By Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper

CLEVELAND,Ohio- Former Cleveland NAACP President George L. Forbes (pictured), a notable figure in Cleveland politics and one of the city's most prominent Black leaders, has been hospitalized, though details of his illness have not been made public.

The legal counsel for the Call and Post Newspaper, Cleveland's Black print press that is owned by internationally known boxing promoter Don King, and a former Cleveland City Council president famous for throwing a chair at Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson and for losing a bid for mayor against former protege Michael R. White in 1989, Forbes is one of Cleveland's most colorful Black leaders, and one that has been a power broker on political and community issues affecting the Black community for more than four decades beginning when he was first elected to city council in 1963.

Forbes, 81, took the helm as president of the Cleveland NAACP in 1992 and officially resigned in April of this year. He is succeeded by the Rev Hilton Smith, 66, a former Cleveland School Board president and current corporate executive for Turner Construction Company who is also an associate minister at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland.