Community activist groups, including The Imperial Women, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, The Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network and The Spot Youth Empowerment Organization will rally with other community groups at 6:45 p.m. Mon, July 18 in front of Cleveland Hts City Hall, 40 Severance Circle, around a recently adopted curfew law that some say targets Black children and strips all children, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, of a host of constitutional rights by giving police the authority to arrest them if they eat at restaurants after 6 pm in the Cedar-Lee Business District and the business district that stretches across Coventry Road and is between Mayfield Road and Euclid Hts Bld.

The curfew law also has a provision that requires that kids contact police before holding any protests on issues of public concern, a provision that has James L. Hardiman, Legal Director for the America Civil Liberties Union and Vice President of the Cleveland NAACP, crying foul as a violation of the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

After the 6:45 p.m. rally activists groups will attend the Cleveland Hts. City Council meeting at 7:30 pm that same evening to call for the curfew law at issue to be dropped from the books. And on Tuesday the groups will meet from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm at Aribica Coffee House University Circle, 1300 Juniper Rd in Cleveland, with State Sen. Shirley Smith (D-21), a Cleveland Democrat whose district includes Cleveland Hts. The meeting is open to the public and Smith's office number is 1-614- 466-4847.

Smith, who says her role is to protect the interests of the larger community including children and city businesses and has not yet voiced a stance on the controversial and unprecedented curfew law publicly, said that she will listen to community concerns at Tuesday's meeting and take them back to Cleveland Hts Mayor Ed Kelley, who supports the city ordinance.

Contacts for the rally are Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-932-3114, Black on Black Crime Community Activist Denise Taylor at 216-548-3884 and Imperial Women and Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor Member Valerie Robinson at 216-321-1677. William Clarence Marshall, a member of The Carl Stokes Brigade, will also lead the rally, one that community activists say is necessary to protect the constitutional and statutory rights of the community's children from the arbitrary and capricious abuse of power by a runaway Cleveland Hts. City Council. 

Location