From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com)

By Robert Saffold (pictured in blue tie), Contributing Writer (Saffold is the stepfather of U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH) (pictured). He and his wife Marion Saffold are members of the Cleveland Chapter of The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. He can be reached at 216-333-7299 and at garth_saffold@att.net). (Editor's Note: Join Saffold, Fudge, local, county and state wide office holders, political wannabe's and community members for the annual 11th Congressional District Caucus Parade and Picnic on Labor Day, Sept 3 . The parade kicks off at 10:00 am from E. 149th St. and Kinsman Rd in Cleveland and ends at Luke Easter Park where the picnic will begin with political speeches and entertainment from various sources including drill teams such as the Lady D Drill Team).

The Cleveland Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists commemorates the “Father of Labor Day in Ohio,” the Honorable John Patterson Green (pictured above)

we get ready to celebrate Labor Day in the Ohio and the U.S.A. on September 5th, 2011, it is without a doubt that most Americans, especially union folks, will remember the deeds and exploits of such giants of organized labor such as A. Philip Randolph of the Sleeping Car Porters, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, Philip Murray of the United Steal Workers, Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters, Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers, and Cesar Chaves, of the United Farm Workers.

As a student of history and a former elected union official I have overtime witnessed these great icons of the trade labor movement and current labor leaders being recognized and commemorated for their many outstanding contributions to their constituents and the community at large.

But the individuals that have gained the most attention and publicity from the media and the public have been elected officials, candidates for office and other politicians. At first I thought this revelation was ironic until I remembered my “Black History” lessons.

In 1882, Cleveland’s first black lawyer, John Patterson Green, was elected to serve in the Ohio House of Representatives. In 1892, he was elected a state senator representing the 25th district of Ohio in Cleveland. It is a documented fact that this Cleveland attorney was the first African- American to serve as a state senator north of the Mason-Dixie Line. It was in the Ohio General Assembly during his second term that John Patterson Green sponsored the “Labor Day” legislation that earned him the title “Father of Labor Day in Ohio.” The former common laborer, lawyer, and justice of the peace wanted to honor all working men and women in Ohio with the idea of establishing a holiday to celebrate the contributions of workers , not politicians. On April 28, 1890, John Patterson Green’s efforts were successful as House Bill 500 was passed. It was a short bill consisting of only one sentence of 30 words. The Labor Day Bill began as follows:

“Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, that the first Monday in September of each and every year shall be known as Labor Day…..”

In 1894, the U.S. Congress passed a bill making Labor Day a national holiday. While serving as an Ohio State Legislator, John Patterson Green sponsored or supported 21 major bills on behalf of labor. During his professional and legislative career, he “counted” among his closest friends, Mr. and Mrs. John D. (Ms. Lara C. Spellman) Rockefeller, Marcus A. Hanna, and George A. Myers, all captains of industry. He also was a friend of, and assisted Civil Rights leaders such as Harry Smith, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglas, Charles Chestnut, and other black leaders of his day.

During the Honorable John Patterson Green’s illustrious career, the lawyer and legislator earned the respect not only of Cleveland, Ohio lawyers and public officials, but also U.S. Presidents James Garfield and William McKinley, both of whom appointed him to various federal positions. But of all his associations and accomplishments, John Patterson Green was most proud of his work to honor all working men and women of this nation by sponsoring “Labor Day in Ohio.”

This material on John Patterson Green was researched at the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Oh. by Minister Robert E. Saffold.

Since its founding conference in 1972, Coalition of Black Trade Union’s stature among American workers has grown. Currently, more than 50 different international and national unions are represented in CBTU. With over 60 chapters nationwide and one in Ontario, Canada, CBTU is maximizing the strength and influence of black workers in unions and empowering their communities.

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by telephone at 216-659-0473 and by email@ editor@clevelandurbannews.com

From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

PRESS RELEASE..THE REAL DEAL DEBATE ON THE CLEVELAND SCHOOLS 15 MILL PROPERTY TAX LEVY FEATURING CLEVELAND COUNCILMAN JEFF JOHNSON AGAINST GRASSROOTS WOMEN TO BE HELD ON AUGUST 30, 2012, 6-8 PM, 6816 SUPERIOR AVE, LIL AFRICA CENTER IN CLEVELAND, OHIO. STATE REP. BILL PATMON (D-10) WILL SERVE AS MODERATOR OF THE DEBATE. SEE BELOW THE PANEL OF COMMUNITY ACTIVIST LEADERS THAT WILL POSE QUESTIONS TO THE DEBATERS, THOUGH A 15 MINUTE SEGMENT WILL BE RESERVED FOR AUDIENCE QUESTIONS BEFORE THE VOTE BY ACTIVISTS AT THE DEBATE ON WHETHER TO ENDORSE THE LEVY.

