Pictured are political strategist and former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Donna Brazile, and Cuyahoga Community College (TRI-C) President Dr. Alex Johnson
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief. Coleman is an experienced Black political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com.
Former interim Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair and veteran political strategist Donna Brazile, also the campaign manager for former vice president Al Gore's unsuccessful bid for president in 2000, will keynote the annual Cleveland NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner at the Grand Ballroom of the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland at 6 pm on Saturday, June 22, 2019.
Elected in February, Cleveland NAACP President Danielle Sydnor, 36 and a former banker who heads the nonprofit Economic and Community Development Institute, leads the local chapter.
Dr. Alex Johnson, president of Cuyahoga County Community College (Tri-C), will be recognized at the event, organizers said, along with Tri-C as its corporate honoree.
Tickets are $150 for the after -five fundraiser of the local chapter of the nation's most prominent Civil Rights organization.
Brazile's visit to Cleveland, and the pivotal state of Ohio, comes as the 2020 presidential election nears and the Black vote is crucial.
Former vice president Joe Biden, who served under former president Barack Obama, is the front runner for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Bernie Sanders trailing in second place, Biden and Sanders among some 30 Democratic candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, a Youngstown area Democrat.
The Black vote fell seven percentage points in 2016 when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whom Brazille supported, lost a close election to Republican nominee and current president and presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Blacks making up 12 percent of the electorate that year.
Some 4 million Obama voters, Obama the country's first Black president who left office in 2017 after serving two terms, stayed home in 2016, an indication that courting the Black vote in 2020 may take some hard work and grassroots campaigning for both Democratic and Republican party operatives.
Event sponsors for Saturday's Freedom Fund Dinner include the Cleveland Browns, First Energy, Key Bank, Tr-C , Fifth Third Bank , Medical Mutual, the Eaton Corporation, Torchbearer, Pioneer, Justice Seeker, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the law firm of Kohrman, Jackson and Krantz.
Brazile, 59, is the first African-American woman to direct a campaign of a presidential nominee, Al Gore, who lost to former president George Bush nearly two decades ago, that election historical via Bush v. Gore, a decision of the United States Supreme Court that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election, Bush winning Florida to edge Gore for the presidency.
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Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016 was a repeat of Bush v. Gore in some respects, Gore winning the popular vote over Bush but losing the electoral college, and thus the presidency, and Trump winning the electoral college over Clinton, who won the popular vote but lost her second bid for president, the first bid against Obama in a Democratic primary in 2008, Obama later choosing the former first lady and former U.S. senator as his secretary of state.
A native of New Orleans, and the third of nine children, Brazile, who is Black, volunteered for the Jimmy Carter-Walter Mondale presidential campaign as a teenager and continued her political activism in college.
She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Louisiana State University and after graduation she worked for several advocacy groups and helped to make Martin Luther King Day a national holiday.
She has worked on the Democratic presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson and then Walter Mondale in the general election, both in 1984, and Dick Gephardt in 1988.
Brazile is a former CNN political analyst who now does commentary for the Republican-leaning Fox News and was interim chair for the DNC in 2016, after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in July of 2016, and amid controversy.
A former assistant attorney general for Civil Rights and secretary of labor under Obama, Tom Perez has led the DNC as its chairman since 2017.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. 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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