Clevelandurbannews.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader

Breaking news from Cleveland, Ohio from a Black perspective.©2025

Fri01022026

Last update05:10:33 am

Font Size

Profile

Menu Style

Cpanel

Clevelandurbannews.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader-News from a Black perspective

01234567891011121314

Example of Section Blog layout (FAQ section)

Community activists, Clevelanders rally for Trayvon Martin, Art McKoy leads rally, Oppressed People's Nation calls for justice for 137 bullets Cleveland police shooting victims, racial unrest mounting in both cases

  • PDF

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 out of the Cleveland, Ohio area. Fifteen of those years were with the Call and Post Newspaper, a weekly print Black newspaper published in the Ohio cities of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati for over 90 years and published since 1998 by renowned boxing promoter Don King. Reach Coleman at 216-659-0473 by phone and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com.


CLEVELAND, Ohio-Led by local community activist Art McKoy, about 250 greater Clevelanders across racial lines rallied at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland at noon on Monday for justice for slain Black teen Trayvon Martin in the wake of a not guilty verdict issued last weekend by a six member all White and all female jury that cleared George Zimmerman of all charges, including second degree murder.


An over anxious neighborhood watchman, Zimmerman, 29 and White, shot the 17-year-old Martin to death last year following a confrontation he initiated even after police dispatchers directed him to back off and to stop following the teen, who was passing through a gated community in the suburb of Sandford, FL on the way to his father's girlfriend's house, trial testimony revealed. He did not take the stand at trial and his lawyers argued that his killing of Martin is protected under the Florida stand your ground law.

Activists groups at the protest include Black on Black Crime Inc, which  McKoy founded, Imperial Women, the Oppressed People's Nation, the Carl Stokes Brifage, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, Revolution Books, the People's Forum, Knowledge, and the Underground Railroad.

The jury verdict has rocked America's Black community and sparked protests in cities across the country, including New York, Oakland and Los Angeles where violence broke out. And it has highlighted to some that a young Black life means little to nothing, activists say.

"They took a young Black life too soon,"  said McKoy, who leads Black on Black Crime Inc, a grassroots group out of E. Cleveland, a neighboring predominantly Black and impoverished suburb of Cleveland, a  largely Black major metropolitan city, a colorful city in fact, and one  with a Black mayor, and some 400,000 people.


Seasoned Activist Dionne Carmichael Thomas, owner and operator of Josephine's in Cleveland's Ward 6 and a member of the Carl Stokes Brigade and the Fairfax Business Association,  had a protest sign in support of Trayvon Martin and against the jury verdict that read "shame, shame,

shame."

 

Community Activist Ada Averyhart held up a sign at the rally that said "the whole damn system is guilty."

 

Cleveland Ward 10 city council candidate Donna Walker Brown, also a community activist, said the rally brought Blacks, Whites and others together for a common cause.


"Today was powerful," said  Brown, to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper. "It brought people from different races together for a common cause of fighting against the injustice against Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager."


Ernest Smith, who leads the Oppressed People's Nation, spoke at the rally and said that the killing  last year of Martin and the gunning down, also last year, by a group of White Cleveland police officers of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams , 30, and Tim Russell, 43, with 137 bullets both represent unprecedented injustices that cannot go unnoticed. (Williams and Russell are pictured together above in this article)


"What about the 137 shots?,"  asked Smith at Monday's rally, whose grassroots group out of E Cleveland has members in their twenties and thirties that push Civil Rights and youth and Black community empowerment.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 July 2013 19:55

Read more...

Trayvon Martin rally at Justice Center in Cleveland, Ohio at noon on Monday, July 15 to go forward after Zimmerman not guilty verdict, local community activists outraged, Rev Al Sharpton upset too and called jury verdict "a slap in the face"

  • PDF

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 with more than a decade of those years under current Call and Post Associate Publisher and Editor Constance Harper, with nationally known boxing promoter Don King as the print newspaper's publisher.


Cleveland, Ohio-Cleveland area community activists will rally at noon on Monday, July 15 in front of the Justice Center on Lakeside Ave. in downtown Cleveland for justice for Trayvon Martin, whose killer George Zimmerman was found not guilty of second degree murder on Saturday after stalking and gunning down the unarmed Black teen last year in a  gated community in a Sandford, FL suburb. (For more information on the rally contact Al Porter at 216-704-5036).


"We want justice for Trayvon and we will rally here in Cleveland like other activists in cities across the United States of America," said community activist Al Porter, vice president of Black on Black Crime Inc. "As the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

 

Closing arguments in the month long trial ended Friday and an all female jury composed of five White women and a woman deemed half Black and half Hispanic deliberated for 2 days before reaching a verdict Saturday evening that cleared Zimmerman of all charges.


An over anxious neighborhood watchman, Zimmerman, 29 and White, shot the 17-year-old Martin to death following a confrontation he initiated even after police dispatchers directed him to back off and to stop following the teen, who was passing through the neighborhood on the way to his father's girlfriend's house, trial testimony revealed.


The girlfriend resides in the upper middle class, predominantly White neighborhood on the outskirts of Sandford, a city that sits 20 miles northeast of Orlando that is roughly 57 percent White and 30 percent Black.


Zimmerman did not  testified in his own defense  and his lawyers argued at trial that it was self defense under the Florida stand your ground law.


Renowned Civil Rights activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and National NAACP President Ben Jealous have spearheaded national protests around the celebrated tragedy, sparking community outcries that forced law enforcement authorities to finally charge Zimmerman with Martin's murder.


Sharpton (pictured) and Jealous said at the time that the failure to initially charge Zimmerman was racially motivated.


After Saturday's verdict Sharpton was outraged.He released a statement calling the jury verdict "a slap in the face."

 

 

Last Updated on Monday, 15 July 2013 11:53

Read more...

Press Release: Local community activists to rally for justice for Trayvon Martin at Justice Center in Cleveland, Ohio at noon on Monday, July 15, killer of Martin George Zimmerman is on trial, jury is in its second day of deliberations

  • PDF

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 with more than a decade of those years under current Call and Post Associate Publisher and Editor Constance Harper, with nationally known boxing promoter Don King as the print newspaper's publisher.


Cleveland, Ohio-Cleveland area community activists will rally at noon on Monday, July 15 in front of the Justice Center on Lakeside Ave. in downtown Cleveland for justice for Trayvon Martin, whose killer George Zimmerman is on trial for second degree murder after stalking and gunning down the unarmed Black teen last year in a  gated community in a Sandford, FL suburb. (For more information on the rally contact Al Porter at 216-704-5036).


"We want justice for Trayvon," said community activist Al Porter, vice president of Black on Black Crime Inc. "As the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

 

Closing arguments in the month long trial ended Friday and an all female jury composed of five White women and a woman deemed half Black and half Hispanic is in its second day of deliberations.


An over anxious neighborhood watchman, Zimmerman, 29 and White, shot the 17-year-old Martin to death following a confrontation he initiated even after police dispatchers directed him to back off and to stop following the teen, who was passing through the neighborhood on the way to his father's girlfriend's house, trial testimony revealed.


The girlfriend resides in the upper middle class, predominantly White neighborhood on the outskirts of Sandford, a city that sits 20 miles northeast of Orlando that is roughly 57 percent White and 30 percent Black.


Zimmerman's did not testify and his lawyers argued at trial that it was self defense under the Florida stand your ground law.


Renowned Civil Rights activists such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and National NAACP President Ben Jealous have spearheaded national protests around the celebrated tragedy, sparking community outcries that forced law enforcement authorities to finally charge Zimmerman with Martin's murder.


Sharpton and Jealous said at the time that the failure to initially charge Zimmerman was racially motivated.

Last Updated on Monday, 15 July 2013 11:54

Read more...

Imperial Women Coalition meets with Judge Harper along with family members of 137 bullets Cleveland police shooting victim, group to send letters to mayor, county executive, county prosecutor, n-word discussed, they want a meeting with Congresswoman Fudge

  • PDF

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 newspapers (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473. Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist with more than a decade of those years under current Call and Post Associate Publisher and Editor Constance Harper, with nationally known boxing promoter Don King as the print newspaper's publisher.