WHEN: Thursday, August 30, 2012 from 6 pm to 8 pm

WHERE: Little Africa Recreation and Versatility Center, 6816 Superior Ave. in Cleveland, Ohio

CONTACTS: Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-659-0473 and Cleveland African American Museum Executive Director Frances Caldwell at the museum offices at 216-721-6555.

WHO: Grassroots factions sponsor debate on Cleveland schools 15 mill property tax levy that is on the November 6, 2012 ballot. (Grassroots groups include  Cleveland Urban News. Com, the Imperial Women Coalition, the Imperial Women,  Black on Black Crime, the Oppressed People's Nation, Cleveland Jobs With Justice, the Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, the Underground Railroad,the Sowell 11, the Cleveland African-American Museum, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Committee to Bring Home Jamela and Jamala, Occupy Cleveland, the Family Connection Center, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, Organize Ohio, the Northeast Ohio's Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the People's Forum, Ohio Family Rights, People for Parental Equality, and others).

At the debate community activists will vote by secret ballot on whether to endorse the levy with a criterion for eligibility to vote requiring participation in either a protest or rally since the initiation of protests around the public announcement of the Imperial Ave. Murders of 11 Black women in October 2009. (Editor's note: Rapist Anthony Sowell was convicted of the serial murders and sentenced to death by lethal injection last year, though his convictions are on appeal. The activist groups that fought for justice around those murders are still alive and seek changes in public policy for the betterment of the community in education, the legal system and other public venues of concern).

WHAT: Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson, who is for the levy, will debate anti-levy proponents and community affiliates Kimberly Brown and Donna Walker  Brown, with Imperial Women Member Roz McAllister as alternate in the event that pressure from the establishment causes a participant against the levy to drop out of the debate.

Debate questions panelists include Community Activists Art McKoy, Debbie Kline, Mary Keith, Roz McAllister and Frances Caldwell,  Attorney Michael Nelson  Sr., and Dr. Eugene Jordon, Second Vice President of the Cleveland NAACP.

Cleveland area defense attorney Edele Passalacqua and Willie Stokes will be honored for grassroots excellence in activism, with Passalacqua receiving the grassroots award for attorney excellence on behalf of community grassroots factions and Stokes getting the grassroots hidden warrior award for his support of victims, families and community activists around the Imperial Ave Murders and otherwise.

Other presenters and/or speakers include Art McKoy, Former Cleveland School Board Member Genevieve Mitchell, Oppressed People's Nation Leader Ernest Smith, Entrepreneur Michael Nelson, Community Activist Denise Taylor, and Kathy Wray Coleman, a community activist who is the publisher and associate editor of Cleveland Urban News.Com.

Brief questions from the audience shall occur and activists shall demand compliance by the Ohio State Legislature of the Ohio Supreme Court's DeRolph decision for it to revise its unconstitutional public school funding formula that was deemed unconstitutional for relying on property taxes in part to give an advantage to rich children over poor children.

Another highlight of the event will be a 5 minute presentation by Genevieve Mitchell of the Cleveland Municipal School District from the desegregation court order to mayoral control of the predominantly Black city schools.

And the plight of the Black male student as stereotyped and disenfranchised shall be discussed by Smith, a young activist whose leadership as chief of the Oppressed People's Nation has garnered respectable attention.

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by telephone at 216-659-0473 and by email@ editor@clevelandurbannews.com

From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com announces upcoming articles on its one-on-one comprehensive interviews yesterday with 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a Democrat and the only Black congressperson in Ohio and the neighboring states of Kentucky and Tennessee, and renowned nine-time Grammy award winner John Legend, a soulful crooner, pop, and R and B singer who fraternizes musically with the likes of Kayne West and Jay-Z

"Cleveland Urban New. Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com are pleased to have interviewed one-on-one two people that we believe are pioneers as agents for change for the betterment of the Black community in interviewing our congresswoman, and the talented John Legend," said Publisher and Associate Editor Kathy Wray Coleman, who did the congressional interview and that of Legend, the latter with Marc Churchill, the marketing director and copy editor of Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leading online Black newspaper.

