Harold Ford Sr.
Harold Ford Sr. | |
---|---|
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee | |
In office January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1997 | |
Preceded by | Dan Kuykendall |
Succeeded by | Harold Ford Jr. |
Constituency | 8th District (1975–1983) 9th District (1983–1997) |
Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from the 5th district | |
In office 1971–1975 | |
Preceded by | James I. Taylor[1] |
Succeeded by | Emmitt Ford (86th district) |
Personal details | |
Born | Harold Eugene Ford May 20, 1945 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouses | Dorothy Bowles
(m. 1969; div. 1999)Michelle Roberts (m. 1999) |
Children | 5, including Harold Jr. |
Alma mater | John A. Gupton College, AA Tennessee State University, B.S. Howard University, M.B.A. |
Relatives | John Ford (brother) Ophelia Ford (sister) |
Harold Eugene Ford Sr. (born May 20, 1945) is an American politician and Democratic former member of the United States House of Representatives representing the area of Memphis, Tennessee, for 11 terms—from 1975 until his retirement in 1997. He was the first African-American to represent Tennessee in the U.S. Congress.[2] He is a member of the Ford political family from Memphis.
During his 20 years in Congress, Ford obtained ample federal funds for his district through his membership on the
His effectiveness was diminished following his 1987 indictment on bank fraud charges that alleged he had used business loans for his personal needs.[3] Ford denied the charges and claimed the prosecution was racially and politically motivated. He lost his committee leadership roles but remained in Congress while the legal proceeding was pending. He was ultimately tried and acquitted in 1993 of all charges by a jury.
He chose to retire from Congress in 1996. His son Harold Jr. returned to Tennessee from New York and successfully ran for his seat. In his retirement, Harold Sr. has been active in Democratic Party affairs and has worked as a lobbyist.[4] He lives in Florida and in the Hamptons.[4]
Early life, education and family
Harold grew up on Horn Lake Road in the West Junction neighborhood of
Ford and his family have been involved in politics since his great-grandfather Newton Ford (1856–1919), who was a well-respected civic leader around the southern section of Shelby County. Newton Ford was elected as a county squire from 1888 to 1900. N. J. Ford ran for the Tennessee House in 1966 but was not elected.[3]
Harold Ford graduated from Geeter High School in 1963, received his B.S. degree from Tennessee State University in Nashville in 1967 and did graduate work there for one year.[2] He is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He received a mortuary science degree from John A. Gupton College of Nashville in 1969, and worked in the family business as a mortician from 1969 until 1974.[2] In 1982, he earned a Master of Business Administration from Howard University.[2]
Political career
State legislature
Ford was able to use his family's deep roots in Memphis to garner support within the affluent black community for his first run for office.[3] He also ran an organized campaign and was able to take advantage of the increase in black voters that followed the Voting Rights Act.[3] He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1970, becoming one of its youngest members and one of only a few African Americans to have served in the Tennessee General Assembly to that point in the 20th century.[citation needed] He was made majority whip in his first term, and chaired a state house committee on utility rates and practices.[3]
He was a delegate to Democratic State Convention and to the quadrennial Democratic National Conventions from 1972 through 1996.[2]
U.S. House of Representatives
In 1974, after two terms in the Tennessee legislature, he ran for the Democratic nomination for the Memphis-based 8th U.S. Congressional district, easily beating three opponents.
Ford became the first African-American to represent Tennessee in the United States Congress.[2] He was re-elected by large margins, locking in the black vote, and winning a large number of white votes in his district.[3] After the 1983 census, the district was renumbered as the 9th District, and was drawn as a black-majority district. With the percentage of black voters increasing due to increased white flight, Ford then won re-election by gaining more than 70 percent of the vote.[3] After he was indicted, he still garnered more than 50 percent of the vote.[3]
He served on a number of House committees including: Banking, Currency and Housing; Veterans' Affairs, and the Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated the death, among others, of Martin Luther King Jr.[3] He was a member of the influential House Ways and Means Committee beginning in 1975, and chaired the subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment. He served as the chairman of the House Select Committee on Aging during the 102nd and 103rd Congresses.[2]
Ford obtained ample federal funds for his district through his membership on the House Ways and Means Committee.[3] He focused his work in Congress on helping lower income constituents. He advocated for increased federal government assistance for job training, health care, and unemployment supplemental benefits with welfare as a safety net.[3] He supported Democratic President Carter's initiatives to rebuild central cities, and opposed cuts to programs such as Medicare and food stamps that were passed during the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan.[3] Ford proposed comprehensive welfare reform legislation to gradually transition recipients with children over the age of six from welfare to work.[3] The legislation had a high start up cost due to the education and job training aspects, and was opposed by the Reagan administration.[3][relevant?]
Ford suffered in the eyes of many for the antics of his brother
Bribery trials
In 1987, federal prosecutors obtained an indictment against Ford from a grand jury in eastern Tennessee. The indictment was based on testimony from two bankers, both partners of Jake Butcher, who pled guilty to bank fraud under a plea bargain.[6] Ford was charged in 18 counts of conspiracy and fraud accusing him of receiving nearly $1.5 million in loans from 1976 to 1983, that prosecutors alleged were actually bribes. Ford contended that the loans were legitimate business transactions used to extend loans to him and his family funeral home business.
A first trial in Memphis in 1990 ended in a mistrial with the
Later career
Harold Jr., Ford's son, in 1996 returned to run for his retiring father's seat after having worked in New York City and completed his education at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan Law School. The elder Ford publicly hoped that the confrontational stance that he had sometimes used, particularly with regard to race, would never need to be employed by his son.[citation needed]
Personal life
Ford married Dorothy Bowles in 1969 and the couple had three children: Harold Jr., Newton Jake and Sir Isaac. They divorced in 1999. He and his second wife, Michelle Roberts have two children: Andrew and Ava.[3]
He is a member of
See also
References
- ^ "JAMES I. TAYLOR". Tennessee General Assembly. Retrieved November 14, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g
- United States Congress. "Harold Ford Sr. (id: F000261)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Office of History & Preservation, U. S. House of Representatives (2008). "Harold Eugene Ford Sr. Representative, 1975-1997, Democrat from Tennessee". Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007. Washington: Government Printing Office. Archived from the original on April 7, 2011.
- ^ a b "The Making of Harold Ford". The Daily Beast. January 13, 2010. Retrieved April 22, 2011.
- ^ ""A Democrat for All the People": The Historic Election of Harold E. Ford Sr. to the United States House of Representatives". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2016.
- ^ Branston, John (May 2, 2002). "In Memorial: C.H. Butcher, Jr". Memphis Flyer. Retrieved 2018-10-26.
- ^ a b "Home Alone at Justice?". New York Times. February 25, 1993. Retrieved April 21, 2011.
- ^ "Representative Is Acquitted In Fraud and Bribery Case". New York Times. April 10, 1993. Retrieved April 21, 2011.