By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (www.clevelandurbannews.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-After accepting the resignation of former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes two weeks ago amid controversy over whether he had resigned by letter last year or not, organization officials are now seemingly confused over whether the annual freedom fund dinner will go forward as previously planned for June 23 at the Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland.

According to a story that ran earlier this month at Newsnet 5.Com, James Hardiman, a Cleveland attorney who by the group’s by-laws went from first vice president to president when Forbe’s resignation was ultimately acknowledged via a unanimous vote of the executive board, said that the freedom fund dinner has been postponed until an unknown date in Sept.

But a woman that answered the telephone at the Cleveland NAACP offices on Stokes Blvd. in Cleveland Monday afternoon said that the June 23 fund raising dinner was on, and then said, upon being told about the news report with  Hardiman alegedly saying it has been postponed, that she would investigate the issue further and get back with Cleveland Urban News.com on the matter. (Editor's note: Since this article Cleveland NAACP officials have confirmed that the group's executive board voted to postpone the freedom fund dinner util sometime this fall, Cleveland Urban News.Com was told).

Forbes and Cleveland NAACP officials had come under fire in recent years by community activists and others for ignoring Black issues of public concern, including malfeasance around the Imperial Avenue Murders, harassment of Blacks by the common pleas and municipal courts in Cuyahoga County, illegal foreclosures, and the denial of construction and other work to a representative number of Black contractors and other Blacks on lucrative projects such as the Cleveland Medical Mart and the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, which opened in downtown Cleveland this week.

Reach Editor and Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and phone number: 216-932-3114.