Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Activists and union advocates picketed University Hospitals at its main campus in downtown, Cleveland, Ohio Wednesday evening and demanded the reinstatement of ousted doctors Lauren Beene and Valerie Fouts Fowler.

Among the groups organizing the protest were the Cuyahoga Democratic Women's Caucus, Mobilize the Vote, and SEIU.

Notably, former Ohio state senator Nina Turner showed up in support of the doctors.

The Dobbs decision stripped America's women of federal protection for abortion and handed authority to legislate abortion and reproductive rights to the respective states. In turn, activist women in Ohio moved quickly to get Issue 1 passed in November of 2023. They say the harassment of Beene and and Fouts Fowler by University Hospitals officials is not surprising and is an establishment tactic designed to silence free speech and to punish women for fighting for women's reproductive and other rights.

University Hospitals claims the doctors were fired for using a database to contact employees in support of union organizing and sending phone texts to other doctors, a pretext for an illegal termination, activists have said.

Activists said Wednesday that the pickets against University Hospitals will continue until justice is served, including the reinstatement of Drs. Beene and Fouts Fowler.

Beene and Foust Fowler have said that patient care is also at issue when doctors who advocate for patients are erroneously fired.

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

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

AKRON, Ohio — U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes (OH-13), an Akron Democrat and one of three Black women in Congress from Ohio, released a statement on Wednesday denouncing Vice President and Ohio native JD Vance's remarks during a rally in Canton, Ohio this week.

There to promote President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," Vance, a Republican, said in particular that Ohio cities like Columbus, Akron and Canton are "lawless," a comment that has offended Congressional Democrats like Sykes, a native of Akron.

"I am deeply and bitterly disappointed with the vice president's remarks about Akron and Canton, two diverse and vibrant communities in Ohio's 13th congressional district," the Black congresswoman said. "Just because the hearts and souls of our communities beat a little differently than what you're used to in Silicon Valley or Washington, it doesn't mean we're any less than you or the friends that you fled Ohio to be closer to."

Sykes has asked Vance to "please give me a call as soon as you're ready to visit our communities, meet our neighbors, and lend your influence to help us build toward a brighter future, rather than using your platform for a cheap publicity stunt to insult us."

The vice president's anti-Ohio cities comment follows comments that both he and President Trump made in spreading racist and unsubstantiated claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were abducting and eating their pets, according to NPR.

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

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Retired judge Sara J. Harper, the first Black woman elected to a state appellate court in Ohio, has died. She was 98.

Services are entrusted to E.F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home, with visitation on Thursday, July 17 from 4-7pm at E.F. Boyd, and funeral services Friday, July 18 at Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church with a 10am wake and an 11am funeral.

Harper was raised in a public housing project in Cleveland, Ohio, one of five siblings, all of them girls. She grew-up with the Stokes brothers. The late Louis Stokes was the first Black congressperson from Ohio, and his younger brother the late Carl B. Stokes was the first Black mayor of Cleveland and of a major American city.

Harper earned her undergraduate and law degrees from Case Western Reserve University. A Republican who had friends, associates and supporters across partisan lines, she worked as a prosecutor for the city of Cleveland in the 1960s. In 1970 she was appointed a judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court by then-Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes, a position to which she was elected for a six-year term in 1971. She also ran unsuccessfully for chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court in 1994.

She was president of the Cleveland branch of the NAACP at one point during the 1980s and before then she served in the United States Marine Corps judiciary. In 1990 she was elected to the Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals bench, one of two Black women first elected to the position and to a state appellate court in Ohio.

Harper was a member of Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland. She is preceded in death by her late husband George Trumbo, a former Cleveland judge, and several sisters, including the late Constance "Connie" Harper, a long time editor of the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland. She leaves to cherish her memory five grown children, five grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and a host of other family members, friends, and associates.

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

Staff article by Kathy Wray Coleman, editor, associate publisher

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Suspended East Cleveland Mayor Brandon KIng avoided prison on Wednesday when Common Pleas Judge Hollie Gallagher sentenced him to three years probation, answering the pleas by Black community activists for leniency and ignoring Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley's demand for imprisonment.

East Cleveland is an impoverished Black suburb of Cleveland that has a population of some $15,000 people.

Judge Gallagher also ordered King to take random  drug tests, find a full-time job and serve 100 hours of community service.

King was also fined $9,658.38 and has to reimburse the Ohio Ethics Commission $18,194.99 for the cost of the investigation and prosecution.

He is barred from running for office for the remainder of his life. He was suspended from office by the Ohio Supreme Court prior to trial per the recommendation of O'Malley, a rare situation that activists said was racist and designed to attempt to prejudice the outcome of the trial.

King, 57, and ex-councilman Ernest Smith, 49, were both convicted by a county jury of public corruption charges in office in May, King for steering more than $75,000 in city contracts to friends and family members and having an unlawful interest in a public contract, and Smith for using a city car and gas card for what he says was community and city business.

Though they were tried together, Gallagher scheduled the sentencing for Smith for early Tuesday morning and for King early Wednesday morning, an attempt, said activists, to minimize any planned protests.

An affidavit of disqualification and bias had been filed by King's attorney against Gallagher that sought her removal as presiding judge over the case but it was denied by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy prior to trial.

Activist Art McKoy of Black of Black Crime Inc., who attended the sentencing hearing of both Smith and King, led an activist protest against O"Malley and racism in the legal system at the  county Justice Center in downtown Cleveland Monday afternoon. Smith escaped prison too and was sentenced to three years probation by Judge Gallagher on Tuesday, and ordered to pay $6,791 in restitution.

Activists said at Monday's protest that O'Malley is hungry to prosecute activists and Black elected officials like King and Smith while leaving White elected officials alone, including some common pleas judges accused of covering up fixed indictments, falsification, tampering with records, and denying Black and poor defendants their constitutional and statutory right to indigent counsel.