Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473.

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

History reveals that Black people were enslaved initially by Blacks 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. Those chains still plague the Black community 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

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 1964 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 song writer of all time.

Some of the other true greats  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, Louis Stokes, is the first Black congressman from Ohio and led the 11th congressional district until his retirement in 1998.

The late Stephanie Tubbs Jones, of Cleveland, the first Black Cuyahoga County prosecutor 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

Pictured are Sybrina Fulton (in grey dress), the mother of slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin (in red t-shirt), and Samiria Rice ( in brown coat), the mother of slain 12-year-old Clevelander Tamir Rice, who is also pictured.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473.

Coleman is a community activist and 21-year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio.

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio -The mother of slain 17-year-old Florida teen Trayvon Martin spoke to a capacity audience on Saturday at the  Cleveland Main Library with support from community activists and families of victims of police killings, including Samaria Rice, the mother of slain 12-year-old Tamir Rice.(Editor's note: Rice was gunned down by Cleveland police late last year for sporting a toy pellet gun at a public park on the city's largely White west side. A community vigil (WKYC Channel 3) in his honor will be held with the Tamir Rice family today, February 22, at 6 pm at the Cudell Recreation Center where he was shot and killed three months ago. A 4 pm rally spearheaded by the grassroots groups Puncture the Silence and Revolution Books is also scheduled for today in Cleveland at the first district police station).

The unarmed Martin, who was Black,  was shot and killed in a Florida suburb by volunteer neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, who is White, the third anniversary of his death of which is on February 28.

A White jury acquitted Zimmerman of the killing, though prosecutors had refused to push for criminal charges until Civil Rights leaders like the Rev. Al Sharpton objected, and protesters across the country demanded justice.

"You need to get involved and you need to continue to be involved," Trayvon's mother Sybrina Fulton said. "You don't want to wait until it happens to someone in your family."

"You know that slip you get in the mail for jury duty? We need you." said Fulton, who has founded the Trayvon Martin Foundation to assist bereaved mothers whose deceased children were victims of arbitrary violence by police and others.

Margaret Bernstein, director of advocacy and community initiatives for WKYC Channel 3, was the moderator for the Black History Month program, an event sponsored by the library and its director Felton Thomas Jr., who is Black.

Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper, asked Fulton the status of possible federal charges against Zimmerman and Fulton told the audience that the U.S. Department of Justice is still investigating, and that Attorney General Eric Holder will issue a decision "any-day. (Editor's note: Holder determined on February 24 that no federal charges will be issued by his office because race purportedly was not a factor in Martin's killing, a posture community activist and a host of other disagree with).

Responding to a question by Cleveland Urban News.Com on whether she supports the concept by the late Malcom X of seeking justice by any means necessary or the non-violent approach to activism perpetuated by slain Civil Rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fulton said that she supports King's approach.

Rioting and burning buildings to the ground as occurred following a controversial decision  by a largely White Grand Jury not to indict White former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for gunning down 18-year-old unarmed Black teen Michael Brown are not the best solutions in seeking to eradicate racism and systemic injustices against the Black community, Fulton said.

Akron Attorney Walter Madison, one of the attorneys representing the Rice family in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the city of Cleveland, police and a host of other defendants, told Cleveland Urban News.Com that Saturday's event, in spite of freeing temperatures and snow fall throughout the day, was well done, and well attended.

"It was a beautiful combination of interest and community on a crappy day," said Madison.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473.

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio- CLEVELAND, Ohio- Community activists, area attorneys, and victims of police harassment, including members of the transgender community, will participate on Saturday in an open-to-the public town hall meeting on police brutality and excessive force. Other topics include racism and other prejudices, and the upcoming consent decree between the City of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice relative to its findings of impropriety and systemic problems in the largely White Cleveland Police Department.

The community meeting is sponsored by the Greater Cleveland Civil and Human Rights Coalition, in cooperation with other activists and community grassroots groups, and is February 21 from 11 am to 1 pm at the Cleveland Public Library Martin Luther King Jr. Branch, 1962 Stokes Boulevard.

The contacts for the event are key organizer Don Bryant of the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network at (216) 772-6788, Julia Shearson from CAIR-Ohio at (216) 830-2247, and Kathy Wray Coleman, an investigative journalist who leads the Imperial Women Coalition at (216) 659-0473.

A large crowd is expected and speakers include family members of police brutality and police harassment victims, and Black Shield Police Association President Lynn Hampton, who said he is coming solely to push for more Black cops and other police officers of color on the Cleveland police force.

"Everyone is invited and can speak," said Julia Shearson, executive director of the Cleveland Chapter of CAIR-Ohio.

Light refreshments will be served and the media are invited.

The event comes on the heels of findings by the U.S. Department of Justice of systemic problems by Cleveland police, including a pattern of excessive force killings, and the police shooting death last year of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was gunned down at a public park for sporting a toy pellet gun.

