CLEVELAND,Ohio- Cleveland Urban News.Com News Brief,  By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND,Ohio-Cleveland Urban News.Com interviewed actor, comedian and director Clifton Powell (pictured) on Tuesday, just days before the opening this week of the stage production "My Brother Marvin," a play on the celebrated life of soul singer Marvin Gaye that he directs and that debuts today at the State Theatre in Cleveland and runs through Sunday, March 24.

"Everybody should come out and see "My Brother Marvin and I think people will enjoy it," said Powell, whose acting repertoire includes box office hits "Dead Presidents," 'Brothers," "Rush Hour,""Friday," "Next Friday," "Women Thou Art Loosed", and "Ray."

In Ray,  he co-stars opposite Jamie Fox, who won an Oscar for his leading role in the movie as legendary singer and musician Ray Charles.

"Ray is probably my most memorable performance and Jamie Fox is by far a brilliant actor," said Powell

Powell, 57, also  plays Marvin Gaye's father, Marvin Gay Sr., in the theatrical drama. It was written by play-write Angela Barrow Dunlap and features a star cast including Emmy Award Winner Lynn Whitfield, Keith Washington, Tony Grant, Lia Grant, and Gaye's sister Geola Gaye, who tells a riveting story of her brother's life, and his death from a gun shot wound inflicted by their father in 1984.

Asked how he has overcome racial barriers to work continually while winnng the hearts of his fans as a successful and respected Black actor, Powell said that actors struggle across racial and ethnic lines and that the venue is one where only a few survive.

"It is a struggling field," said Powell, adding that besides Cleveland "My Bother Marvin" has or will run in various cities nationwide including Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Atlanta and Louisville.

Powell said that acting is a tough business and that "there is no such thing as Black theater, its just good theater."

He said that though the ending of the play is sad,  it is inspirational, and educational.

The actor, comedian and director gave advice to young people seeking a career in entertainment and to aspiring Black actors that hope to become movie stars some day.

"Be persistent and work hard," aid Powell.

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio- His legacy has been marred with misconceptions of the life he truly lived and the family he dearly loved. He constantly walked a tightrope between being who the world expected him to be and who he felt God called him to be. He secretly suffered in silence from the scars that women in his life had inflicted on him and longed for the true love they never supplied.  He also inwardly battled to stay true to who he was as a person, safeguard his place in musical history and not succumb to an industry and music label that fought to turn him and his world upside down. He was Marvin Pentz Gaye and now a theatrical drama that focuses on the man behind the music reemerges on stages across the country--My Brother Marvin.

Brother Marvin is a gripping, riveting and dramatic account of the life of the man who transformed and revolutionized the landscape of soul music—Marvin Gaye.  Everything his label and lovers didn't want you to know, stories swept under the rug about him and his family and secrets once thought to be buried with him and his mother surface and are now revealed in  My Brother Marvin. It delves into the story that framed the life and engineered the tragic death of iconic soul legend Marvin Gaye. The play specifically focuses on Marvin’s relationship with his mother, father and siblings. The story is inspired by and told from the vantage point of Marvin’s sister Zeola “Sweetsie” Gaye. My Brother Marvin achieves what other offerings have previously failed to do—give the uncut, unadulterated, untainted truth about Marvin Gaye. The show also features original music inspired by Marvin Gaye and the musical era he influenced.

By Kathy Wray Coleman , Editor of Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Retired State Rep. Vermel M. Whalen (pictured), who served in the Ohio House of Representatives for 12 years and helped to make or break politicians in the powerful Cleveland Ward 1 on the city's majority Black east side, died at her home in the Lee- Harvard community on March 13 after a brief battle with cancer. She was 84.

Her funeral is at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 23, at Williams Temple Church of God and Christ in Cleveland, 6812 Woodland Ave.

A former Cleveland Clinic nurse, labor and consumer advocate, youth supporter and community adviser who belonged to various community organizations including the Cleveland Chapter NAACP and The Black Women's Political Action Committee, Whalen helped Cleveland Municipal Housing Court deputy bailiffs organize the only deputy bailiff's union in Northeast, Oh., and she was a  fighter on issues dear to her.

But she was described also by those that loved and admired her as a gentle soul who put family and community first.

"I am personally saddened at the loss of Ms. Whalen," said  state Rep. John Barnes Jr. (D-12), a Whalen protege who now holds the  district 12 state legislative seat that Whalen held from 1986 to 1998 and that includes parts of the east side of Cleveland and Garfield Hts and Maple Hts. "She was a kind of moral conscience for our community who understood that politics in the right context could contribute significantly to serving the common needs of humanity."

Barnes Jr, whose father John Barnes Sr. is a former Ward 1 councilman who supported Whalen's appointment as a state representative in 1986 before legislative redistricting saw it remapped to district 12,  said the former lawmaker was known as an unrelenting campaigner who always kept her eyes on the prize of achieving social and economic advancements for the Lee-Harvard neighborhood, other communities in her legislative district, and the state of Ohio.

