From The Metro Desk of 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 (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Though data show that he blocked help to an array of  Blacks challenging documented mortgage fraud and prosecutorial, judicial and police-related  impropriety as the then president of the Cleveland NAACP and is protecting police and refusing to speak out against the 13 non- Black cops that gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Tim Russell in late 2012 following a police car chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended at Heritage Middle School in neighboring East Cleveland, Attorney George L. Forbes (pictured) served on Saturday as grand marshal of the Gay Pride Parade in Cleveland. Thereafter , the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, did an article praising him, both superficially and irresponsibly, community activists argue, as one of the most powerful Blacks in Cleveland. (Editor's note: Greater Cleveland community activists also support the gay community and equitable treatment of all people, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation).

The Gay Pride Parade festivities and the PD's  accolades of  the 83-year-old Forbes, in an article dated June 28, 2014 seem, however, self serving , activists say, since he is not as important as big wigs want him to be in order to push their selected agendas, and he often resides in Florida, holds no public or other office, and was a  controversial, but very powerful, Cleveland City Council president decades ago.

This PD manipulation again, say activists, and others,  is to keep him out front to protect the establishment while women keep coming up raped and murdered in large numbers with no additional city, state, county or federal resources allocated, and Blacks, and some Whites and others,  get unceremoniously harassed by corrupt judges and other public officials of Cuyahoga County, and some even gunned down by Cleveland police, even though unarmed.

"George Forbes needs to learn who he is," said longtime greater Cleveland community activist Ada Averyhart, 80, and a respected member of the grassroots groups the Carl Stokes Brigade and the Imperial Women Coalition. "And we call for him to speak out against the 137 shots shooting of two narmed Blacks."

Averyhart called Forbes a sellout to the Black community.

Other community activists agree.

"He is a Negro that has benefited off of poor, uneducated Black people not knowing him for what he really is and their misunderstanding that he actually cares about them," said community activist Amy Hurd, also a member of both the Carl Stokes Brigade and the Imperial Women Coalition.

"He used the ignorance of the Black community to his advantage, and to the disadvantage of the Black community," said Hurd.

"Mr Forbes may have done a thing or two some 20 years ago but many of us believe that he primarily used the Cleveland NAACP to subordinate the Black community for profits to his law firm, and that he is a coward who will ride in the gay parade, and we support the gay community, but will sell out on violence against women, police brutality issues, judicial corruption and practically everything else, "  said Kathy Wray Coleman, a local community activist who leads the The Imperial Women Coalition and a 20-year Cleveland area investigative journalist.

Coleman added that "I, like other community activists have said, perceive Mr. Forbes as the all so superior White folks Negro whose job is to protect unconstitutional infractions against the Black community and poor people of judicial malfeasance, racism, sexism, public corruption, and gross theft by mortgage companies and banks who are raping communities worldwide."

Community Activist Art McKoy would not comment on the controversial situation other than to say that Forbes is not the most powerful Black person in the city of Cleveland.

Forbes resigned as president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP in 2012 and the Civil Rights organization is now led by the Rev Hilton Smith.

The victims families and community activists have invited Smith, a senior vice president of Turner Construction Company in Cleveland and an associate pastor at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, to speak at Tuesday's  Heritage Middle School rally.

The high speed police car chase that began in downtown Cleveland the night of Nov. 29, 2012 left Williams and Russell dead at the scene at Heritage Middle School, near the intersection of Lee and Terrace Roads. The 1979 Chevy Malibu that Russell was driving, where Williams was a passenger, was reportedly cornered by police and their pistils, and shot at a  record 137 times like a scene in a Hollywood movie. Michael Brelo, the only one of the 13 police officers charged earlier this month by a Cuyahoga County Grand jury, jumped aboard the hood of the car and fired 49 shots through the front windshield. He faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter, which carries three to 10 years in prison on each count.

Police claim that they thought they heard a gun shot coming from Russell's car and that that is the impetus for the now infamous car chase and what many Blacks have said is outright murder.

Six police supervisors, all of them White, face second degree misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty for their roles in the deadly tragedy, one that has heightened racial unrest in the largely Black city of Cleveland.

Brelo and the six supervisors charged charged in the tragedy have all pleaded not guilty and some 100 police officers, led by Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Jeffrey Follmer, attended Brelo's arraignment in support

Activists said that they will make demands, or requests, at the rally, and have invited the pubic to join them on the journey for justice for Malissa and Tim, and all like them. Cleveland NAACP President The Rev Hilton Smith has said that he will notify activists this week of his availability of the rally.

Activists groups include Black on Black Crime, Peace in the Hood, The Carl Stokes Brigade, The Imperial Women Coalition, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Oppressed People's Nation,  The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network,  Sister to Sister, The Task Force for Community Mobilization, The People's Forum, Survivors/Victims of Tragedy, The Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, People for the Imperial Act, The Women's Federation,  and Revolution Books.

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