HERO
Cleveland Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones
1949-2008
“ True to her word”

Greater Clevelanders were shocked to learn a few days before the start of the Democratic National Convention that Cleveland Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a national co-chair of Senator Hilary Clinton’s campaign, had died after suffering a brain aneurism while driving her car in East Cleveland.

A member of Congress for ten years, she was the first black woman to serve on the House Ways and Means Committee and the first black woman to chair the House Ethics committee.

When a supporter of Barack Obama upbraided her for supporting a white woman candidate (Hillary Clinton) instead of Obama, she responded that a long time before Obama even announced he was a candidate, she had told Senator Clinton that she would support her if she ran for president. She told the antagonist that she had given her word to Hillary and she would not go back on her word. It should also be noted that when Obama announced that he was a presidential candidate, Clinton told Tubbs Jones that she released her from her promise. Tubbs Jones, however, refused the offer. She said, “When I am in, I’m in.”

After the close of the Denver convention, many national celebrities traveled to Cleveland on Saturday, August 30 to attend her funeral at the Public Hall in downtown Cleveland. Included among the speakers were Senator Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton and his wife Senator Hilary Clinton. The Plain Dealer printed many quotes from their eulogies including this one from Barack Obama who was a close friend of Tubbs Jones even though she supported his opponent Senator Clinton. He said: “ I am here to pay tribute to an extraordinary American and a devoted public servant, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife and a dear friend to so many here in Cleveland, so many in Ohio and so many across America.”

Obama added, “And during the most recent contest Stephanie and I were on different sides, and we would see each other, she would say to me, ‘This is what it means to be a friend for me.’ “All I could say is ‘I understand.’”

Obama could not have said that if Stephanie Tubbs Jones had not kept her word to Hillary Clinton.

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