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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND, Ohio- A vigil held at the Free Stamp in downtown Cleveland, Ohio Sunday evening for justice for Tyre Nichols, the 29- year-old Black man whom Memphis police beat to death earlier in the month, drew hardly 50 people, a far cry from the thousands that rallied in the same spot on May 30,  2020 for George Floyd. Led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland like the aforementioned rally in 2020, activists simply did not show up in large numbers, though several seasoned Black Cleveland activists said that they were not invited to partner with the coalition sponsoring the event and felt subordinated to White and other non-seasoned activists and suburban-led groups by the organizers.

They also complained that Cleveland's mainstream media is partly behind manipulating the event and shutting out outspoken seasoned Black Cleveland activists who are not getting grant money from the county like Black Lives Matter and some other groups to stay silent about public corruption, excessive force, and malicious prosecutions against the Black community by the office of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley.

"Nope," said Black on Black Crime President Alfred Porter Jr when asked if his group had been consulted to join a so-called coalition for the Nichols vigil in Cleveland on Sunday. Others said that greater Cleveland activists should be focusing on what is going on in Cleveland and surrounding areas, including a Cuyahoga County Jail where dozens of inmates have suspiciously died in the past five years and a special forces unit of the jail dubbed "The Men in Black'' by a damning U.S. Marshal's report in 2018 is still allegedly harassing inmates. (Editor's note: "The Men in Black" are also called "The Goon Squad" by county jail inmates).

Nichols was stomped to death by five Black Memphis cops on Jan 7 during a traffic stop. A police video of the incident that city officials subsequently made public reveals that they beat him for about three minutes, punching and kicking him in the head and striking him on the back with a baton while he was restrained and crying out for his mother. All five police officers have been fired and indicted on a host of criminal charges, including second degree murder. They were part of an elite and now defunct special forces team called "the Scorpions" that Clevelanders say is not much different than "The Men in Black," who freely stalk and intimidate Cuyahoga County jail inmates, both men and women alike.

Floyd was Black like Nichols and  was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected he may have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Derek Chauvin, one of the four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for nine minutes and 29 seconds until he murdered him After Floyd's murder, protests against police brutality spread throughout the nation.

Like some other major American such as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Columbus, the Cleveland protest for Floyd turned into a riot as protesters torched police cars, wrote graffiti on landmark buildings and trashed downtown restaurants and other businesses Some of the rioters were charged with crimes, mainly misdemeanors but also some felonies, and most took plea deals. White suburban teens who torched police cars and were charged criminally went home to their parents rather than to prison, some Black men who trashed businesses got three-year prison sentences, disparate prison sentences in fact, sources said.

Floyd's  dying words, "I can't breathe" became a rallying slogan and like Nichols, Floyd also cried out for his mother while he was being murdered by police All four of the  Minneapolis police officers involved in Floyd's killing, including Chauvin, were convicted of misbehavior and imprisoned relative to the tragic incident, Chauvin's convictions of which include murder, and the other three former cops, federal Civil Rights violations.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

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AKRON, Ohio-Ohio 13th Congressional District Congresswoman Emilia Sykes (pictured at right marching for women's rights International Women's Day in Cleveland on March 8, 2021), Ohio's newest Democratic congress person and one of five members of Ohio's majority female and largely Black Democratic Congressional Delegation, will be sworn-in on Saturday, Jan 28, 2023 in her hometown of Akron by Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart, a Democrat and the first Black elected to Ohio's highest bench and currently the only Black sitting on the majority female and largely Republican court. The event is free and open-to-the-public and will be held from 2 pm-4 pm at the Firestone Community Learning Center Other dignitaries slated to attend include Presiding Judge of the Ninth Appellate District Court of Appeals of Ohio Betty Sutton, Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro, City of Massillon Mayor Kathy Catazaro-Perry, Akron City Councilwoman Linda Ombien,  President of the Ohio Federation of Teachers and Secretary-Treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO Melissa Cropper, ASIA Community Outreach Coordinator Hsa Win, and Akron United Baptist Church Pastor Kevin G. Rushing.

In addition to Sykes, the youngest of  Ohio's Democratic congress people, Ohio's five-member Democratic Congressional Delegation also includes Reps  Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, Joyce Beatty of Columbus, who is Black like Sykes, and Shontel Brown, also Black and of Warrensville Hts The fifth member is U.S Sen Sherrod Brown of Cleveland, Ohio's most prominent elected Democrat and a senior member of Congress. And the three Blacks are women, two of them from Northeast Ohio, which includes the cities of Cleveland and Akron, the hometown of NBA megastar LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and a city some 36 miles southeast of Cleveland. With Sen Sherrod Brown included, three of the five Democratic delegation members are from Northeast Ohio.

