CLEVELAND, Ohio- Led by Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church Senior Pastor Rev E. Theophilus Caviness (pictured), who is also 1st vice president of the Cleveland NAACP and the executive director of the Cleveland Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a small but influential group of Cleveland area Black ministers, labor officials and community activists met at a Glenville area church Tuesday night to promote the candidacy of State Sen. Nina Turner(D-25) (pictured) as Ohio’s next Secretary of State. They hope to convince Turner, a former Cleveland Ward 1 council person and a Cleveland Democrat to take on Republican Jon Husted for the seat in 2014.
Other influential ministers at the meeting were Bishop F.E. Perry, Rev. Tyrone Davis, Rev. Larry Harris and Rev. Dan Smith.
No African American Democrat has ever been elected to a statewide office in Ohio, though some have been appointed like Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Evette McGee Brown, who lost her seat to Republican Sharon Kennedy in November.
