CLEVELAND, Ohio- Women's March Cleveland will join cities nationwide and Women's March National in Washington, D.C. to host a reproductive and Civil Rights rally and march on Sat., Oct. 2, 2021.
Cleveland's event will begin at noon and will be held at Market Square Park across from the West Side Market at the corner of W 25th Street and Lorain Avenue. The march is set for 1:30 pm and will include a partial march across the Carnegie Bridge (Event contact tel (216) 659-0473). CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FACEBOOK PAGE FOR THE UPCOMING RALLY AND MARCH IN CLEVELAND, OHIO ON OCTOBER 2, 2021
The six keynote speakers for the noon rally are 11th Congressional District Nominee Shontel Brown, who is also a Cuyahoga County councilwoman and chair of the county Democratic party, former Ohio Senator Nina Turner of Cleveland, who chaired the 2016 presidential campaign for Bernie Sanders and lost a contentious race for the Democratic nomination for the 11th congressional district seat to Brown last month, state Sen. Nickie Antonio of Lakewood, Cleveland Ward 5 Councilwoman Delores Gray, activist Cheryl Lessin, and Melisa Graves, the president and CEO of the Journey Center for Safety and Healing in Cleveland. The other speakers are women's reproductive rights advocates Lauren Tullio, Sherrir Grossman, and Delores Gray.
Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley, and Justin Bibb, the two mayoral candidates competing in the Nov 2 nonpartisan runoff, will march with women in Cleveland on Oct 2, organizers said.
Women's March Cleveland head organizer Kathy Wray Coleman, a Black activist who also leads the grassroots group Imperial Women Coalition and has organized and led women's marches for Women's March Cleveland since 2018, said Cleveland is hosting one of the largest marches in Ohio and one of the largest in the country on Oct 2, and during a pandemic.
Face masks are requested but not required.
Also the organizer of Saturday's event, Coleman said that 2,000 people have said they are either interested or going on the event Facebook page and that organizers expect at least 700 people on Market Square for the Oct. 2 march and rally.
"We are pleased that we have a star-studded lineup of speakers, which includes activists, and we urge all women to participate, and their supporters, particularly Black women because we know that the unconstitutional denial of our reproductive rights is also cloaked in racism and sexism."
Cuyahoga County poet laureate Honey Bell Bey will perform as will local guitarists Michael Nelson and William Sanders, who composed women's rights song for the march.
The national event in cities nationwide on Saturday comes in the midst of the recent Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, regardless of rape or incest, and the attack on Roe v. Wade by the conservative right and state legislatures across the country. Women's March National is convening a mass mobilization of marches in some 560 cities nationwide in cooperation with some 90 other organizations , including Planned Parenthood and Naral Pro Choice.
The U.S. Supreme Court will reconvene on Oct 4 to hear oral arguments relative to an abortion rights case out of Jackson Mississippi and organizers said the march are scheduled two days before then on Oct 2 by design
Marches will be held in all 50 states and in addition to Cleveland, in other major cities such as Los Angeles, Detroit, Louisville, Phoenix, Chicago and Atlanta. There are at least five women's marches in Ohio on Oct 2, including in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Youngstown and Warren.
According to organizers, Cleveland's march will also address state abortion laws and bills in Ohio that interfere with the reproductive freedoms of women.
The inaugural Women's March was a nationwide protest held on Jan 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of then president Donald Trump. It was prompted in part by statements he made during and after his campaign for president against then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history with nearly five million women and their supporters marching nationwide.
The goal of the annual marches is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women's rights, educational equity, reproductive rights, environmental justice, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers' rights, equal pay and police and criminal justice reform.
Now led by executive director Rachael O'Leary Carmona, Women's March National, a non profit organization for women's rights, is governed by a 16-member board of directors. Its national organizing director is Kate Shapiro, a grassroots organizer
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.