Missing from the delegation as to the 118th United States Congress is outgoing former congressman Tim Ryan, a Youngstown area Democrat and a 20-year congressman who did not seek election to the House of Representatives last year and instead ran a hard fought yet unsuccessful campaign against Republican J.D. Vance in a high-priced election to replace former U.S. Sen Rob Portman, also a Republican, and who retired last year. In fact, Republicans won all of the statewide offices in Ohio in last year's election, including the reelection of Gov Mike Dewine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state attorney general Dave Yost, and three seats up for grabs on the seven-member on the largely Republican and majority female Ohio Supreme Court This includes the Ohio Supreme Court seat open due to the  retirement of age-limited Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, her open seat won by sitting Justice Sharon Kennedy, also a Republican, and a former cop.

In helping to turn Ohio's five-member Democratic Congressional delegation majority Black, which is historical in Ohio, and in keeping it largely female, Sykes, a  former state representative and former minority leader of the Ohio House, and the daughter of state Sen Dr. Vernon Sykes and his wife Barbara Sykes, a former state representative, defeated Republican Madison Gesiotto Gilbert in last year's general election to win Ohio's U.S. House District 13 seat The seat was  newly created and was formed via Ohio's new congressional map, a controversial redistricting map that was gerrymandered but still remains intact in conjunction with an Ohio Supreme Court ruling issued.

"It was my name on the ballot, but we are all going to Congress," said Sykes during an election night victory party speech last year that drew a round of applause from supporters in attendance.

Ohio's 13th congressional district covers the entirety of Summit County, parts of Stark and Portage Counties, two of Ohio’s largest cities, Akron and Canton, as well as numerous suburban communities and rural areas. Rep Shontel Brown's 11th congressional district included Akron and Cleveland before redistricting but the new map moves Akron into Syke's new 13th congressional district that Sykes. The Republican-drawn map is in place for the next four years instead of 10 because it passed without Democratic support.

Ohio lost one of its 16 House seats relative to the redistricting process that occurs every 10 years in cooperation with the U.S. census and population dynamics and the new boundaries eliminate its only Black-majority seat, the 11th congressional district, which includes Cleveland and has been led by Rep Brown since 2021, Brown a former congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge's successor.

Fudge is also Black and is now secretary of Housing and Urban Development with the President Joe Biden administration.

Following redistricting, Ohio went from 12-4 Republican-to-Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives  to 10-5 Republican-to-Democrat via the Nov 8 midterm elections. Hence, Republicans technically lost two seats from Ohio and Democrats maintained the four seats they had in the U.S. House prior to redistricting.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and blog in Ohio and in the Midwest Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and City Council President Blaine Griffin are publicly butting heads for the first time since Bibb took office a year ago in January and since Griffin, an east side Ward 6 councilman who supported Bibb's opponent for mayor, was chosen last January by his peers to lead the 17-member all Democratic city council.

Both Bibb, 35,  and Griffin, a former community relations director under Bibbs' predecessor, former longtime retired mayor Frank Jackson, are Black, and so is Jackson, who served four terms and is the city's longest serving mayor, and a former city council president himself. The second largest city in Ohio, behind Columbus, Cleveland is a majority Black city of some 372,000 people, and most of its residents live below the poverty line. It is the second most segregated city in the nation behind Boston, demographics show.

At issue is Bibb's shared governance proposal, a proposed city ordinance under the participatory budgeting concept that gives the community authority to vote on parts of the city budget.  The city's second youngest mayor has, in turn, met fallout from the new concept from seasoned members of city council who say that the mayor's proposal is nothing more than a back door approach to strip them of power. The mayor says his proposal is designed to  engage the community in the city's governmental process and to give residents of Cleveland a greater say beyond their respective councilpersons as to the city's budget.

Whether the proposed initiative to give regular citizens governmental authority alongside duly elected officials  in some instances and power over the city's budget in the absence of a ballot initiative is constitutional or not remains to be seen, if the proposal becomes a city ordinance and is later challenged in the courts. City council tabled the controversial measure at Monday's  well-attended council meeting, though sources said that it is likely to be revised and revisited in due time, partly because powerful White people and business-types want control over the city governance of Cleveland and the city's budget.

In short, participatory budgeting gives residents access to vote on how some public money should be spent and has been used in cities, such as Chicago, New York and Atlanta. A  major difference, however, is that in places such as Chicago the elected council person spearheads the process and uses funds allocated from the city budget for his or her specific territory. Mayor Bibb's proposal would put a paid a steering committee in place that would have authority independent of city council in some instances on parts of the city budget That is where the heart of the controversy lies with several members of city council opposing what they say would amount to a change in city governance without a vote of the people

Cleveland's population is roughly 60 percent Black. and it is heavily Democratic like the county it sits in, Cuyahoga County, the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties, and a 29 percent Black county. City council members earn an average of $85, 000 annually.

