Pictured are Cleoford "Zeke" Forbes (in stripped tie), a former Cleveland Municipal Clerk of Court, and his brother George L. Forbes (in blue tie), a former Cleveland City Council president and prior longtime president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

EUCLID , Ohio- Funeral services were held Saturday morning at the Celebration Methodist Church in Euclid, Ohio for Cleoford "Zeke" Forbes, 89, a former Cleveland Municipal Clerk of Court of Court and the older brother of former Cleveland City Council president George L.Forbes, also the former longtime president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP.

In addition to George L. Forbes, a Cleveland attorney,  others that spoke at the funeral include Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, retired 11th congressional district congressman Louis Stokes, former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan, and Earle B. Turner, the current clerk of the Cleveland Municipal Court.

Zeke Forbes died on May 24 and is survived by wife Mary Alice, daughters Eleanor Forbes Shelton and Alfredia Forbes Hubbard, who also spoke at the services on Saturday, and sons Clifford Forbes and Anthony Forbes. Another son, Alfred Forbes, preceded him in death.

George Forbes, 83, spoke to reporters following the passing of his beloved brother and told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, that his brother Zeke, also his political mentor, was "the Forbes everyone liked." CLICK HERE TO READ THE PLAIN DEALER ONLINE ARTICLE BY BRENT LARKIN

Zeke Forbes was a member of the Old Black Political Guard, a group of Black political power-brokers that help elect Carl B. Stokes as mayor of Cleveland in 1967,  the first Black mayor of a major American city.

The son of a Memphis sharecropper and his wife and among nine children, he moved to Cleveland in 1942, worked in maintenance, owned and operated a local  bar, and was a Cleveland Municipal Court bailiff before he was appointed  to fill an unexpired term for clerk of the Cleveland Municipal Court. He lost a bid for the seat a year later to former Cleveland Municipal Clerk of Court Benny Bonnano.

The Rev. Dogva  R. Bass officiated and did one of three eulogies along with the Rev James B. Roberson, pastor of Cory United Methodist Church in Cleveland, and the Rev. Dr. E. Theophilus Caviness, senior pastor at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, executive director for the Cleveland Chapter Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and first vice president of the Cleveland NAACP.

Services were entrusted to E.F. Boyd and Son Funeral Home and Crematory of greater Cleveland.

Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)