CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA- The 10th Democratic Primary Debate, the last one before delegate-rich Super Tuesday, which is March 3, took place in at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina on Tuesday as the Feb. 29 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary nears, Black issues center stage at the event on public policy matters ranging from stop-and-frisk to disparities regarding housing, public education, criminal justice reform, women's employment rights, and institutionalized racism.

Private prisons were debated as were the crime bill, health care, gun control, unemployment in the Black community, and the litany of Democratic agendas commonplace to the 2019-2020 debate forums.

Taking to the stage were candidates Joe Biden, former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg,  Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren,  Minnesota Sen Amy Klobuchar, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sanders just this month stealing the front-runner status from Biden, the former vice president under Barack Obama.

It was not a coincidence, sources said, that the venue for Tuesday's debate was Charleston where the Charleston church shooting (also known as the Charleston church massacre) occurred in 2015 , a mass shooting by a since convicted White supremacist in which nine African Americans (including the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney) were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

In short, Black people, were the focal point, an indication, said political pundits, that the Democratic National Committee and White candidates wanting to be president are becoming somewhat more sophisticated on race and presidential elections, and on courting the Black vote, regardless of whether they truly understand the phenomenon of institutional racism.

A state with 63 delegates (54 of them pledged delegates) and some 5 million people that is roughly 30 percent Black, and a state that incumbent Republican President Donald Trump won in 2016, South Carolina is a swing state, and as the state where the first African descendants were brought on South Carolina shores as slaves by wealthy white planters from Barbados, it has history, and was  pivotal during the Civil War.

Likely the most aggressive debate, the gloves finally came off Tuesday, Sen Warren the most vocal on race and gender, and even Biden doing well.

Warren accused Bloomberg, a billionaire like Steyer, of everything she could on women and race issues and on what she says is his soft approach to redlining, the systemic denial by local, state and federal agencies to Blacks of governmental services.

Bloomberg also took heat from Warren over the New York stop-and-frisk policy he supported as New York's mayor, which he now dismisses as bad policy, his naivete on race evident as he downplayed redlining and simplified his responses to claims of  bad policies detrimental to Blacks when he was mayor with mere apologies.

The seasoned U.S. senator said public dollars should go to public schools while Bloomberg pushed public and non-public charter schools.

Warren, who likely has the better understanding of all of them on race, said her opponents, all six of them, were ignorant on race.

Facing falling poll numbers Warren said that Bloomberg, who, like Sanders, has stolen Black votes from Biden, is untrustworthy, and that "the core of the Democratic Party will never trust him."

All seven of the candidates said racial injustice is a problem in America.

Biden was more self confident, pundits said, and won the debate, some Blacks polled said, though  Warren was good too, female CNN pundits adding that Bloomberg, who is under fire for his treatment for women on the job and off,  at times came across as arrogant, particularly when saying he can afford to toss his billions around at liberty,

Biden advocated for a Black woman on the U.S. Supreme, a nine -member court with one Black male, conservative leaning anti-Black Justice Clarence Thomas.

There has never been a Black woman on the nation's high court, and whoever becomes president is poised to nominate the next Supreme Court Justice, and maybe sooner as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a liberal appointed under former president Bill Clinton, battles recurring cancer.

Biden, 77, leads in the polls for Saturday's South Carolina primary, followed by Sanders, also 78, Steyers, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

A  Feb 19 Quinnipiac University poll has Sanders leading the national race for the Democratic nomination was conducted after his first place showing in New Hampshire and his  strong showing in the Iowa caucuses a week earlier behind Buttigieg. The poll has him with support from  32% of Democratic voters, a 16-point lead over Biden, who is at 16% and continues to struggle to regain his front-runner status.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. 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.

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, LOS ANGELES, California- Former NBA basketball star Kobe Bryant, who spent his entire 20 years in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers as a shooting guard, and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were remembered during a star-studded memorial service at the Staples Center in LA on Monday, Bryant and Gianna dying in a helicopter crash on Jan 26 in Calabasas, California along with the pilot and six others, including a former college baseball coach and his wife and daughter.

With a weeping Jimmy Kimmel as the master of ceremonies, the memorial drew some 20,000 people and included performances by megastars such as Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Christina Aguilera, and speeches from Lakers General Manager Rob Polinka, NBA greats Shaquille, O' Neil and Michael Jordan, among others.

Best known for leading the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships during his tenure with the NBA, Jordan, 57, cried from the speaking podium and discussed his decades-long relationship with Kobe, whom he said was as close to him as a "younger brother."

Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, spoke too and brought the audience to tears when shes symbolically asked her husband to look out for their daugher Gianna, who was nicknamed "GiGi."

"Babe you take care of GiGi," said Vanessa Brant during her tearful tribute to her husband and daughter at Monday's memorial.

All nine people aboard the helicopter en route to the Mama Sports Academy basketball game in Thousand Oaks, California on Jan 26 perished, a life cut short of a legendary athlete who is being mourned across the country, Bryant, 41, leaving behind his wife of 19 years, Vanessa Bryant, and three other daughters, Natalia, 17, Bianka, 3, and Capri, seven months, the youngest born just last June.

The crash remains under investigation, with Bryant's widow Vanessa filing suit this week against the helicopter company, alleging, among other claims, that the pilot was negligent and responsible for last month's tragic crash.

Monday's memorial was a remembrance celebration for all nine of the victims.

Bryant coached his daughter's club team and would take them to watch other professional basketball teams, which was the case last month when the helicopter crash occurred.

One of the greatest players of all time, Bryant's death caught the country off guard, millions across the world still mourning his death.

A native of Philadelphia, Kobe moved to Italy with his family when he was six after his father retired from the NBA, and he spoke Italian fluentently.

He was drafted to the Lakers in 1996 out of high school at 18-years-old and became the youngest NBA player to play in a ball game.

He went on to become the youngest NBA player to reach 30,000 league points when he was only 34-years-old, his career also highlighted by 18 consecutive years as All-Star game starter, Bryant an All -Star game contender from his second year in the NBA until his retirement from the league in 2016.

He once scored 81 points in a single NBA game, and he scored 60 points during his final game before retirement in 2016.

In addition to a host of other career accomplishments, including a five-time NBA champion with the Lakers, he is a two-time NBA MVP and won two gold medals in the Summer Olympics in 2008 and 20012 as a member of the U.S. national team.

Bryant was also a philanthropist like LeBron James.

He started the Kobe Bryant China Fund, a charity supported by the Chinese government, and was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities.

Bryant won an Oscar in 2018 as executive producer of the animated short film 'Dear Mr Basketball,' a a piece based on a poem he wrote that illustrates his journey as a child who loved basketball to stardom with the Lakers.