Cleveland Director of Community Relations Board Blaine Griffin said that Whalen was a respected member of the community relations board in the 1960s.

A staunch and loyal Democrat, Whalen was a native of Portgageville, MO who came to Cleveland as an adult and started out as a community activist. As a state legislator she sponsored bills that forced car dealers to reveal to perspective buyers cars that were pieced together and sold from wreckage, and she also won passage of a state law that precluded store retailers from taking the principal amount for discontinued layaway items.

She fought against the misuse of foster children that saw them unnecessarily moved from foster home to foster home, and she demanded fair play for area Black contractors.

Whalen once served as vice president of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party and she was second vice president of the Black Elected Democrats of Ohio. She won numerous awards and accommodations including from the Ohio House and the United Black Fund of Cleveland.

Her daughter, Yolanda Bayless of Cleveland, said that her mother left an unselfish legacy of community leadership, and that she not only reared her great niece Juanita Brent, 28, but that her home was open to young people that needed a helping hand, and guidance and support.

"We will miss her," said Bayless.

Arrangements are by Brown- Forward Funeral Home, 17022 Chagrin Blvd in Shaker Hts, Oh., with an open viewing there from 11 am to 7 pm on Friday, March 22.

By Kathy Wray Coleman , Editor of Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog,.Com

CLEVELAND,Ohio- The unprecedented shooting of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams (pictured) and Timothy Russell (pictured with beard)  by a group of White Cleveland police officers who gunned them down gangsta-style late last year and shot off 137 rounds of ammunition has brought the FEDS to Cleveland to investigate the city's police department, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice announced at a press conference in Cleveland on Wednesday.

The investigation will be led by assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez (pictured with eye glasses), U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Steven Dettelbach told community activists and other community affiliates at a meeting sponsored Thursday afternoon by the Cleveland Chapter NAACP.

Perez reports to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's first Black U.S. attorney general, whom President Obama tapped for his administration after taking office for a first term in 2009.

Among those at the meeting with Dettelbach were Cleveland NAACP President the Rev. Hilton Smith, first vice president the Rev. Dr. E. Theophilus Caviness, who also leads the Cleveland Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,  and Community Activists Frances Caldwell, Marva Patterson, David Patterson and Amy Hurd.

Federal officials have said that the Russell-Williams shooting was what catapulted the investigation and that it includes a complete review of policies and practices in the Cleveland Police Department, including whether there was negligence around the Imperial Ave. Murders, murders of 11 Black women that were undertaken by since convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell and uncovered at his home on Imperial Ave. in 2009.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, however, retains control over any criminal investigation in cooperation to what a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury will do as to any grand jury indictment on criminal charges of the 13 all non-Black Cleveland police officers that killed Williams and Russell on Nov. 29 following a high speed car chase.

Part of the federal investigation, which began in Cleveland last week,  includes police policing police with supervised job monitoring by federal authorities such as riding in patrol cars while cops are on duty.

The Cleveland NAACP and area Black elected officials, led by Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Hts. Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, had lobbied for federal intervention, and they got it last week, though the FEDS intervened in 2002 and did little on nothing thereafter, community activists complain.

But this time, the FEDS said  last week, is different, given the magnitude of the Russell-Williams shooting, and repeated deadly force shootings by Cleveland police, notwithstanding the police killings of 15-year old Brandon McCloud in 2005 in his own bedroom, 27-year-old and father of two Daniel Ficker in 2011, and aspiring 20-year-old rapper Kenneth Smith just last May.

People are getting solicited by federal authorities to meet to get information on Cleveland police to further the investigation.

Community Activist Donna Walker Brown,  a Black Republican,  said that she and other community activists want protection for community residents against any police retaliation for meeting with the FEDS to speak with federal authorities, which might be perceived by Cleveland police as snitching.

"We need to know how people are protected from retaliation by police," said Walker Brown, who added that the FEDS are in town to grandstand and will do nothing but "rubber stamp Mayor Jackson and his police force."

Outspoken Police Patrolmen's Association President Jeffrey Follmer, under fire in the Black community for publicly called the shooting of Williams and Russell a good shooting, has not been vocal on the federal involvement and on what implications in might have on the police collective bargaining agreement, if any.

Caught between a rock and hard place on whether to back the police rank and file or the demands by the Black community for an overhaull of the majority White Cleveland Police Department, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson told the Huffington Post on Thursday that he welcomes the federal oversight and that "it is vital that there is a level of support between police and the community."

Last week community activists and deadly shooting victims family members. including the Williams family and the attorney for the Russell family, attended the regular Cleveland NAACP meeting  to complain  about a plethora of alleged excessive force issues by Cleveland police and more than 4,000 complaints of police misconduct,  a great many of them completely ignored by Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath and the all non-Black law enforcement leaders ship team appointed by Jackson.