Other police killings  that have community activists and others upset include Tanisha Anderson, Daniel Ficker, rapper Kenneth Smith, and Malissa Williams and Tim Russell, who were both gunned down in 2012 by 13 non-Black cops police slinging 137 bullets.

Pictured are former Ohio senator Nina Turner (in blue-green suit), who is the chair of political engagement for the Ohio Democratic Party, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Democratic political operative Charles E. Bibb Sr.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -In spite of record breaking freezing temperatures in Cleveland, Ohio, and elsewhere across the nation this week, supporters of former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton for president held a fundraiser on the city's west side in the Ohio City neighborhood at Market Garden Brewery Monday evening February 16.

The crowd there was standing-room-only in support of the former first lady, who was not in attendance.

Former state senator Nina Turner, a Cleveland Democrat who lost a bid last year for secretary of state and is now the chair of political engagement for the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP), was the keynote speaker.

"My grandmother said you need three things to make it in life, the wish bone, the backbone, and the jaw bone," said Turner, who is also a former Cleveland councilwoman.

Turner was also active in Ohio during President Obama's reelection campaign in 2012, and was an Obama delegate when he was first elected in 2008. She said Monday that Ohio and the country need Clinton's leadership at the helm in 2017.

The 'Ready for Hillary Committee,' a political action committee on the national scale that was behind the event and hopes to recruit Clinton to make a second bid for president, has  said it would report raising more than $740,000 in its most recent filing period. In the last two years, Ready for Hillary raised $12.9 million from more than 200,000 contributions, superPAC spokesman Seth Bringman recently told supporters.

The Cleveland event embraced the theme 'Cleveland for Hillary Clinton,' and adds fodder to widespread speculation that Clinton will in fact enter the race for president, a posture ODP Chairman David Pepper said last week to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news, "is likely."

The host committee includes the following: Charles E. Bibb Sr.,  state Reps. Janine Boyd (D-9), a Cleveland Heights Democrat,  and Kent Smith( D-8), a Euclid Democrat, and Janet Carson, Cindy Demsey, Cory Shawver, Lupe Williams,  Marquez Brown, Jane Buder Shapiro, Colleen Byers, Ryan Callender, Angela Shuckahosee, Michael Bowen, former Parma Mayor Dean DePiero, Lake County Commissioner Kevin Malecek, Eric Meinhardt, Dan O'Malley, Steve Rowen, Daneene Monroe Rusnak, Cheryl Schwind, Tom Tagliamonte, Namita Waghray, Oakwood Village Council President Johnnie Warren, and Lynnie Powell, the regional political director for the ODP.

'It's great to be a part of a viable and influential grassroots group that  will support Ms. Clinton when she runs for president,"  Bibb, a former East Cleveland city councilman, told Cleveland Urban News.Com.

"Ohio is the key swing state, and Cleveland and Cuyahoga County will deliver the Democratic vote in 2016," said Bibb.

Cuyahoga County is roughly 29 percent Black, is the largest of 88 counties statewide, and is a Democratic stronghold that can sometimes make or break a presidential election.

In addition to Councilman Warren, other dignitaries there were Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pauline Tarver, Cleveland Ward 5 Councilwoman Phyllis Cleveland, Euclid Councilpersons Stephana Caviness and Kandace Jones, and newly elected Regional Transit Authority union president Ronald W. Jackson Sr., also a member of the host committee, and who ousted former union president William Nix last year to lead the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -Prominent Cleveland area Civil Rights attorney David Malik, who has represented clients in several high-profile lawsuits against Cleveland police and the city, including the family of Tanisha Anderson, the 37-year-old mentally ill woman who died in police custody in November, and unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, whom Cleveland police gunned down in November 2012 while slinging 37 bullets, was in court himself earlier today. (Editor's more: Malik was also the original attorney in the still pending wrongful death and excessive force lawsuit filed by the family of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, but was replaced with Florida Attorney Benjamin Crump and Akron Attorney Walter Madison. The wrongful death lawsuit relative to Williams and Russell was settled last year for $3 million, which will be split between the two families. Malik represents the family of Williams in that case).

Malik appeared before Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lauren Moore Tuesday morning for arraignment and pleaded not guilty to a third degree felony charge of attempting to carry a concealed weapon and ammunition onto an aircraft.

He was arrested at 4:15 pm Saturday, after airport security found an unloaded .22 caliber handgun and a box of ammunition in his carry-on bag, public records show. He  spent Saturday night in jail, and was released on a personal bond Sunday morning.

Moore, who is Black, continued Malik's personal bond.

The case was bound over from the municipal court to the court of common pleas because it is a felony case, and Malik could be back in court as early as next week.

"I participated in a target shooting class recently with a certified CCW instructor and I simply forgot to remove it from my bag," Malik said in a press statement issued Sunday to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news. "I used the bag to pack for my trip. It was a stupid mistake."