Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

CLEVELAND, OH —The Harris-Waltz campaign Reproductive Freedom Tour Bus made a stop in Cleveland, Ohio on Saturday and was met by Congresswomen Shontel Brown(OH-11), Joyce Beatty (OH-3) and Emilia Sykes(OH-13) and a group of supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris for president at Perk Park in downtown Cleveland. Harris and Waltz were not there as they are currently campaigning in key battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

Kathy Wray Coleman, a Black Cleveland activist and community organizer who leads the Imperial Women Coalition and Women's March Cleveland, thanked Harris and Waltz, and U.S. Reps. Brown, Beatty and Sykes.

"It is important to continue to highlight that American women, including Black women of Cleveland, remain vulnerable to unconstitutional actions that strip us of abortion access and reproductive rights, and that the ballot box has always been one of the best vehicles for fighting back by disenfranchised Black people and women," said Coleman. "Black people and women should be running to vote this year because we have a lot at stake in this upcoming election."

Brown is a Warrensville Hts Democrat, Beatty, a Columbus Democrat, and Sykes, an Akron Democrat. They are the Black majority of Ohio's five-member Democratic Congressional Delegation. It also includes Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09) of Toledo and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat and Ohio's most prominent Democrat.

The bus tour across the states before the Nov. 5 presidential election between Harris and former President Donald Trump began in Trump's hometown of Palm Beach, Florida and will continue up to election day with tour stops in all 50 states, the Harris campaign said in a statement.

Harris has made access to abortion and reproductive rights a core part of her campaign platform after the U.S. Supreme Court, in June of 2022, overturned the longstanding Roe v Wade and stripped American women of constitutional protections for abortion access and other reproductive rights and gave states the authority to legislate abortion.

Last November, following the U.S. Supreme Court's June 24, 2022 Roe v. Wade reversal decision, Ohio voters passed ballot Issue 1, a constitutional amendment then enshrines the legal right to access abortion and other reproductive health measures in the Ohio Constitution. But Republicans in Ohio, led by U.S. Sen. JD Vance, senate candidate Bernie Moreno and GOP state legislators, are fighting back with an effort for a national abortion ban. That does not sit well with Democratic women in Congress, particularly Black women.

“Ohioans made it clear last November when they voted to enshrine access to reproductive healthcare in the Ohio Constitution that they are tired of extreme politicians telling them what they can do with their bodies,” said Rep. Sykes in a statement to Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leaders.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most-read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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

Contributing: Charles Ventura, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared in Louisville Courier-Journal: Kentucky courthouse shooting: Judge fatally shot in his chambers