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CLEVELAND , Ohio-The  executive board of the Cleveland Chapter of the NAACP unanimously accepted the resignation of its president, George Forbes, at its monthly meeting on Tues. evening, putting to rest controversy over who was leading the Civil Rights organization while the 81-year-old Forbes has been in Florida with his wife in recent months or years.

James Hardiman, the Cleveland attorney who represented the NAACP in the now defunct Cleveland schools desegregation case and the first vice president, will, by organization charter, take the helm until the November general election, one that is expected to draw a cross section of candidates including the Rev. Hilton Smith, an associate minister at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, Rev. Tony Minor,  executive director of the United Pastor's in Mission, Mount Olive Baptist Church Pastor Larry Harris, and Dr. Eugene Jordan, an East Cleveland dentist and second vice president for the group.

Hardiman,70,  has said that he will not run for president.

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.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-An employee in the child support enforcement department for Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason (pictured), who is not running for reelection this year following a public corruption probe and claims that he knew about the malfeasance by elected county officials and overlooked it, is still under fire by community activists for calling Blacks "nigger," demanding that Black men be hanged, and promoting White supremacy with White masks that are considered offensive to Blacks.

The commotion began when Lily Miller, a former deputy bailiff for Cleveland Municipal Housing Court Judge Ray Pianka and current county employee under Mason's guidance, put up a poll on the Internet social media website of RealNeo.Us asking if it is okay for Whites to call Blacks nigger with an option of selecting that being called nigger "is legal," and another option of whether it is okay because being a "nigger is what it is."

WASHINGTON, D.C-President Barack Obama will officially kick off his reelection campaign with First Lady Michelle Obama by his side at a public rally on Sat. morning May 5 at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Oh., his campaign team told Cleveland Urban News.Com in a conference call with reporters Weds. evening.

The Democratic president will then go to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA that same day for an afternoon rally.

And Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is campaigning Ohio today, touring the state with Gov. John Kacish, also a Republican.

Asked by Cleveland Urban News.Com if the Obama campaign is threatened in anyway with the prospect that U.S. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a former congressman and budget director for the Bush administration,  will be Romney's vice presidential running mate on the Republican ticket, the president's campaign said that "the contest is about the two men at the top of the ticket and their competing philosophies."