Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist

and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years

at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio.

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The legendary R & B singing group The O'Jays will perform for free in Cleveland at Luke Easter Park on the city's east side on Saturday, July 26, an annual unity day community event sponsored by Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed (pictured). The group After 7 will also perform, said Reed, who added that "we want grown ups and kids to come out and have a good time."

Reed said that the event, which will be held from 1 pm to 10 pm,  is in its 11th year and that in previous years the Temptations, George Clinton and Cameo were among the performers.

A large crowd of over 25,000 people is expected, organizers said, and in the past the figure has reached nearly 20,000.

Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Vice President Joe Biden (pictured) spoke to a crowd Wednesday at the annual NAACP convention in Las Vegas, Nevada and said that the effort by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country in passing voter suppression laws in 29 states to restrict voting to vulnerable Americans, including Blacks and other minorities, is "pure politics, masquerading as an attempt to combat corruption when there is none."

The comments reference claims by the Republicans that voter identification restrictions and other requirements to vote that Democrats say disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, women, the elderly and the poor,  are needed to deter voter fraud, though there is no conclusive data whatsoever that such state laws combat any such minimally applicable alleged fraudulent activities.

The 31 minute speech Wednesday morning came on the last day of the five-day convention that began July 19.

The gathering was replete with speeches and forums.

Biden's speech comes on the heels of a call by newly installed NAACP President Cornell William Brooks for a revolution of change around the issues facing Black America and a get-out-the vote speech by Congresswoman and Congressional Black Caucus Chairperson Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio at the convention on Monday.

Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.comLAS VEGAS, Nevada- U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Heights, Ohio Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus of Blacks in Congress, got a standing ovation on Monday at the 105th Annual NAACP Convention in Las Vegas as voting rights was the focus of the gathering of Civil Rights advocates.

Billed under the theme 'All In For Justice and Equality,' Wednesday is the final day of the convention, and Vice president Joe Biden will speak at 11 am.  But neither President Obama nor First Lady Obama are among the attendees or speakers there, which is rare since America's first Black president took office in 2009 and won a second four-year term in 2012.

"Vote like your life depended on it, vote as if the lives of your children depended on it," said Fudge during her speech at the  Mandalay Bay Resort and Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada where the five-day convention that began on July 19 was held.

The congresswoman, whose district includes parts of the predominantly Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland and its eastern suburbs, gave a  get-out-the vote presentation as the November election nears with select gubernatorial and Congressional seats open for grabs across the country, including the race for governor in Ohio.

A former Warrensville Heights mayor and past national president of Delta Sigma Theta Inc, Fudge has been out front on voting rights at the federal level and at home in her majority Black 11th congressional district, one of 16 congressional districts in the battleground state of Ohio. Most of her constituents live below the poverty line and the federal lawmaker is outright unnerved with the trend by state legislatures in several states in passing voter suppression laws in rapid numbers, including in Ohio where a federal judge earlier this year struck down a state law that denied early voting three days before general elections as unconstitutional.

Many of the convention goers were attorneys, some were academicians, a few on program were judges and politicians, and others simply were longtime loyal members of the nation's oldest and most renowned Civil Rights organization. Forums ranged from health care, to education, to the mass incarceration of Black men, many of whom are denied adequate legal representation due to poverty, and racism, says the NAACP.

Other program speakers include Journalist and TV One Political Commentator Roland Martin,  U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, NAACP Chairman Roslyn Brock, and U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Bernice Donald.

Among the performers were Regina Bell and Ruben Studdard.

Newly installed National NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, who succeeds Benjamin Jealous, made his debut on Saturday, the opening day of the convention,  and told a crowd of thousands that the NAACP is in the midst of a "revolution reconstruction period."

Pictured are Cleveland police shooting victims Malissa Williams and Tim Russell (in sweat shirt), and Russell estate attorney Terry Gilbert ( in suit), a Cleveland area Civil Rights and constitutional lawyer widely known for settling record breaking Cleveland police excessive force cases.

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The city of Cleveland has reached a settlement in a notorious Civil Rights and  police excessive force case, likely the worst in city history, where unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30, and Tim Russell, 43, were gunned down the night of  Nov. 29, 2012 with Cleveland police slinging 137 bullets.

Among the host of defendants named in the two lawsuits are police, all of them at issue sued in both their professional and personal capacities, and the city of Cleveland.

The fatal shooting followed a high speed car chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School in neighboring East Cleveland.

The settlement was reached on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio before federal district court Judge Dan Polster, who put a gag order on the parties to the case and their attorneys, one that will not truly be settled until probate court resolves several claims to the estates of the two shooting victims, something that attorneys for the plaintiffs say could take weeks or even months.