CLEVELAND, Ohio- A coalition of community activists group leaders, mainly women, met Wednesday with Judge Sara Harper, a retired Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals judge and third vice president of the Cleveland NAACP. The meeting was  relative to a host of community issues from fatal excessive force by Cleveland police, to abduction, rape and murder of women, foreclosure impropriety by Cuyahoga County officials and judges, and inequities in sentencing by the 34 majority White judges of the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas against the greater Cleveland Black community.


In addition to grassroots groups including Imperial Women, Black on Black Crime Inc, and the Carl Stokes Brigade, among those at the meeting was Dorothy Singelmier, the aunt of Malissa Williams, 30, who was gunned down late last year by a group of White Cleveland police officers along with Timothy Russell, 43. The officers fired 137 bullets at the unarmed Black couple and racial unrest continues to mount as no criminal indictments have come down and the officers were returned to regular duty last month.


Following a heated discussion, the group agreed that the all non-Black 13 police officers at issue should be fired and prosecuted. They also voted to send a letter of concerns to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson on the deadly shooting and other matters, with copies to President Barack Obama, the U.S. Department of Justice and an entree of others. Also, the activists said that they will seek a meeting with Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (D-11) and write letters to the FEDS, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald on the foreclosure fraud issue, and to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, whose White employees are under fire for calling Blacks "nigger" on the Internet, and demanding that Blacks are "hanged high."


The group came up with a coalition name but since they already are recognized as the Imperial Women Coalition they decided to proceed under that name.


Activists said that more meetings will me held and that a plan of action is in the makings.

Last Updated on Friday, 12 July 2013 06:12

Read more...

Cleveland Urban News.Com update on the upcoming July 10 meeting with Judge Harper and the July 9 meeting with activists and murder and rape victims and Cleveland police killing victims families with Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith

  • PDF

Cleveland Urban News.Com Update from Editor-in-Chief Kathy Wray Coleman (pictured)): Activists leaders or their representatives will meet today, July 10 at 5:30 pm at the Chateau Mansion, 13124 Euclid Ave, with Judge Sara J. Harper, the third vice president of the Cleveland NAACP, to develop strategy around the issues below we want addressed by the Cleveland NAACP and other community groups, and elected officials of consequence.

The meeting yesterday, July 9, with Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith and Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Sheila Wright with community activists and family members of victims of rape, murder and police killings went well and drew some 150 people. Speakers at the gathering include Rev. Smith, Cleveland Mayoral Candidate Ken Lanci, East Cleveland Council persons Barbara Thomas and Nate Martin, Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell, activists and victims family members.

The mother of Kenneth Smith (AKA Kenneth Ball), whom Cleveland police killed last year, and the family members of Cleveland rape and murder victim Christine Malone spoke.

The media advised that NAACP officials called them and said that they were not invited. Rev Smith noted that he would relay the below issues to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and that he has scheduled a meeting with Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty on his employees calling Blacks "niggers" and demanding that Blacks are "hanged high."

Activists will discuss with Judge Harper, a retired Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals judge,  whether disproportionate prosecutions against Blacks in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas as found via a study commissioned by the Cleveland NAACP and the below issues involving the county prosecutor's office are the result of a racially hostile climate detrimental to the Black community. For more information call Imperial Women at 216-659-0473).

Meetings With The Imperial Women, The Fairfax Business Association, The Cleveland African American Museum, Black on Black Crime Inc., The Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, Organize Ohio, The Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, The Nation of Islam, The Carl Stokes Brigade, Revolution Books, The Urban Education Strategy Group, The Black Contractors Group,  Ohio Family Rights, the National Organization for Parental Equality, the People's Forum, the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network And Other Community Activist Groups With Cleveland NAACP Officials And Community Affiliates. (Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper, at 216-659-0473 And Editor@Clevelandurbannews.com).