Coleman said that both articles on the interviews will be published next week with highlights on President Obama's reelection campaign and Republican pushed voter suppression measures designed to suppress the Black vote during a presidential election year, though other issues central to the interviews also form the basis of the articles.

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by telephone at 216-659-0473 and by email@ editor@clevelandurbannews.com

By Johnette Jernigan and Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban New.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com has snagged the exclusive below interview with Blaine Griffin (pictured), the highest ranking Black as the elected vice chairperson of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, and a ranking member of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's administrative cabinet as the director of the city's community relations board. (Editor's note: The mayor announced last week that Griffin is on leave until after the November 6 election from his city job to lead the campaign for the 15 mill property tax levy for Cleveland schools that is on the November ballot. Under state law the city mayor controls the schools and appoints the Cleveland Board of Education).

A married father of three Cleveland schools students who lives in the city's Larchmere neighborhood sandwiched by street between the Shaker Hts. border and the Morris Black Housing Projects, Griffin, 42, has a grassroots thrust, and he had it before joining the mayor's administrative leadership team

Before landing the community relations job, he ran unsuccessfully for city council in Ward 6 , which is led now by Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell.

He quickly stepped to the plate for calm along with the mayor and other city leaders when the remains of 11 Black women were uncovered in late 2009 at the Imperial Ave. home of convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell on Cleveland's majority Black east side.

He welcomes community activists to his office for meetings on controversial issues and networks with residents on both the east and west sides of the Cuyahoga River, a river that  geographically divides the segregated city, which is Cuyahoga County's largest.

He has a husky built but a gentle and innocent style that makes him easy going, his supporters say.

He will say that's not my expertise in certain areas rather than to act as a know it all. Yet he is smart too, and walks easily among the intellectual elite of the mayor's administration.

But he is loyal to the mayor, a Democratic mayor some 20 years his senior.

And while he is the mayor's ear on community matters, Griffin limited the below one-on-one interview to President Obama's reelection campaign, voter registration strategies, Republican perpetuated voter suppression tactics, and his role as the second in charge of the county's Democratic party, one rocked by scandal via a political corruption probe made public three years ago.

That unprecedented probe has brought some 50 convictions or guilty pleas from Democratic party affiliates including two former judges, former Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo, and former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, the prior party chairperson before the FBI came knocking. (Editor's note: Cleveland area attorney Stuart Garson is currently the chairperson of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party).

Cleveland Urban News.Com Staff Reporter Johnette Jernigan:

What is your relationship with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson?

Blaine Griffin:

Now Johnette you have to understand, and let me make it clear, I work as a director for Mayor Jackson. I am a government employee. I could not have done this interview on my day job. This interview is in my role as vice chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

Cleveland Urban News.Com:

What has been your greatest challenge and your greatest success in your role as vice chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party?

Griffin:

The greatest challenge has been the corruption scandal and the greatest success has been my working with Chairman Garson on that scandal. We had to restore the confidence of Cuyahoga County Democrats in the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. I think we have done a good job of re-positioning the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party in a good light.

And another thing we did was to repeal SB 5 [Senate Bill 5] (Editor's note: Senate Bill 5 was a state law passed early last year that cripples Ohio's public sector unions by stripping them of collective bargaining rights such as the right to strike for fair wages and working conditions, a Republican pushed state law that voters knocked down at the ballot box last November).

And we got the first Cuyahoga County Executive elected, who is a Democrat, and won eight of the 11 Cuyahoga County Council seats. (Editor's Note: Cuyahoga County voters adopted Issue 6 in 2009 swapping the three-member Board of Commissioners with a county executive and 11-member Cuyahga County Council, which is led by county council president C. Ellen Connally (D-9), who is Black, female, and a Democrat. In addition to the commissioners, the county council replaces the elected positions of county sheriff, auditor, treasurer, clerk of courts , coroner and engineer. Though four of the 11county council seats are held by Blacks, Black elected officials of Cuyahoga County, all but state Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), opposed Issue 6 and said that the county executive has too much power. That powerful county executive is Ed FitzGerald, who is White, a former mayor of Lakewood, Oh,  and a prior FBI agent. Cuyahoga County Council is a separate and distinct venue from the 19-member Cleveland City Council ).

Cleveland Urban News.Com:

What do you think about the recent 28-year federal prison sentence given to Jimmy Dimora? Do you think it was a fair sentence?