"The next step is probate court," said Civil Rights and constitutional attorney Terry Gilbert, in an exclusive interview on Monday with Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leading digital Black newspaper.

Gilbert represents the estate of Russell's son, now 18.

David Malik and Tyrone Reed, also Cleveland area attorneys, represent the Williams family in the lawsuit.

A renowned lawyer who has settled several record breaking Cleveland police excessive force cases, Gilbert is still concerned that excessive force by Cleveland police remains a problem to the Black community and others.

"We have  a lot more work to do to reform the Cleveland police department," said Gilbert, before thanking community activists for their support in bringing awareness around the unprecedented case, which he says also contributed to a timely settlement.

"The presence of community activists on raising awareness of what happen on Nov 29, 2012 has and will be instrumental in seeking accountability by the Cleveland Police Department," he said.

Gilbert said that neither he nor the other attorneys or the parties to the case are at liberty to disclose the amount of the settlement, the judge ordered. And he said that the fight to eradicate excessive force incidents by Cleveland police against the community and for justice for Malissa and Tim and all like them is not over by a long-shot.

"The fight is just really beginning,"said Gilbert.

A Cuyahoga County Grand Jury last month handed down an indictment on two counts of voluntary manslaughter against one of 13 non- Black Cleveland police officers that gunned down Williams and Russell , a celebrated tragedy that has heighten racial unrest in the predominantly Black major metropolitan city.

Prosecutors had sought a two-count murder indictment for Patrolman Michael Brelo, among other charges, but the grand jury opted for the lesser charge of manslaughter. The case is before Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell and Brelo has pleaded not guilty.

Manslaughter is a first degree felony in Ohio that carries a possible prison sentence of three to 10 years.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty told reporters during a press conference on the grand jury indictments  that his office did not recommend any charges against the 12 officers that escaped indictments, 11 White and one Hispanic. That posture has upset community activists who have protested and are demanding that another grand jury convene independent of what they say was prejudice by McGinty and his office.They also want federal charges as well as the firing of the 13 cops that did the shooting.

Some community members and community activists called the grand jury decision and McGinty's refusal to seek charges against the 12 police officers at issue unjust, racist and outright shameful.

"The neo- Nazi's won and it is unbelievable that only one police officer faces felony charges and the other 12 got away with killing two unarmed Black people," said Community activist Pierre Nappier, who had protested over the deadly shooting with Cleveland area religious groups such as the United Pastors in Mission and the Baptist Minister Alliance and  with members of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP and  greater Cleveland grassroots groups including Black on Black Crime Inc, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Imperial Women Coalition, Revolution Books, Peace in the Hood, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, and the Oppressed People's Nation.

Pictured are Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus of Blacks in Congress, and Ohio 13th Congressional District Congressman Tim Ryan

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

From the Netro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Representatives Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11) and Tim Ryan (OH-13) held a news conference in Cleveland on Thursday to discuss H.R. 5136, the Breaking Addiction Act of 2014.  The legislation was introduced by Fudge, a Warrensville Heights, Ohio Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus of Blacks in Congress, and cosponsored by Congressman Ryan, a Nile's, Ohio area Democrat.  It establishes a five-year demonstration project to expand cost-effective, community-based treatment options to address the heroin/opiate epidemic.

“Fatal drug overdoses now exceed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in Ohio, " said Fudge. " Heroin alone claims more lives in Cuyahoga County than homicides.

Cuyahoga County is the largest of Ohio's 88 counties and is roughly 29 percent Black. It includes the city of Cleveland and 58 other cities, villages and townships.

"It imperative that we begin to stem this tide, and I am proud to stand with Congresswoman Fudge in support of the Breaking Addiction Act, which takes great strides to provide more individuals suffering from substance abuse with treatment options,” said Ryan.

Fudge said that "this public health threat affects communities in all regions of the country and impacts urban, suburban and rural areas alike."

The Breaking Addiction Act will enable participating states to receive federal reimbursement for Medicaid services provided to all eligible in-patients who receive treatment for chemical substance abuse at a community treatment facility.  It partially waives what is known as the Institution for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion.  The 1965 law that created Medicaid excludes states from receiving federal reimbursement for services provided in an IMD with more than 16 patient beds.  Congress, however,  did not foresee nearly 50 years ago that this exclusion would impede communities’ ability to respond to the rapid escalation of heroin addiction and abuse of opiate-based prescription painkillers.

“As Democratic Co- Chair of the Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus, I understand the damage substance abuse inflicts upon the state of Ohio and our nation," the congresswoman said.