By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under five different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

By Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist, legal and political reporter, and a 22- year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years under five different editors at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio.

Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

Charleston, South Carolina (Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news(www.clevelandurbannews.com)-President Barack Obama (pictured) delivered the eulogy on Friday afternoon for the home-going service of the Rev Clementa Picnkney and eight other Black parishioners gunned down earlier this month by suspected serial killer and White supremacist Dylann Storm Roof during a church revival at the prominent Emmanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The 21-year-old self-confessed killer said at the time of the unprecedented shooting that has taken the country literally by storm, that he was "there to kill Black people."

"Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout," preached Obama to a  “Hallelujah…”

Among other matters, the president also discussed Jim Crow Laws that  were state and local laws relative to  racial segregation that were enacted after the Reconstruction period in Southern United States that continued in force until 1965 in Southern U.S. states.

"The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, and the resistance to Civil Rights for all people was wrong,'" said Obama, who political experts say will go down in American history as one of the nation's great president.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president was there too, an indication, said sources, that she is more aggressively, or more cleverly,  courting the Black vote this time around and after losing the Democratic nomination to Obama, a two-term president, in 2008. She did not speak on the platform though.

America' first Black president touched on a number of other hot-topic issues during his 30-minute eulogy, that critics say had political undertones, and he said that racism is alive and well in America,  and that gun violence must cease.

“We have to have a conversation about race," said Obama, before adding that while gun safety measures will not prevent every tragedy, that to do nothing about the impact of gun violence on American society is irresponsible.

The Charleston killings ring true the fragile relationship between police nationwide and the Black community, and the tragedy comes as police murders of unarmed Blacks are getting heightening media attention, including the police shooting death of 12-year--old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio.

During an interview with comedian Marc Maron on Friday Obama said that the use or misuse of the n-word by those that are not African-American in particular, "is not the measure of whether racism still exists or not."

Obama launched into a solo at the end of his eulogy, leading funeral goers in the routine Black funeral song of "Amazing Grace."

The president  then read aloud the names of each murder victim in addition to Rev Pinckney, namely Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L. Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson.

The killings have outraged Black leaders and Civil Rights advocates across the county.

The president of the NAACP expressed his outrage at the violence.

National NAACP Executive Director Cornell William Brooks

“There is no greater coward than a criminal who enters a house of God and slaughters innocent people engaged in the study of scripture,” said Cornell William Brooks, executive director of the national NAACP.

Pictured are United States President Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief. Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

WASHINGTON, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court in a split 5-4 decision made same sex marriage legal nationwide today, a celebrated ruling championed not only by gay rights advocates but also by President Barack Obama, the National NAACP,  and most Democratic members of Congress, including Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat out of greater Cleveland who leads Ohio's largely Black 11th congressional district.

"Today we made a more perfect union," said Obama "Love is love."

The ruling, which puts to rest more than two decades of litigation,  is another win for the president, America's first Black president, and comes just a day after the high court upheld financial aid subsidies under the Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act, which Republican congressional leaders love to hate, is the president's signature universal healthcare law passed by Congress in 2010, and upheld as constitutional by the nation's high court in 2012.

Leading up to today's ruling on same sex marriage, the high court heard oral arguments on April Leading up to today's ruling on same sex marriage, the high court heard oral arguments on April 28 in four consolidated cases together titled Obergefel v. Hodges, the primary question before the court being the issue of whether same-sex couples enjoy a constitutional right to marry.

The liberal and conservative justices were split on the matter then, and relative to today's ruling, with Justice Anthony Kennedy holding and ultimately issuing the unprecedented swing vote in the case.

Thousands had converged on Washington, D.C. and protested in front of the Supreme Court for oral arguments, both advocates and opponents of same sex marriage.

The  arguments, which went on for more than two hours, centered around gay marriage bans in the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio that were upheld by the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio , a 2-1 decision of a three-judge panel issued late last year that created a conflict with other appellate rulings. That conflict between federal appeals courts made the case ripe to be heard by the Supreme Court of the land.

The Sixth Circuit, pursuant to its decision issued last year, upheld the trial courts ruling saying  that the state legislature and voters in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee, and not the courts, should decide the issue of same sex marriage.

Obama had also said that "the equal protection clause [of the 14th Amendment] guarantees same sex marriage in all 50 states."

Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former U.S senator representing the state of New York who served as secretary of state during the president's first term, and who announced earlier this year that she will make a second bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, supports same sex marriage, and the landmark decision just issued by the Supreme Court.

"I was proud to help launch Hillary's campaign," said same sex marriage advocate Jared Milrad in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news." She's been an advocate for equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and gender Americans."

Milrad is featured with his fiancee Nathan Johnson in Clinton's video for her announcement for president

Until today, gay marriage was legal in 37 states, and banned in 13.

About six in 10 of U.S. registered voters support gay marriage, polls show.

John J. Bursch, the lawyer for the opponents, said during oral arguments  before the high court , and before its historic ruling, that same sex marriage is not a constitutional right and that it perpetuates children born out of wedlock . The  attorneys representing proponents of gay marriage countered and told the justices that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, among other arguments. That denial of due process, they argued, creates an undue interference with the fundamental freedom of marriage.

