Why cleveland is so historically important

In the chapters of Ballots and Bullets we have read, and in his scheduled appearance in our class (11/26), author James Robenalt depicts Cleveland in the late 1960s as roiled with racial tension and violence. He puts the city at the center of the national debate in those years over civil rights, police brutality, and black power, a debate which featured Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Carl Stokes, Muhammad Ali, and other prominent figures. Given what we have learned in this course about race and African-American history in the cities of the North, and given what other sources tell us, discuss why it is that Cleveland was historically so important. What happened here in terms of racial history in the years 1963-1968 (approximately)? Explain and analyze, citing sources properly.