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Pictured is retired Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Ann Blackmon
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Black Women's Political Action Committee of greater Cleveland, which is led by Elaine Gohlstin, honored retired Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Ann Blackmon during a special open-to-the-public ceremony on Thurs,. March 24, 2022 at Karamu House Theatre on Cleveland's largely Black east side.
Among other community members, a wealth of judges, at least 20 of them, attended in their robes from Cleveland Municipal Court judges, to Cuyahoga County common pleas and 8th District Court of Appeals judges and Ohio Supreme Court Justices Melody Stewart and Jennifer Brunner. Brunner is a Democrat running this year against Republican Justice Sharon Kennedy in hopes of replacing retiring Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a Republican and the first woman elected chief justice of Ohio's highest court by Ohio voters. (Editor's note: Chief municipal and common pleas judges in Ohio are elected by their judicial peers while the chief justice of the seven-member, largely Republican Ohio Supreme Court is elected by voters rather than by a collective vote of the judges on the bench at the time).
Other influential judges there include Cleveland Municipal Housing Court Judge W. Mona Scott, Cleveland Judges Sheila Turner McCall, Andrea Nelson Moore, and Jazmine Torres- Lugo, county juvenile court Judge Michael J. Ryan, common pleas judges Breendan Sheehan (chief judge), Richard Bell, Cassandra Collier Williams, Shirley Strickland Saffold, Joan Synenberg, Wanda C. Jones, Deborah M. Turner, and Sherrie Miday, county domestic court relations judges Tonya R. Jones and Francine Goldberg, and 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Lisa A. Forbes and Michelle Sheehan (Editor's note: Most but not all of the judges who were in attendance are named herein)
Retired Cleveland judge Mable Jasmer, and retired East Cleveland Judge Una H.R. Keenon, who is also president of the East Cleveland Board of Education, also came out to support Judge Blackmon.
Richmond Heights Mayor Kim Thomas, state school board member Meryl Tobert Johnson, and County Council persons Cheryl Stephens and Meredith Turner were among other dignitaries there. Stephens if also a lieutenant governor candidate who is running on the Democratic ticket of gubernatorial candidate Nan Whaley, a fomer mayor of Dayton.
The event comes as Women's History Month, which is celebrated annually in March in the United States, comes to a close.
Gohlsin, who succeeded Una Keenon in leading the PAC, said that her group is "a group of women who support and raise money for women to win political races in Ohio, particularly Black women."
Former 11th congressional district congresswoman Marcia L Fudge, now the secretary of housing and urban development with the President Joe Biden administration, and former Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson, who retired last year after four terms in office, saluted Blackmon via videos of their presentations that were presented to the audience.
Blackmon spoke and thanked the PAC and others there, and said that she was fortunate to have a distinguished career in law and then as a city prosecutor and a state appeals court judge.
A founding member of the Black Women's PAC like Kennon and a few other Black women, Judge Blackmon, along with since retired 8th district court of appeals judge Sara J. Harper, is the first African American woman elected as a judge on a state court of appeals in Ohio. They both were first elected to the appellate bench in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, the same year.
She was elected on her first try, and she and Harper, also a PAC sisterare amoing the women who paved the way for Democratic Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart, the first Black and first Black woman elected to the state's highest court and a former 8th district court of appeals judge like Blackmon and Harper, a Black Republican.
Judge Blackmon served five judicial terms before retiring in February of 2021, having been term limited due to age since, per state law, Ohio judges cannot run for a judgeship if they are 70 or older, though they can serve out the remainder of a term where applicable.
Born in Mississippi, Judge Blackmon graduated from Tougaloo College magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in African-American studies, political science, and history. She was recruited to attend Cleveland-Marshall College of Law by the late judge Ann Aldrich and received her law degree in 1975.
With Cleveland as her new home, she was a practicing attorney and later served as chief prosecutor for the city of Cleveland and the city’s first night prosecutor. She also served as an assistant director of Victims/Witness Program and taught classes at Dyke College.
During her career Judge Blackmon was described by her peers, and others, as a "brilliant chief city prosecutor-turned brilliant appellate court judge."
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor. Coleman is a seasoned Black Cleveland journalist who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper for 17 years and an experienced investigative and political reporter. She is the most read independent journalist in Ohio per Alexa.com
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, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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