CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Cleveland Chapter NAACP is under scrutiny because its officials cannot confirm whether its 81-year-old president or former president, semi- retired Cleveland Attorney George Forbes (pictured), is still the president of the local chapter of the nation's most prominent Civil Rights institution. And he can't either, apparently, though he said last week that he has called it quits. (Editor's note: Read the complete article for the potential candidates for the November election for Cleveland NAACP President and see the end of the article as to the harassment of state Sen. Nina Turner by Forbes because he could not control her like some other Cleveland area Black elected officials that allegedly fear him and what he might do to them if they do not cooperate when he says so on community and political issues).
The legal counsel for the Call and Post Newspaper, Cleveland's Black 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.
He and Cleveland NAACP officials have come under fire in recent months 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 on lucrative projects such as the Cleveland Medical Mart and Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, which opens in downtown Cleveland next month.
But the article says also that he allegedly acknowledged that just this month he sent out a support letter on Cleveland NAACP stationary championing gay marriage saying he is still president, and this happened even though the online encyclopedia dubbed Wikipedia says that he is the former president.
And longtime investigative reporter Carl Monday of Cleveland 19 Action News revealed in a television news expose last week that he reportedly spoke with Forbes, organization First Vice President James Hardiman and others, and that confusion over Forbes' status was obvious, with Monday reporting that Forbes purportedly said, in fact, that he had quit the organization.
But Hardiman, the Cleveland attorney who represented the NAACP in the now defunct Cleveland schools desegregation case and must assume the realm if Forbes' letter is deemed official, told Carl Monday that he allegedly received no such resignation letter from Forbes and that he expected he would stay on until the upcoming November election for the organization's presidency.
Others said differently.
A reputable Cleveland NAACP executive board member told Cleveland Urban News. Com last month that he saw and read the letter, while another one said that she also was aware that Forbes had resigned his presidency and has been living in Florida for sometime. .
This, however, is though when Cleveland Urban News.Com contacted Forbes's Cleveland law offices and the local offices of the Cleveland NAACP last month to inquire about the issue it was told that Forbes was still president.
And whether Arlene Anderson is still interim executive director after former executive director Stanley Miller was allegedly ousted last year, is a puzzle too.
What is clear is that confusion exist around the organization's leadership team, to put it mildly, and during a time when issues impacting the majority Black Cleveland community and its metropolitan outlets are heightened by a debilitating economy, malicious prosecutions against Blacks and disproportionate criminal sentencing, failing public schools, rising crime, and unprecedented foreclosures marked by documented malfeasance of some Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judges and county officials. .
Hardiman has said that he does not want to be president and the Rev. Tony Minor, executive director of the United Pastor's in Mission and a community activist, is the first to put his name up as a candidate, insiders say.
Others named as potential contenders are Mount Olive Baptist Church Pastor Larry Harris, who lost to Forbes for the seat in a heated contest in 1992, and Dr. Eugene Jordan, an East Cleveland dentist and the organization's second vice president.
A phone call to the Cleveland NAACP offices on Mon., April 30 garnered a response that Forbes, who is also famous for putting state Sen Nina Turner (D-25), who is Black, on the cover of the Call and Post in Aunt Jemima attire because she supported a voter adpoted county reform measure that ousted the three member Board of Commissioners and all other elected county offices except the judges and the county prosecutor, is still president, though members of the organization's executive board say he is no longer leading the Civil Rights group.
Reach Editor and Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and phone number: 216-932-3114.
