Pictured are Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25) and nationally known comedian Rickey Smiley, who will spearhead a campaign event for the state lawmaker's bid for Ohio Secretary of State on Sunday, July 21, 2013 from 1-3 pm at the Vada Restaurant and Lounge in Cleveland

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist who trained for some 15 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. Reach Coleman by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com

CLEVELAND,Ohio- Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), a Cleveland Democratwho launched her bid two weeks ago for the  Democratic nomination to try to unseat Republican Ohio Secretary of State John Husted in next year's election will hold her second major campaign event since the announcement on Sunday, July 21 from 1 pm to 3 pm at the Vada Restaurant and Lounge in Cleveland, 1437 St. Clair Ave. (For more information call 614-893-7790. To reach the Vada Restaurant and Lounge call 216-298-4726).

Comedian Rickey Smiley, who is nationally known and stationed in Atlanta, GA, will headline the event, which has no cover and free food, though the Turner campaign said that donations will be accepted.

The Minority Whip for the Ohio Senate and a protege of former Cleveland mayor Michael R. White and current Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Turner, 45, is married to Jeff Turner and the couple has an adult son. She  was a Cleveland Ward 1 city councilwoman before she became one of two Black Ohio state senators from greater Cleveland, and she teaches history at Cuyahoga Community College.

If the state lawmaker wins the Democratic nomination next year and goes on to unseat Husted, Turner would be the first Black Democrat in Ohio to win a statewide office. She isrunning on the Democratic ticket with Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, who announced earlier this year his bid to seek to unseat Republican Gov. John Kasich in 2014.

Both FitzGerald and Turner have the support of Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern, an indication, say political pundits, that both could likely win the Democratic nomination.

Cleveland Urban News.Com Update And Message  From Editor Kathy Wray Coleman (pictured)

Dear Community Activists:

This is a follow-up to our recent meeting with retired Judge Sara Harper, third vice president of the Cleveland NAACP, where we agreed to send letters on community issues from deadly excessive force to foreclosure fraud and legal system inequities to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, with copies to President Obama,the U.S. Department of Justice, and others. We also agreed to send letters to other elected officials of greater Cleveland and to request a meeting with Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge. We will meet at 6 pm on Tuesday, July  23 to write the letters as a group. Call 216-659-0473 if you want to participate.

The letter to Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald will deal with documented foreclosure fraud by county officials, judges and the sheriff's office, among other issues, and we voted to write Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty on the 137 bullets shooting by Cleveland police of two unarmed Blacks and various other issues, including "nigger" name calling and threats to hang Blacks by his White office employees with his support.

The aunt of 137 bullets shooting victim Malissa Williams, 30 at her death, attended the meeting with Judge Harper and we voted for the 13 White Cleveland police officers that gunned down the unarmed Williams and unarmed Tim Russell last year with great fanfare to be fired and prosecuted.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist who trained for some 15 years at the Call and Post Newspaper, a Black print weekly with distributions in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio. Reach Coleman by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Community activists of greater Cleveland will rally for justice for slain Black teen Trayvon Martin on Saturday, July 20, 2013 at a community vigil and rally at noon in front of the Carl B. Stokes U.S. Federal Courthouse in downtown Cleveland at 806 West Superior Ave as part of a 100 Cities national protest sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network (NAN) that he leads. (For more information contact Marcia McCoy at 216-374-0913).

Sharpton called the day a day to rally and pray "for justice for Trayvon." His local chapters leadership team is supporting him across the country.

"We need all of the elected officials and community members that have not rallied for Trayvon Martin since the jury verdict to be there as well as all of those that have, including clergy, and community activists from across greater Cleveland," said Marcia McCoy, president of the Greater Cleveland Chapter of NAN.

Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (D-11), Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith and National NAACP President Ben Jealous

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist who trained for some 15 years at the Call and Post Newspaper, a Black weekly with distributions in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Reach Coleman by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com

Cleveland, Ohio- In the wake of an acquittal last weekend of night watchman George Zimmerman, who followed, stalked and then gunned down unarmed Black teen Trayvon Martin in a Florida suburb last year, and even after police dispatchers directed him to back off, Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge and the Congressional Black Caucus of Black members of Congress that she leads are demanding that racial profiling against America's Black community come to an end.

Cleveland Chapter NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith, a communications executive for Tuner Construction Company and an associate minister at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland,  agrees and issued a press statement from the NAACP Convention in Florida saying his organization is "saddened and outraged by the verdict."

Smith, who became chapter president late last year, and the executive committee of the Cleveland NAACP that he leads, have made racial profiling an ongoing organizational goal to tackle, and the congresswoman is standing with them to fight a problem that they say has drawn more credence through the Trayvon Martin tragedy.

"This practice and the presumption of guilt so often associated with people of color must come to an end," said Fudge in a press release on the Zimmerman acquittal. "Racial profiling continues to make communities of innocent individuals fear a justice system designed to protect them."

A licensed attorney, former national president of Delta Sigma Theta Inc, and one of two Blacks in Congress from Ohio, Fudge  said that Trayvon's death and widespread inequities in the country's legal system that target communities of color are  unconstitutional.

"The fight for equality and equal protection under the law in this country is far from over," said the federal lawmaker, a Warrensville Hts. Democrat whose predominantly Black 11th congressional district includes the east side of the largely Black city of Cleveland, and its eastern suburbs,  staggering parts of Summit County, and a pocket of Akron,  a Summit County city 25 miles south of Cleveland.

The congresswoman stressed  that through cohesive action "we can assure Trayvon Martin's death will not be in vain."

National NAACP President Ben Jealous, a former journalist, and a Rhodes Scholar like former President Bill Clinton, wants Zimmerman prosecuted in federal court on charges he killed Martin after he racially profiled him and that he violated a plethora of other Civil Rights of the 17-year-old  teen, now a mortar.

Jealous, 40, told reporters that while the NAACP acknowledges last week's jury verdict,  Zimmerman, who is White, should be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law, and that just because the over zealous night watchman beat a second degree murder charge brought on behalf of the state of Florida does not automatically exonerate him from criminal Civil Rights charges by a federal venue of jurisdiction.

"The most fundamental of Civil Rights, the right to life, was violated the night George Zimmerman stalked and then took the life of Trayvon Martin," said Jealous in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. "We ask that the [U.S.] Department of Justice file civil rights charges against Mr. Zimmerman for this egregious violation."