CLEVELAND, Ohio-Representatives of the grassroots groups dubbed the Imperial Women, Goddesses Blessing Goddesses, Black on Black Crime, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, the Oppressed People's Nation, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, the Carl Stokes Brigade, ESOP, Occupy Cleveland, the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network, the People's Forum, the People's Fightback Center, Bailout The People Movement, People For The Imperial Act, the Committee To Bring Home Jamela And Jamyla, and a host of other community affiliates will hold a prayer vigil and forum tomorrow, Dec. 6, at 7:00 am next to Serial Killer Anthony Sowell's Home to support it being torn down. Demolition crews will begin the process in conjunction with an order from Cleveland Housing Court Judge Ray Pianca.
Sowell was convicted this summer by a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas jury of aggravated murder of the 11 Black women that he strangled at his home on Cleveland's Imperial Ave. , and a host of other crimes. He is scheduled to be put to death in Oct. 2012 per the recommendation of the jury and a subsequent death by lethal injection roll order from Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose.
"We will be there to bring more awareness to violence against women and to move again toward closure as the home of Serial Killer Anthony Sowell is demolished," said the Rev. LaDonna Blalock, who leads Goddesses Blessing Goddesses."And this is a part of the healing process for the community around this tragedy."
To attend the vigil from downtown Cleveland, take Kinsman Ave to E. 123rd St, turn left, and proceed two blocks to Imperial Ave with the home next to the corner.
The prayer vigil and forum are also to push to stop violence and governmental mistreatment of Greater Cleveland women, Black women in particular.
The vigil will open with a prayer for the betterment of women by Jean Whitte, a member of the Imperial Women and Black on Black Crime.
The speakers include family members of the slain 11 Black women, Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman, Goddesses Blessing Goddesses Leader and Imperial Women Member the Rev. LaDonna Blalock, Leatrice Tolls of Occupy Cleveland and the Imperial Women, Marvetta Rutherford of ESOP and the Imperial Women, Oppressed People's Nation Leader and the October 22 Coalition Against Police Brutality Organizer Ernest Smith, Black On Black Crime Founder Art McKoy, the Carl Stokes Brigade and Imperial Women Member Ada Averyhart, the Committee To Bring Home Jamela and Jamyla and Imperial Women Member Angelique Cunningham, the Joaquin Real People's Movement Leader and Imperial Women Member Denise Taylor, Goddesses Blessing Goddesses Members Georgia Reash and Jill Bonet, and Community Activist Willie Stokes.