Had  city council passed the participatotu budgeting measure, Mayor Bibb was proposing to allocate $510,000 to implement the process and another $5 million of American Rescue Plan monies for  a host of  associated projects such as a paid 21-member steering committee, and community outreach efforts. Participatory Budgeting Cleveland, a largely White group that has lobbied the mayor for what they say will be a shared form of governance that will enhance community participation, is the driving force behind the initiative.

The discussion around the topic is growing, and some Blacks are readily embracing the shared governance concept while others are weary of lessening the power of city council in lieu of a new city governance model that naysayers say could turn out to be a discrepancy model. One Ward 7 east side resident rushed to Monday night's council meeting saying  that "they are trying to keep the community from sharing in city governance." Council, however, is divided over the multi-million dollar proposal that a majority of them, led by Council President Blaine Griffin, shot down without hesitation, Griffin publicly saying  that he is against shared governance but will hold public hearings  to seek public input.

A councilperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the monies Bibb wants to hand to the community  to share via participatoru budgeting should go to city council persons for community distribution, not a steering committee.

"We do not need to put a paid steering committee in place of elected officials to vote on any parts of the city budget and we do not need  any public hearings. All we needed to do was to do what we did and that was to not support that nonsense," the council person said.

Council members  Jenny Spenser, Rebecca Mauer, an attorney and west side councilwoman, and Stephanie Howse and Deborah Gray, the only Black women on city council, were vocal about their vote in support of the mayor's  signature proposal for shared community governance. They are sponsoring the proposed participatory legislation with the mayor and are among  a handful of new members of city council who were elected in 2021 when Bibb won for mayor. But seasoned council persons like Mike Polensek and Kevin Conwell, both eastside council persons like Howse and Gray, were adamant about their opposition to any such legislation as others privately whispered that Griffin,  who succeeded former council president Kevin Kelley as city council head, should be more assertive on the subject.

A White former westside councilman, Kelley is now a common pleas judge He lost a mayoral runoff to the novel Bibb by a landslide in November of 2021, and in spite of support from former mayor Frank Jackson, Griffin, and most of city council.

One of eight Black council members, Councilman Conwell said that the mayor's proposal as it stands, and regardless of any support from the Cleveland branch of the NAACP, is not good for the Black community.

"I'm against it." the councilman said during a one-on-one interview Thursday evening with clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader. "It strips African American  elected officials of Cleveland of power."

A popular longtime councilman, Conwell is one of six Black men out of the eight Blacks who sit on city council. which all includes eight Whites and one Hispanic, Ward 14 Councilwoman Jasmin Santana, who is purportedly among the council persons who oppose participatory budgeting. Conwell leads Ward 9 on the city's eastside, which includes the historic Glenville neighborhood. Like Council President Griffin, he was among the city council members who backed Kelley for mayor over Bibb in 2021, a campaign that became heated after Kelley's campaign team darkened Bibb's face in anti- Bibb campaign literature in an effort to make him less appealable to White west side voters The strategy backfired as he beat Kelley with 63 percent of the vote, nearly a mandate and no doubt a shake up of Cleveland's status quo.

Asked by clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com if he finds it odd that now that the city has a Black mayor and Black city council president for the first time in history suburbanites want to come in and drastically change Cleveland’s form of city governance by giving authority to non elected people over elected council persons under the auspice of shared governance Councilman Conwell responded "yes."

The Black outspoken councilman said that Black people should be reminded of what happened with the Empowerment Zone impacting the Fairfax , Hough and Glenville neighborhoods when the Black community was promised support for inner city rehabilitation and a ton of other resources "and nothing significant has changed."

Councilman Conwell went on to say that budgeting funds for community involvement can be done without stripping council members of governmental authority given to them by the voters of Cleveland He said that he does not want Cleveland to become a  guinea pig experiment that strips Black elected officials of power when they do not propose similar legislation regionally and in affluent suburban communities of Cleveland.

"City Council members were elected by the voters to represent them," said Conwell.

clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Cleveland Community Police Commission will meet on Wednesday, Jan. 25 and for the first time since commission members were sworn-in late last year. The 13 member comission was establshed by Cleveland voters via a ballot initiative for police reforms with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb having authority under the city charter to appoint 10 comssion members with the approval of city council and city council, under the leadership of Council President Blaine Griffin, who is Black like Mayor Bibb, three members.

The city and the U.S. Department of Justice are parties to a court-monitored conscent decree for police reforms implemented in 2015 following heigntened complaints of police misconduct and several questionable police killings of Blacks, including Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Malissa Williams, Timothy Russell, rapper Kenneth "Ball" Smith, Brandon Jones, and more. The CPC was initially created in 2015 in connection with the conscent decree and was revised pursuant to Issue 24, a charter amendment for police reforms approved by Cleveland voters in 2021 that expanded the comission and gave it more authority and autonomy.

