Political Quotes

“as we talk about the importance of Black history tonight, I also want to highlight northeast Ohio's rich connection to Black history. In northeast Ohio, our Black history legacy stacks up against anyone's. In fact, one of the first places to celebrate Black History Month for a whole month was Kent State University. After decades as just a week-long event, Kent State made it a full month in 1970, 6 years before the White House did. Northeast Ohio is also home to the great Jesse Owens who smashed the myth of white supremacy on a global stage, right under Hitler's nose at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Northeast Ohio has shaped the life and stories of Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and the poet, Langston Hughes. Cleveland is where Larry Doby integrated the American League. Carl Stokes made history as the first Black mayor of a major city, and Garrett Morgan invented the traffic light. Black leadership from Cleveland also changed the calendar. In 1890, Ohio Representative John Patterson Green, the first Black-elected official in Cleveland, authored legislation to establish Labor Day as a State holiday 4 years before it became a Federal holiday. Frederick Douglass spoke in Cleveland multiple times, beginning in the 1840s, connecting us to the abolition movement nationwide. In 1851, Sojourner Truth delivered her famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" down the road in Akron; a landmark event in Black feminism.”