This is an exclusive one-on-one interview with Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell, one of four Blacks on the 11-member Cuyahoga County Council that came into power Jan. a year ago, along with voter-elected Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald. (Editor's note: For a better understanding for some readers unfamiliar with Cuyahoga County's new form of government, the actual interview follows the overview below).

A college educated woman with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Cleveland State University and a mother of three children, one an adult, another in college, and the third a teen, Conwell is the 26-year wife of Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Kevin Conwell.

She represents Cuyahoga Council District 7, a district with some 116,000 residents in a county with some 1.2 million people.

Cuyahoga County  is also Ohio's largest among 88 counties statewide, and is roughly 30 percent Black. It is a colorful and politically astute venue that is heavily Democratic and routinely helps to determine presidential elections.

WASHINGTON,. D.C.-President Barack Obama wooed Americans Tues. evening with his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress that had the fire and appeal that helped to catapult the former U.S. senator from Illinois to the presidency of the United States of America in 2008.

During a speech that lasted shortly over an hour, the president called for Congress to repeal the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans that pay a lesser federal tax percentage on income than some middle class and poor people, and to pass the Dream Act to give children of undocumented immigrants in the country by no fought of their own a chance at financial aid for higher education and citizenship.

And those are just a few of the demands that America's chief political leader sought before some 38 million viewers that tuned in to hear the president's State of the Union speech that was broadcast across a multitude of radio and television airwaves throughout the nation.

Obama also talked about education, foreign affairs, green energy, jobs, responsibly ending the Iraq war, and overseeing last year's U.S. military mission to kill Osama bin Laden .

"We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world," he said. "For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home."

ROCKY RIVER, Ohio- Judith Pugsley, a retired professional and supporter of Civil Rights, wrote Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman online News Blog. Com on whether Blacks in America have truly progressed since slavery.

Pugsley has based the aforementioned assessment in part on an analysis of the Pulitzer Prize winning 2010  book titled "The Warmth of Other Suns." It is an epic story of America's great migration, including the depiction of how Blacks migrated from the South to the northern and western American cities after the stain of having been illegally taken in chains from the fields of Africa to be vilified as slaves in the country's homelands.

Her editorial is as follows:

By Judith Pugsley, Contributing Writer

Let's take a look at the progress of blacks in America from slavery up to modern times.

Obviously, the slave trade dehumanized black families and tore them apart for 246 years. No one had rights, and terror ran rampant.Then came the emancipation, reconstruction, and the imposition of Jim Crow laws.

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Following the Cuyahoga County prosecutor candidate forum from 5 pm to 7 pm at the Laborers Local 310 Hall, 3250 Euclid Ave in Cleveland, grassroots leaders, college sorority and fraternity members, elected officials and others will gather Tues. Jan 24. at 8 pm at President Barack Obama's reelection campaign headquarters at Shaker Square in Cleveland, 130100 Shaker Blvd.

The purpose is for a watch party before the president's long anticipated State of the Union address at 9 pm. Other watch parties will also be held throughout the Cleveland metropolitan area.