the Rotunda of City Hall Tuesday morning. (Editor note: Stokes, the brother and only sibling of the late former congressman Louis Stokes, Ohio's first Black congressperson, was the first Black mayor of a major American city and was elected in 1967 when the city, now largely Black, was majority White).
Jackson is the first mayor of Cleveland to reach the milestone of an election to a fourth four-year term in office for the $141,000-a-year job, and it did not come without a struggle, whether mild or moderate.
Two Democratic and now former east side councilmen of the all Democratic 17-member Cleveland City Council, Jeff Johnson and Zack Reed, were among eight unsuccessful candidates for mayor last year that sought to oust Jackson in a non-partisan primary election.
Reed, who, like Johnson, could not seek reelection to city council and run for mayor too per a provision in the the city charter, proceeded to the general election but ultimately lost to Jackson in a November runoff, the incumbent mayor winning 60 percent of the vote to Reed's 40 percent.
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Both Reed, whose Ward 2 encompassed the Kinsman and Mt Pleasant communities, and Johnson are Black too, Reed campaigning for mayor on a platform of safety first with the police union president who was ousted from office following the election at the helm, and Johnson of Ward 10, also a former state senator out of Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood, giving his support to Reed after finishing third in the primary.
With a seven -figure campaign war chest and key business and community leaders and elected officials such as Democratic 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia Fudge at his disposal, Jackson, 71 and energetic, prevailed, and both Reed and Johnson, frequent critics of the mayor during his third term in office, are gone from a city council comprised now of eight Blacks, eight Whites and one Hispanic, a relatively docile city council whose members are elected to four -year terms.
Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Ann Blackmon, one of two Black women, along with retired appellate judge Sara J, Harper, to be the first to be elected to a state appeals court in Ohio, administered the oath of office to Jackson before a capacity audience, Jackson taking the oath with his wife Edwina by his side.
Jackson, who for years led Ward 5 as a councilman in Cleveland's impoverished Central neighborhood on the city's largely Black east side, was diplomatic as usual, and he showed his appreciation for a fourth term.
"I want to welcome everyone to my fourth inaugural address and I want to say thank you," said Jackson while adding that it has not always been easy going leading a large urban city.
He specifically thanked his top ally, City Council President Kevin Kelley, the members of city council, his cabinet members, and his constituents and family. And he said that unless poor people and the less fortunate make significant strides the city cannot truly blossom.
"A great city will be measured by the conditions and welfare of the least of us," said Jackson, who said it is important to "eliminate inequities and disparities."
The three-term mayor said the city has progressed under his leadership.
"We've come a long way over the last twelve years," said Jackson
Jackson challenged clergy, business leaders, elected officials, community leaders and others to come together for the betterment of the city, a city with a population of some 385,000 people that is steeped in poverty and crime and ranked by Forbes Magazine as the ninth most dangerous city in the nation
Among other initiatives, the mayor said that key issues include educational reform in the largely Back Cleveland school district he also leads per state law, police reforms in the midst of a court ordered consent degree with the city and U.S Department of Justice, and community revitalization.
The articulate Rev. Dr. E Theophilus Caviness, a pastor since the age of 17 and a minister in Cleveland since 1961 who is senior pastor at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in the city's largely Black east side and a former second vice president of the Cleveland NAACP, delivered the invocation.
Caviness said it was an awesome and unprecedented day and then heaped praise on Jackson, a former city councilman turned mayor.
"Truly there has to be something extremely special and unique about this iconic man," said Caviness, also president of the Cleveland chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership conference.
Judge Blackmon spoke to the audience before administering the oath of office to Jackson.
"We are so proud to be here to administer the fourth oath of office to the 57th mayor of Cleveland, " said Judge Blackmon, a Democrat who worked with Jackson in his younger years when he was an assistant city prosecutor, Jackson winning a city council seat and Blackmon going on to lead the office as chief prosecutor under former mayor, the late George Voinovich, a White Republican who later became a U.S. senator, and who won election as mayor with support from then city council president George L. Forbes. (Editor's note: Voinovich succeeded Dennis Kucinich as mayor, Kucinich, a White and ultra-liberal Democrat, now a former congressman).
A Democrat and one of the city's most powerful of the city council presidents', Forbes, also a prominent attorney, lost a runoff election to Michael White in 1989 and then went on the lead the Cleveland Chapter NAACP for two decades. (Editor's note: White succeeded Voinovich as mayor).
White served three terms, married a White woman, declined to seek a fourth term, and moved to an Alpacha farm in rural Ohio. He was followed in office by the Democrat Jane Campbell, who is White and the first woman mayor, Campbell ousted by Jackson in 2005 after only one term in office, and with the help of Black leaders.
Judge Blackmon went straight to the 8th District court of Appeals from the city prosecutor's office as its chief and had the support of both White and Forbes, whom she campaigned for when she was chief city prosecutor and when he made his bid for mayor and lost the runoff election to White.
White and Forbes, both also Democrats, became arch enemies since White, a former councilman and state senator turned mayor, was Forbes' protege who beat him in a heated race for mayor, and with the help of Jeff Johnson, who was a councilman at the time and went on to replace White in the state senate, Johnson reelected to city council in 2010 and out of office this month along with Reed as to their failed bids last year to oust Jackson as mayor.
Likely the city's most articulate mayor, White, according to the Plain Dealer, Ohio' largest newspaper, came out of hiding last year to help Jackson overcome Reed.
Now a prominent and respected judge, Blackmon's political maneuverings are limited by the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct, state law, and other authorities.
"I came out of poverty and it was education that lifted me up," said the Honorable Blackmon during her speech at Jackson's swearing in ceremony Tuesday. "Knowledge is power."
A brilliant jurist by most if not all standards and a native of Mississippi who grew-up in poverty, Blackmon said that the community will wrap its arms around Jackson, who is, say his supporters and subordinates, a suave and low key leader, and a shrewd politician.
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.
