Group protests alleged racism in curfew law outside CH council meeting

A group calling itself the Imperial Women held a protest against the recently passed special curfew ordinances in front of Cleveland Heights City Hall before the city council meeting, July 18. 

About a dozen protesters of varying ages, races and genders gathered outside the building shortly after 7 p.m., carrying signs and chanting things like, “No justice, no peace!” before heading inside to the council meeting. 

“We are here to call on the Cleveland Heights City Council to remove the ordinance from the books that targets our children,” said Kathy Wray Coleman, the leader of the protest. The ordinances that restrict unaccompanied minors from being out in the Coventry Village and Cedar Lee business districts after 6 p.m. without a legitimate excuse are “designed to target black children,” she said. 

Coleman also said the ordinance, which requires minors to give police 24 hours notice if they plan to exercise First Amendment rights during restricted hours, was unconstitutional, and compared the restrictions to black people not being allowed to sit at Woolworth’s counters. 

Council Member Cheryl Stephens, who is African-American, strongly rejected the notion that the ordinance was racist. “This law is a way to provide barriers to inhibit bad behavior in Cleveland Heights,” she said. “That was not racist, it was in protection of community residents who are black or white. 

Stephens said the youth who disrupted the Coventry Street Fair on June 26, “were foul-mouthed; they threw trash in our district; they . . . were not concerned about the other people in our community.”

“This is not a knee-jerk reaction,” Stephens said. Mayor Edward Kelley said the city has been facing similar problems for 17 months. 

Randall Walker, co-chair of the Youth of Coventry, said his group did not share Coleman’s views. “She thinks she’s speaking for the black kids when . . . she’s not,” said Walker, who is black and under 18. “We aren’t tools to be used to push agendas.”

“The curfew is not racist,” Walker said. “We believe that it is just affecting the youth, be they black, white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever.”

“I don’t see any evidence of racial discrimination,” said Adin Colie, the other co-chair of the Youth of Coventry. He challenged those who claimed the ordinance was racist to show proof of their assertions.

Cleveland Heights Police Chief Jeffrey Robertson denied similar allegations Coleman made at a community dialogue sponsored by Heights Community Congress and the Heights Libraries on July 13. “The ordinance does not target the black population,” he said. “Our officers deal with everybody equally.”