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Pictured is convicted rapist and serial killer of 11 Black women |
CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Imperial Women Coalition of the Imperial Women and other local community activists groups, with support from the Baptist Ministers Conference of greater Cleveland and other area Black clergy, will host "The 4th Anniversary of the Imperial Avenue Murders Rally And Candlelight Vigil And Universal Call To Find Missing Women And Children" at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, October 29 at East 123rd Street and Imperial Avenue in Cleveland next to the since demolished home of convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell. For more information call Community Activist Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women or Community Activist Al Porter of Black on Black Crime Inc. at 216-704-5036.
Organizers said that the event's theme is remembering the 11 Black women strangled and murdered on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland by Sowell and continuing the fight to eradicate violence against women and to find the missing. ( Sowell sits on death row as his aggravated murder and other convictions on 82 of 83 counts are on appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court. The first few bodies of what would ultimately become the remains of 11 Black women were initially discovered at his home on October 29, 2009. Tuesday, October 29, 2013 marks the fourth anniversary of the unprecedented tragedy that rocked the largely Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland).
Featured speakers for the rally and vigil include Yvonne Pointer, Angelique Malone, and Joann Moore, all hit by rape and/or murder of an immediate family member Moore is the sister of Imperial. Avenue Murder Victim Janice Webb, one of 11 Black women unmercifully murdered by Sowell at his Imperial Avenue home. Also addressed will be the 3 women raped and murdered this year in East Cleveland (Angela Daskins, Shirellda Terry and Letisha Sheeley) by alleged serial killer Michael Madison, the 3 women raped and murdered this year at or near East 93rd Street in Cleveland (Christine Malone Jazmine Trotter and Ashley Leszyeski), and and those murdered in downtown Cleveland, including Aliza Sherman. Community activists said that they will further deal with the rape and decade long captivity of Amanda Berry Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight by convicted kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro.
Yvonne Pointer is a community liaison with Cleveland City Hall, an author, and a motivational speaker. Her 14-year-old daughter Gloria Pointer was abducted, raped and murdered coming home from school in 1984.
Angelique Malone, another keynote speaker, is the daughter of Christine Malone, whose body was found in March or this year at East 93rd Street and Bessemer Avenue near where the bodies of Trotter and Leszyeski were found.
Event music will be provided by Michael Nelson of Lil' Africa in Cleveland.
Other speakers include the Reverends David Hunter and Aaron Phillips of the Baptist Ministers Conference, the Rev. Pam Pinkney, other greater Cleveland Black clergy, Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell, Cleveland Ward 4 Councilman Kenneth Johnson, Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman, Cleveland Ward 10 Councilman Jeff Johnson Cleveland, CNN Hero and Domestic Violence Survivor Laura Cowan, and Community Activists Kathy Wray Coleman, Art McKoy, Earnest Smith, Patricia Rowell, Judy Martin, Al Porter, Hattie Porter, Nancy Rolfe, Senior Spokesman Charles E. Bibb Sr., Tiffany Fisher, Joyce Hood, Don Bryant, Donna Walker Brown, Tuan Billings, Christine Wilson, Evangelist Tanya Williams, Marva and Dave Patterson, Larry Bresler and Dr. Stuart and Valerie Robinson.
Councilman Ken Johnson with Councilwoman Mitchell will present resolutions at next Tuesday's rally and candlelight vigil to the keynote speakers, including Michelle, on behalf of the City of Cleveland and Cleveland City Council.
Participating groups include elected officials of Cleveland, the office of Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, and local area activist organizations of the Imperial Women, Black on Black Crime Inc, the Fairfax Business Association, the Cleveland Black Contractors Group,Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, People for the Imperial Act, the Underground Railroad, Revolution Books, the People's Forum, Peace in the Hood, the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Women's Federation, Sister-to-Sister, GovAbuse. Com, and the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network.
