(Photo by David Petkiewicz of cleveland.com).

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- Women in Cleveland  and Northeast Ohio will take to the streets in Cleveland on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023  for Women's March Cleveland's sixth-year anniversary and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Roe Wade, one of several sister marches nationwide the weekend of Jan 21. Rally speakers include elected officials, reproductive rights and anti-violence advocates, educational and voting rights advocates, and Black mothers who have lost loved ones to homicides in Cleveland. (Event contact tel: (216) 659-0473 and Facebook event page)

The event will begin with a 12:30 pm rally at Market Square Park at W. 25th Street and Lorain Avenue in the city's Ohio City neighborhood, and across from the Westside Market near downtown Cleveland. A 1:30pm march will follow. A march that Women's March Cleveland hosted at Market Square Park in October of 2021 for reproductive rights drew roughly 2,500 people and though Saturday's upcoming march will be smaller like other cities nationwide that are also holding sister rallies and marches to celebrate the anniversary of the now defucct Roe v Wade, it will draw a decent crowd, organizers said, and will be one of the largest sister marches nationwide this weekend.

Organizers said that hundreds are expected. The women say that they are marching for reproductive rights and abortion access, voting and Civil Rights, and to seek to eradicate violence against women Also at issue, they say, are jobs, educational equity, adequate housing and healthcare, equal pay, and the continual fight against racism, sexism, and bigotry.

"We will fight against attempts to erase decades of constitutional protections for women and girls," organizers said on the Facebook event page , which also reveals that Cleveland is slated to host one of the largest sister marches in the country the weekend of Jan. 21.

Women's March Cleveland has 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.

A grassroots women's rights group comprised primarily of greater Cleveland activist women and 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 they fight 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.

According to organizers, Saturday's march in Cleveland is also a march against the reinstatement of the heartbeat bill in Ohio, a six week abortion ban and state law that took effect after the U.S. The Supreme Court, on June 24, 2022 overturned Roe v Wade and relegated the authority to restrict or outright outlaw abortion to the respective state legislatures nationwide. The  state law is temporarily on hold per the ruling of a Hamilton County judge and as lawsuits over the measure make their way through the courts.

Women's rights remain under attack in Ohio and elsewhere, Women’s March Cleveland organizers told clevelandurbannews.com and kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio’s Black digital news leader.

“We also call for a ceasefire on murder and other violence against Cleveland and greater Cleveland women that disproportionately impacts Black women and other women of color," Women's March Cleveland organizers said. "We support all women and we believe in inclusion across racial, ethnic, religious, gender, socioeconomic and other lines. We are true grassroots activists and we are not owned by the establishment or government or corporate interests.

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.