Activists to picket Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes March 2 for supporting Tim McGinty as county prosecutor, his mistreatment of Blacks, women

Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, whom community activists will picket on Fri., March 2 for his support of Tim McGinty for county prosecutor and what they say is Forbes harassment of Blacks and women to accommodate racist Whites like McGinty that have infringed upon their constitutional and statutory rights


From the Metro Desk of The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com and Cleveland Urban News.Com(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Grassroots activists will picket Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes at the organization's headquarters at 2131 Stokes Blvd. in Cleveland on Fri., March 2 at 4:30 pm.

They say that Forbes will not stand up for Blacks and women on crucial matters and that he is supporting Tim McGinty for Cuyahoga County prosecutor in spite of McGinty's record as a former assistant county prosecutor and prior common pleas judge who had Black men maliciously prosecuted on rape charges relative to White women and whose judicial orders to illegally imprison Black men and harass women and community activists were repeatedly overturned on appeal.

"George Forbes has not represented the interests of the Black community as president of the local chapter of the nation's most renowned Civil Rights organization and he has gone too far many times, including endorsing higher Shell gas station prices on the majority Black east side of Cleveland than on the majority White west side, but this time he has gone overboard in supporting or endorsing Tim McGinty for county prosecutor," said Community Activist Ada Averyhart, a member of The Imperial Women and The Carl Stokes Brigade who is organizing the protest with other grassroots people. "We urge others to join us to call attention to Mr. Forbes hatred of his own people and his selfishness in selling us out for money and other favors."

Contacts for the rally are Ada Averyhart at 216-938-7891, Marva Patterson at 216-334-7013 and Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-932-3114.

Averyhart said that Forbes does more than nothing, he helps do in Blacks.

Patterson, also a community activist, said that instead of protecting the constitutional and statutory rights of Blacks, Forbes is allegedly "perpetuating discrimination against them."

At the protest, she will read the list of concerns the activist groups have about Forbes and Cleveland NAACP officials from his silence regarding negligence around the Imperial Ave Murders, to allowing the theft by illegal foreclosure activity on Black people's homes, to malicious prosecutions and illegal jailing of Blacks, and now McGinty.

Another concern, they say, is his silence while Black babies are stolen from Black families by the Cuyahoga County Department of Child and Family Services to sell or hand to affluent Whites with popular surnames.

Forbes was allegedly promised to be assigned as bond counsel on lucrative county projects if McGinty wins and a couple of the Cleveland Black elected officials that are behind him have said publicly that McGinty offered them something in exchange for their endorsements, quid pro quo maneuvers that activists say reveal that the county prosecutor's office is for sale to the detriment of the Black community.

They also say that McGinty is being pushed by the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association and that as a judge he harassed Blacks at the request of police, in addition to harassment from the bench for what they say also was simply his own deranged self.

His campaign commercials don't' say that if elected county prosecutor he will be fair, and instead he openly brags that he will be hard on crime, which many Blacks say translates to Whites and others that he will get Blacks as he did when he was judge before resigning last year to try to steal the county prosecutor's office with the money of his rich daddy.

Data compiled by research orchestrated by the Cleveland NAACP reveal that in Cuyahoga County Blacks are disproportionately prosecuted and given harsher sentences than their similarly situated White counterparts by the majority White judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas where felony cases, civil cases that seek damages in excess of $15 thousand, and other matters are heard.

"They listen to the police and the prosecutors," said county prosecutor candidate Subodh Chandra during a county prosecutor's debate earlier this year at Lil Africa in Cleveland when explaining to Blacks and others that attended why Blacks are often maliciously indicted on felony charges by Cuyahoga County grand juries, something even more stinging against McGinty who in 2010 appointed former Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller to the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury.

As grand jury foreman, data show that Miller then pushed for indictments of bogus felony criminal charges against Blacks that complained of police brutality by Cleveland police that other grand juries would not indict, including then college student Rebecca Whitby, who is now 24 .

Activists say that Whitby was maliciously prosecuted and harassed after being beat up and called nigger by police by common pleas judge Daniel Gaul, who was suspended for six months by the Ohio Supreme Court for harassing Blacks that come before him.

During a community meeting held last year after activists complained of Forbes and he sent Miller and a female NAACP affiliate to try to temper them, Miller admitted that he was the grand jury foreman that pushed the indictment against Whitby. He resigned seven months later.

Roz McAllister, a White woman and member of The Imperial Women who leads Ohio Family Rights and lives on Cleveland's predominantly Blacks east side, says the protest and rally are long overdue and that she had had enough of Forbes, who has led the organization since 1992, when he did not speak out when police admitted that since convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell was released from police custody on a rape complaint in 2008 to murder the last six of the 11 Black women who were raped and strangled at his Imperial Ave home on Cleveland's east side.

"He did not say a word about the negligence around The Imperial Ave. Murders," said McAllister. "He and the Cleveland NAACP have not stood up for Black people for more than a decade."

Chandra and McGinty are among five candidates vying for the county prosecutor's job as to the March 6 Democratic primary.

No Republican or Independent is in the race .

The other candidates are Stephanie Hall, James McDonnell and Robert Triozzi.

Activists said that if any of the women are arrested in retaliation via intimidation at Friday's protest or in connection with illegal arrest warrants from the friends and associates of Forbes and McGinty that want to down play McGinty's record of harassing Blacks and others, they will picket outside of their homes next.