The process for selecting the 13 commision members, though outlined by the city charter, has been steeped in controversy following complaints and a protest from the framers of Issue 24, who are primarily Black Cleveland community activists and Black families who have lost loved one's to Cleveland police killings.

clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Hundreds attended Women's March Cleveland's sixth anniversary rally and march on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023  at Market Square Park in the city's Ohio City neighborhood, a sister march to marches in cities nationwide that day and an event that also celebrated the 50th anniversary of Roe v Wade, which is today.

"Thanks to all who helped to make Saturday's women's march in Cleveland a success" said Women's March Cleveland head organizer Kathy Wray Coleman, who added that "activists will picket if the doctors of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights are harassed by the media or people against reproductive freedoms for women for pushing an abortion ballot initiative."

Media that covered the gathering included Cleveland television channels 5 and 3, Cleveland Scene Magazine, the Call and Post Newspaper and clevelandurbannews.com

The rally lasted for about an hour where participants booed former president Donald Trump, a Republican who lost reelection to current Democratic President Joe Biden and is a 2024 presidential candidate. It was followed by a march.

"Boo" chanted activists when organizers explained that women's march groups were formed around the country six years ago in response to his misogynist and anti-female rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton and that Trump wants to be president again . They also cheered on the new group Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights after one of its founders, Dr Lauren Beene, spoke flanked by fellow doctors and said that her group is leading a ballot initiative to enshrine the legal right to abortion in the Ohio Constitution.

The Supreme Court, on June 24, 2022 overturned Roe v Wade and relegated the authority to either restrict or outright outlaw abortion to the respective state legislatures nationwide

In addition to Dr Beene, other keynote speakers were state Sen, Nickie Antonio, state Rep Juanita Brent, Cleveland Councilman Joe Jones, City of Cleve;land Community Rekatiions Board Director Angela Shute-Woodson, activists Genevieve Mitchell, Elaine Gohlstin, Maosha Maybach, Alfred Porter Jr. and Laura Cowan, East Cleveland School Board President Dr. Mary Rice and Red, Wine and Blue CEO Katie Paris. A  transgender student and University Hts Cleveland Hts student activist also spoke, coupled with presentations by Black on Black Crime Inc and Stand Up 4 Abortion Rights.

Alfred Porter Jr, whose Black on Black Crime group also fights for Black women, called out the names of the 11 Black women murder by serial killer Sowell and Katie Paris, whose group Red, Wine and Blue helped Women's March organize Saturday's event said that her group knows the importance of standing with Black women as Cleveland is a largely Black city and Antonio and Brent urged activists to keep up the fight for women and to support the doctors relative to the abortion ballot initiative. And Dr. Rice, a retired Cleveland schools principal, expressed support for President Biden's college student loan forgiveness program, which is on hold and awaiting review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Rev Benjamin Gohlstin of the United Pastors in Mission was also a speaker and he told the women during his speech that Black men are still marginalized and that until Blacks secure the unfettered right to vote the Democratic process remains questionable.

Saturday's event follows Women's March Cleveland's rally and march at Market Square Park in October of 2021 for reproductive rights that drew roughly 2,500 people, Issues raised ay the event include abortion access, voting and Civil Rights, and violence against women.

Women's March Cleveland enlisted a coalition of other activist and women's rights groups of greater Cleveland  for the event, including Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, Laura Cowan Foundation, Red, Wine and Blue, Black Women's PAC of Ohio, Carl Stokes Brigade, Black Women's Army, Greater Cleveland Alliance of Black School Educators, League of Women Voters East Cleveland Chapter, Journey Center for Safety and Healing ( Domestic Violence Center in Cleveland) Cuyahoga Democratic Women's Caucus, Black on Black Crime Inc. and Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.

Women's Marcg Cleveland is a grassroots women's rights group comprised primarily of greater Cleveland activist women and was first established in 2017 when thousands of women in Cleveland and millions as a whole in sister cities nationwide marched in the streets in their respective cities following then president Donald Trump's inauguration, one of the largest single day marches in American history. Women's March Cleveland has over 4,600 members and in addition to an anniversary march in January of each years it hosts intermittent marches, many of them sister marches with other cities on women's rights The issues the group fights for, practically all of them public policy matters impacting women, also include poverty, excessive force, and the nation's intrinsically racist legal system.

But reproductive rights have also become a central premise of the organization, along with rape, murder and other heinous violence against women in the largely Black major American city of Cleveland, a disproportionate number of the victims Black,  Hispanic, and poor.

Women's rights remain under attack in Ohio and elsewhere, Women’s March Cleveland organizers said.

clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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.