By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black news venues
Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473
Pictured above is Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who is seeking a third four year term as mayor this year.(Editor's Note: There is no city charter limitation on how many terms a Cleveland mayor or city council member can serve. They can serve indefinitely)
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Imperial Women, The Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, Ohio Family Rights and other community activists group said that they will reschedule a picket of the Cleveland NAACP set for yesterday after NAACP officials secretly changed from the regular monthly meeting location at The University Circle United Methodist Church in Cleveland. The unusual change came at the last minute and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson sent blond, blue -eyed, White male cops from the Seventh District Police Station to intimidate Black women, community activists and Black raped and murdered victims families that were among those that showed up to rally.
The activists want a meeting with Cleveland NAACP President Rev. Hilton Smith, regular committee meetings, and for the group to stand for jobs, and against the gunning down of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, and Timothy Russell, foreclosure fraud, judicial impropriety and the abduction, rape and murders of women across racial lines.
About 40 activists were there. Nobody was arrested.
Activist Genevieve Mitchell, now also a privileged member of the Cleveland NAACP Legal Redress Committee who skipped the rally to join big wigs of the group elsewhere, told activists later that night that NAACP officials and its executive board, among other chosen few, met somewhere on Superior Ave. and East 105th St.
Some dues paying NAACP members, including activists that organized the rally, were kept out of the loop on the secret new meeting place, typical anti-free speech and dictatorial behavior by leaders of the Civil Rights organization that former longtime organization president George Forbes, also a former Cleveland City Council president and general counsel for the Call and Post Newspaper, made so famous.
The Imperial Women, the organizing group of the rally, say that the police harassment includes pulling their cars over as they were leaving the rally without the reasonable suspension required by case law and running their license plates while ignoring Whites that were at the church for a concert, and alleged threats of unconstitutional and otherwise illegal arrest.
One policeman set in the church parking lot and racially profiled the licensed plates of mostly, if not all, Blacks, compliments of a Black mayor who has no Blacks in the ranks of his top brass .
They say that Jackson and the police he sent to harass them allegedly violated their First Amendment rights and that organizers of the rally pulled back so that activists and victims families would not get gunned down with 137 bullets like Williams and Russell, both of whom were shot dead by police late last year following a car chase from downtown Cleveland that ended in neighboring East Cleveland.
"The police approached me and said are you Angelique Malone and then he harassed me, ran my license plates and said we should not be protesting," a daughter of Christine Malone told Cleveland Urban News.Com Monday after what was supposed to be a rally in front of the church.
Malone, 45, was found raped and murdered in an open field on Cleveland's east side in late March after Fourth District police allegedly told family members to find her own their on and to call after they located her.
The cocky White policeean also prowled the church premises where the rally was to be held as if they were on a hunt of Blacks, women and innocent community activists, activists say.
Malone left eight children and several of them met to picket with activists at yesterday's scheduled rally .
Activists said that they will meet later this week to decide the next move, which might include a third picket by The Imperial Women at the home of Mayor Jackson.
Two other pickets, both held in the last four years, dealt with the Imperial Avenue Murders of 11 Black women at the home of convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell .
They say that the potential upcoming picket of the mayor's home is partly because of the failure of police and the Jackson administration to implement the 27 recommendations relative to three-member commission that the mayor formed around the Imperial Avenue tragedy in response to out cries by community activists.
Activists said also that they have not ruled out a picket at the work place of Smith, who is vice president of Turner Construction Inc., if he continues to fail to meet with them as dues paying NAACP members as promised, and if he keeps advising the NAACP legal redress committee not to have any meetings.