Justice Kennedy asked tough questions on both sides and said  that while he is concerned about changing a conception of marriage ingrained in the American way of life, he is equally uncomfortable with excluding the gay and lesbian communities from what he called "a noble and sacred institution."

The four conservative justices,  including Chief Justice John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the high court, dissented.

Several of the more liberal justices asked the lawyers during oral arguments how extending marriage to same sex couples would harm anyone, including heterosexual couples that now enjoy the right to marry without discrepancy.

“You are not taking away anything from heterosexual couples if the state allows gay couples to marry," said Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the more liberal of the four liberal justices, the other three of whom are  Sonia Sotomayer, Elena Kagan and Stephen Bryer.

Ginsburg was nominated by former president Jimmy Carter, Sotomayer and Kagan were nominated by Obama, and Bryer is a nominee of former president Bill Cinton.

U.S. Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and must be subsequently confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve. They are appointed for life.(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

Pictured are  United States President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. first lady, former U.S. senator representing New York, former U.S. secretary of state with the Obama administration, and current front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, and the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.

Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under five different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

WASHINGTON, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling issued on Thursday in the celebrated case of Burrell vs. King, upheld a key provision of Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act,  siding with the president on whether the federal government can continue helping poor and other disadvantaged people, and others, by subsidizing insurance premiums in all 50 states under the health care law.

"Today, after more than 50 votes in Congress to repeal or weaken this law, after a presidential election based in part on preserving or repealing this law, and after multiple challenges to this law before the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay," said Obama in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.

Opponents argued that the federal government was required to stop financial aid subsidies to individuals living in states without their own health insurance exchanges and that use the federal market place instead.

The ruling affects more that six million Americans, and polls show that most Americans support the financial aid initiative on healthcare, one that disproportionately impacts low-income people, minorities, seniors on fixed incomes, and single mothers.

Only a few of the 50 states, such as Washington, California and Maryland, have their own healthcare exchanges.

Obama said that more that more than 16 million Americans now have access to healthcare insurance because of the Affordable Care Act.

Chief Justice John Roberts, the swing vote that upheld Obamacare as constitutional three years ago, wrote the majority opinion.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the court, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia dissented.

Scalia wrote the scathing 21-page dissent and said, in part, that the majority, relative to the unprecedented court decision at issue, "favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites."

The Supreme Court ruling is another win for America's first Black president on the controversial healthcare mandate that will define his presidency in coming years.

Now in his third year of a second four year term, Obama campaigned on the issue in 2008 , and gained the endorsement of the late U.S. senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts for the Democratic primary for president over Hillary Clinton, partly because of his push for universal healthcare, something Kennedy, a brother of President John F. Kennedy, favored.

At that time Kennedy told Reporter Kathy Wray Coleman, who was writing a story on his campaign stop in Cleveland for Obama that was later published in the Call and Post Newspaper, that endorsing Obama over Clinton, who is making a second bid for president in 2016, "was one of the most difficult decisions of his life."

Kennedy said then that his hesitance in endorsing Obama was because of his relationship with former president Bill Clinton.

No doubt, Thursday' Supreme Court ruling is a blow to  congressional Republicans that  have tried to repeal since the president signed it into law in 2010. They say the law is irresponsible, increases healthcare costs, and minimizes America's clout in the international market place.

The president says that that analogy is bogus, and that his congressional foes on the healthcare matter want corporate entities, including insurance companies, to continue the war on poverty through unfair and unconstitutional public policy measures.

Pictured are new Call and Post President Kevin Hill, the former editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel ( wearing brown shirt), International Boxing Promoter and Call and Post Owner and Publisher Don King ( wearing eyeglasses) the late Constance "Connie Harper, the  longtime

associate publisher and editor for the African American weekly that is distributed in the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and George Forbes (wearing blue suit),  local attorney former Cleveland City Council President and  former longtime president of the Cleveland NAACP. Forbes is also the longtime general counsel for the Call and Post under King.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.

Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under five different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

CLEVELAND Ohio–Former Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper editor Kenneth Miller  is the new president of the Call and Post Newspaper, Cleveland's 99-year-old African-American print newspaper that distributes a weekly paper in the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and that has been owned and published by Cleveland native and internationally known boxing promoter Don King since 1998.King is an ally to popular Ohio Republican Gov John  Kasich, a former congressman and potential 2016 GOP presidential contender. (Editor's note : GOP front-runners for the Republican nomination for president, and in a crowded field, are former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, polls say. Hillary Clinton a former U.S. first lady , prior U.S. Sen. for New York, and secretary of state under Barack Obama during the president's first term in office is the overwhelming favorite to win the  Democratic primary).

King held an emergency staff meeting at newspaper headquarters in Cleveland this month to make the major announcement of his choice to lead the Call and Post.

Miller is also the former press deputy for former Democratic congresswoman Laura Richardson of California, who is also Black like both King and Miller.

King said that Miller will bring needed change to the news outlet that has lost steam in recent years.

“In any language, Kenny is the boss," said King in a story published by the newspaper on the announcement of new leadership.  "When you speak to Kenny, you will be speaking to me and he has my complete confidence in restoring the Call and Post to its rightful position as the standard for Black newspapers.”