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Howard Wilkinson: Politics and More

0000017a-3b40-d913-abfe-bf44a4f90000Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU news team as the politics reporter and columnist in April 2012 , after 30 years of covering local, state and national politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. On this page, you will find his weekly column, Politically Speaking; the Monday morning political chats with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik and other news coverage by Wilkinson. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio gubernatorial race since 1974, as well as 16 presidential nominating conventions. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots, the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, the Air Canada plane crash at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983, and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. And, given his passion for baseball, you might even find some stories about the Cincinnati Reds here from time to time.

Smitherman to give up NAACP presidency for now

91.7 WVXU | By Howard Wilkinson

Published June 14, 2013 at 1:10 PM EDT

Cincinnati council member Christopher Smitherman will step down as president of the Cincinnati chapter of the NAACP while he is running for re-election to council.

A number of members of the local chapter have urged Smitherman to leave the NAACP presidency while running for office. In a statement released Friday, Smitherman said he was doing so under a policy adopted by the NAACP's national board of directors in 1968.

James Clingman, an NAACP vice president and the founder of the Greater Cincinnati African-American Chamber of Commerce, will take over as interim president of the local chapter.

If Smitherman is re-elected to council this fall, he said he will tender his resignation to the local chapter's executive committee, which can either accept or reject his resignation. If the committee rejects Smitherman's resignation or he is defeated in his re-election bid to council, he can resume being president of the local chapter.