By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. (Kathy Wray Coleman is a 20-year investigative and political journalist and legal reporter who trained for 17 years under five different editors at the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's most prominent Black press)
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -The residential home of former Cleveland NAACP President George L. Forbes (pictured), also a former Cleveland City Council president, caught fire early Thursday morning, a blaze that required 32 firefighters to contain, who said later that it likely began in the master bedroom and caused an estimated $130,000 in damages.
Firefighters were called about 12:30 am and rushed to Forbes' home on Cleveland's largely Black east side on the 100 block of Bellfower Road near Case Western Reserve University.
The cause of the fire, which took nearly 2 1/2 hours to put out, is still under investigation. Forbes and his wife Mary were at home at the time of the fire, firefighters said.
Also general counsel for the Call and Post Newspaper and a part-time Cleveland attorney, Forbes and his wife have three grown daughters.
Forbes was city council president for 17 years until losing a nonpartisan race for mayor in 1989 to former mayor Michael R. White. He was elected president of the Cleveland NAACP in 1992 and was reelected numerous times before resigning the post in 2012. He was succeeded by current Cleveland NAACP President the Rev. Hilton Smith.
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