CLEVELAND,Ohio- Some 80 community activists met with Cleveland NAACP Legal Redress Committee Chair Attorney Una Kennon (pictured) and legal redress committee member and Ohio ACLU Legal Director James Hardiman (pictured in brown suit) at the Martin Luther King Jr. Branch Public Library on Feb. 4 for help on numerous issues impacting the Black community and others. Both Keenon and Hardiman agreed that the full legal redress committee will meet and respond to each concern in writing. |
"It was a good meeting," Keenon told Cleveland Urban News.Com after the well attended gathering.
The meeting is long overdue and had been denied for nearly two years by Hardiman and former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, said Kathy Wray Coleman, publisher and editor-n-chief of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the leader of The Imperial Women who help to organize the community forum with other members of the Imperial Women, including Frances Caldwell, the executive director of the the Cleveland African-American Museum.
Several of the community activists at the meeting, including Coleman and Caldwell, are dues paying members of the Cleveland NAACP.
State Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10) (pictured in Black suit and red tie), a Cleveland Democrat, moderated the event that was attended also by other area Blacks elected officials, all of whom said that they were in attendance just to listen. They include Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell, Cleveland Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed, and State Sen. Shirley Smith (D-21).
Marcus Saffold, president of the Cleveland Black Shield Police Association, was there too.
The Cleveland NAACP is now led by the Rev. Hilton Smith, who was elected to the post last year, and Sheila Wright is the newly appointed executive director of the Civil Rights organization.
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Meeting Of Some 80 People On Feb. 4, 2013 With The Imperial Women, The Cleveland African American Museum, Black on Black Crime Inc., The Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, Organize Ohio, The Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, The Nation of Islam, The Carl Stokes Brigade, Revolution Books, The Urban Education Strategy Group, The Black Contractors Group, And Other Community Activist Groups With Cleveland NAACP Legal Redress Committee Chair Attorney Una Keenon and Cleveland NAACP Legal Redress Committee Member and Legal Director of Ohio ACLU Attorney James Hardiman At The MLK Branch Library In Cleveland (Reach The Imperial Women at 216-659-0473. Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper, at 216-659-0473 and editor@clevelandurbannews.com)
General requests by community activists via the Feb. 4, 2013 meeting with Legal Redress Chairperson Attorney Una Keenon and Legal Redress Committee Member and ACLU Legal Director James Hardiman are as follows: The need to address the absence of any Blacks on the law enforcement leadership team of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson; The need for a mechanism for monitoring the successes and failures of Black children in the absence of a Cleveland schools desegregation court order; The support from the Cleveland NAACP in requesting felony murder charges against the group of Cleveland police officers, none of whom are Black, responsible for gunning down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell; The support of area Black contractors for contracts, work and other amenities; An amendment of the state law (o.r.c. 2339.02) that permits common pleas judges to choose grand jury foremen and for the grand jury itself to choose, the latter of which is also permitted under the law; An amendment to the state law that gives welfare recipients, mainly poor women and children, only three years for the subsidy when up to fives years is permitted by federal law; The help for maliciously prosecuted Black woman Betty Simpson, who was exonerated relative to bogus criminal charges pushed by the county prosecutor of mortgage fraud, and the release of her daughter from prison around the issue where her daughter was convicted of similar criminal charges; An investigation of the foreclosure process in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas and an amendment of the state law (O.R.C. 2329.17) that allows county sheriffs to appraise and sale foreclosed homes for cheap with the amended state law precluding participation by the sheriff and appraisals based upon the last legal county appraisal; The compliance by assistant county prosecutors in discontinuing the process of withholding discovery evidence against Black children prosecuted for alleged crimes in violation of federal law; An investigation of the Cuyahoga County Department of Child and Family Services around the Emilliano Terry case where the murdered boy's 20 year old mother stands accused of his murder after her cries for help were ignored by the county agency; The compliance with the DeRolph decision handed down in 1997 by the Ohio Supreme Court that deemed Ohio's method of funding public education unconstitutional, or a sliding scale of student assessment by the Ohio Department of Education based upon how rich or how poor a school district might be; The support of a bill (Ohio House Bill 216) by state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10) for Ohio trial court judges in multi-judge municipal and common pleas courts to at all times be assigned and reassigned to criminal and civil cases at random; A discussion with Cleveland NAACP officials and Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Chief Judge Nancy Fuerst as to a study commissioned by the group that shows that the 34 majority White judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas where felony criminal cases and other matters are heard give harsher sentences to Blacks than their similarly situated White counterparts; An amendment of state law (O.R.C. 2701.03) that gives the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court sole authority to decide if an Ohio trial common pleas court judge is removed from a case for bias or conflict and for the entire seven-member Ohio Supreme to decide; and, An amendment of state law (O.R.C. 2701.031) that gives the chief judge of the county common pleas court sole authority to decide if an Ohio municipal court is removed from a case for bias or conflict and for a panel of judges to decide coupled with the statutory right to appeal the decision to a state appellate court.
Speakers at the above meeting of Feb. 4 were as follows: Family members of unarmed Black 137-bullets shooting victim Malissa Williams, Cleveland Chapter NAACP Legal Redress Committee Member and Carl Stokes Brigade Member Genevieve Mitchell, Cleveland Criminal Defense Attorney Edele Passalacqua, Betty Simpson, Urban Education Strategy Group Leader Gerald Henley, Cleveland Entrepreneur Michael Nelson, Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman, Oppressed People's Nation Leader Ernest Smith, Cleveland Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Nelson Sr., Cleveland African-American Museum Executive Director Frances Caldwell, Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and Organize Ohio Leader Larry Bresler, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor Leaders Valerie and Dr. Stuart Robinson, , and Black on Black Crime Vice President Al Porter.
Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473.