General requests by community activists today, July 9, 2013, with Cleveland NAACP President The Rev.Hilton Smith and Executive Director Shelia Wright and  via the Feb. 4, 2013 meeting with Legal Redress Chairperson Attorney Una Keenon and Legal Redress Committee Member and ACLU Legal Director James Hardiman are as follows: The need to address the illegal and unconstitutional denial of attorneys to Blacks deemed indigent by judges of the Berea and Bedford municipal courts of Cuyahoga County and the malicious prosecutions of Blacks in Berea at the urging of Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor,  who handpicks visiting judges to send to courts throughout the state to allegedly harass Blacks, Democrats and her enemies;The need to address racial epithets via the n-word by employees of the Cuyahoga County prosecutors offices, who have also demanded that Blacks are hanged and to "hang him high;" The need for more resources relative to abduction, rape and murder of greater Cleveland women; The need to address the absence of any Blacks on the law enforcement leadership team of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson; The need for a mechanism for monitoring the successes and failures of Black children in the absence of a Cleveland schools desegregation court order; The support from the Cleveland NAACP in requesting felony murder charges against the group of Cleveland police officers, none of whom are Black, responsible for gunning down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell; The support of area Black contractors for contracts, work and other amenities; An amendment of the state law (O.R.C. 2939.02) that permits common pleas judges to choose grand jury foremen and for the grand jury itself to choose, the latter of which is also permitted under the law; An amendment to the state law that gives welfare recipients, mainly poor women and children, three years for the subsidy when up to five years is  permitted under federal law; The help for maliciously prosecuted Black woman Betty Simpson, who was exonerated relative to bogus criminal charges pushed by the county prosecutor of mortgage fraud, and the release of her daughter from prison around the issue where her daughter was convicted of similar criminal charges; An investigation of the foreclosure process in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas and an amendment of the state law (O.R.C. 2329.17) that allows county sheriffs to appraise and sale foreclosed homes for cheap with the amended state law precluding participation by the sheriff and appraisals based upon the last legal county appraisal; The compliance by assistant county prosecutors in discontinuing the process of  withholding discovery evidence against Black children prosecuted for alleged crimes in violation of federal law and the applicable rules of court; An investigation of the Cuyahoga County Department of Child and Family Services around the Emilliano Terry case where the murdered boy's 20 year old mother stands accused of his murder after her cries for help were ignored by the county agency; The compliance with the DeRolph decision handed down in 1997 by the Ohio Supreme Court that deemed Ohio's method of funding public education unconstitutional, or a sliding scale of student assessment by the Ohio Department of Education based upon how rich or how poor a school district might be; The support of a bill (Ohio House Bill 216) by state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10) for Ohio trial court judges in multi-judge municipal and common pleas courts to at all times be assigned and reassigned to criminal and civil cases at random; A discussion with Cleveland NAACP officials  and Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Chief Judge Nancy Fuerst as to a study commissioned by the group that shows that the 34 majority White judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas where felony criminal cases and other matters are heard give harsher sentences to Blacks than their similarly situated White counterparts; An amendment of state law (O.R.C.2701.03) that gives the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court sole authority to decide if an Ohio trial common pleas court judge is removed from a case for bias or conflict and for the entire seven-member Ohio Supreme to decide; and, An amendment of state law (O. R.C. 2701.031) that gives the chief judge of the county common pleas court sole authority to decide if an Ohio municipal court is removed from a case for bias or conflict and for a panel of judges to decide coupled with the statutory right to appeal the decision to a state appellate court.

Community activists are calling the "nigger" name calling by White Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office employees coupled with the threat of hanging Blacks a hate crime and have urged Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty to present data to a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury for potential indictment on criminal charges against employee Lily Miller and others, including Cuyahoga County Common Pleas DUI getting judge Peter Corrigan. Judge Corrigan is one of McGinty's close friends as McGinty is a former common pleas judge himself, and Corrigan is accused of harassing Blacks that complained of the racially hostile activity for McGinty and county officials involved in alleged public corruption.

LILY MILLER "NIGGER" NAME CALLING INTERNET POLL BELOW

By Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office Employee Lily Miller

Is it ok for Tremont West employees or board members to refer to members of the community as stupid hillbillies or niggers?

08/23/2011 - 11:37

No. TWDC is a publicly funded corporation that is supposed to service the entire community.

20% (1 vote)

Yes. There are no laws against referring to certain community members as 'stupid hillbillies' or 'niggers'.

40% (2 votes)

No. This is clearly discrimination/racism and should not be allowed.

40% (2 votes)

Yes. It is what it is.

0% (0 votes)

Last Updated on Monday, 15 July 2013 06:01

Read more...

Ads

Our Most Popular Articles Of The Last 6 Months At Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's Black Digital News Leader...Click Below

Latest News