(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio-Greater Cleveland activist women, led by the Imperial Women Coalition (www.imperialwomencoalition.com), have a preliminary agenda for the July 18 9:30 am and 12:30 pm speaking slots on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, the opening day of the four-day Republican Convention (RNC) in Cleveland. (The speaking slots are for 30 minutes each).
Founded in 2009 relative to the murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland by serial killer and death row inmate Anthony Sowell, the Imperial Women Coalition, a non-violenct grassroots group, has permits under the name of the Imperial Women Coalition from the city for both 9:30 am and 12:30 pm that day and will open up the international forum at 9:30 am.
According to organizers, the Public Square non-violent agenda for the Imperial Women Coalition, which will include the Ohio Chapter National Organization for Women and various women activist groups of greater Cleveland and elsewhere, is still undergoing preparation. It follows an organizational conference meeting of July 5 of greater Cleveland activist women led by activists Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition and Lavitta Murray of the Million Women March Cleveland.
Per majority agreement of the participating women activist leaders via the July 5 teleconference, the preliminary agenda is as follows:
-Gather at Public Square in Cleveland at 9 am on July 18 to prepare to march at 9:20 am to the city's official speaking platform, also on Public Square.
-Proceed with a two-minute prayer at 9:30 am (Minister Gwendolyn Pitts of the Imperial Women Coalition) to pray for women across America who have been raped, murdered, killed in jails or prisons via neglect or malfeasance of law enforcement authorities and subjected to police brutality and legal system abuse without access to legitimate and constitutionally sound redress.
-Proceed with two minute speeches on violence against women, women's reproductive rights, inhumane incarceration matters, and women's rights in general for the 9:30 am 30 minute Public Square speaking slot. (Speakers include Democratic Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell, activist and journalist Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition and Cleveland Urban News.Com, Anita Rios of the Ohio Chapter National Organization for Women (Ohio NOW), activist Genevieve Mitchell of the Carl Stokes Brigade, Angelique Malone of the Cleveland East 93rd Street Serial Murders and the Imperial Women Coalition, Joanne Moore of the Imperial Avenue Murders, activist Valerie Robinson of Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor and the Imperial Women Coalition, activist and rape victim Christine Wilson of Sister to Sister, and activist Pierre Nappier of the Imperial Women Coalition.
-Hand out to the media and others written requests by the activist groups at issue for public policy changes and other measures to address violence against women and women's rights across racial lines with emphasis on inequities facing Black and other minority women.
-Break for some others to speak in 30 minute intervals, including Cuyahoga County assistant public defender Scott Hurley, Black on Black Crime Inc. and the Black Man's Army of greater Cleveland, and a Muslim woman from North Carolina who is concerned as to Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric. (Editor's note: The Public Square speaking platform is open via all four days of the RNC, July 18-21, via approved permits from the city of Cleveland, a largely Black major American city. Other demonstration venues include city-designated protest routes, specified downtown parks, and independent soap boxes in permitted areas, all part of concessions agreed upon by the city following a successful Ohio ACLU lawsuit last month on a host of first amendment violations).
-Proceed at 12:30 pm with a prayer for women and two minute speeches on women's rights as to jobs, education, housing, welfare reform, health care, mass incarceration, voting rights, equal pay, the legal system and the demand for a living wage. (Speakers include the Rev Tony Minor, Democratic Ohio state Representative Nickie Antonio (five-ten minutes), activist Marva Patterson of the Carl Stokes Brigade and the Imperial Women Coalition, activist David Patterson of the Carl Stokes Brigade, activist Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women Coalition and Cleveland Urban News.Com, Dr Stuart Robinson of Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor , and the Rev. Eugene Ward).
-Hand out to the media and others written requests by the activist groups at issue for public policy changes and other measures to address violence against women and women's rights.
-Break to support the 1:15 pm speaking slot of the Million Women March Cleveland, which will focus on the Cleveland police killings of Tanisha Anderson, Malissa Williams and others, and legal system issues as to disenfranchised Black women and affiliated racism and sexism.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com). Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief at Cleveland Urban News.Com and a longtime greater Cleveland community activist, is the most read reporter in Ohio on Google Plus.
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