Rep. Harold Ford, Jr: Family (Race) Issues?
 

Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. Insults His Grandmother and Our People
by BC Publishers Glen Ford and Peter Gamble

Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., who wants to become a U.S. Senator from
Tennessee, has sunk lower than a snake. He has defamed his
grandmother, and his great-grandparents, by claiming that their lives
were frauds and lies - that they were whites passing for Black.

There seem to be no limits to the young congressman's perfidy and
stupidity. In the process of depicting his own ancestors as people
living a lie, Ford has also insulted the Black public and Black
history - not to mention common sense, a quality of which Harold Jr.
seems to be totally lacking.

Ford's allegation, now mimicked by much of his highly political
family, but never mentioned by any family member before the
35-year-old senatorial candidate casually smeared his grandmother in
USA Today, in December, defies all reason. Grandmother Vera Ford, who
died in 1994 at the age of 78, was the daughter of John Davis and
Lottie McGinnis, both of whose death certificates list them as "Negro"
- as skillfully reported by the Memphis Commercial Appeal's Wendi C.
Thomas on March 19.

Vera Ford's parents were married at a time of great racial violence in
Tennessee and the nation. Shelby County - Memphis - recorded the
highest number of lynchings of Blacks in the state. In 1917, a year
after Vera's birth, according to the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History
and Culture, white mobs vented their racist anger en mass:

Tennessee's "greatest lynching carnival" was held in Memphis in
May 1917 when Ell Person, the allegedly confessed ax-murderer of a
sixteen-year-old white girl, was burned to death in the presence of
fifteen thousand men, women, and little children. The mother of the
murdered child cheered the mob as they poured oil on the man and set
him afire. The Memphis Press said that "the mob fought and screamed
and crowded to get a glimpse of him and the mob closed in and
struggled about the fire."

Young Harold Ford (known as "The Prince"), who ascended to his
father's congressional seat at the age of 26 in 1996, would have us
believe that, during this period of murderous white mob violence, a
white couple from Memphis would both decide to become Black, and to
subject their children to Jim Crow schools and lynch law justice. It
defies all reason - an amazing fiction concocted in Harold Jr.'s head
for purposes unknown.

Grandmother Vera attended all-Black Booker T. Washington High School.
In 1934, at age 19, she married Harold's grandfather, N.J. Ford, a
somewhat darker Black man. Together, they launched the family funeral
home and political dynasty. Nobody questioned Vera's Blackness. As
Wendi Thomas reports, "Vera was named the Tennessee Mother of the
Year, 'the first black woman ever so honored in Tennessee,' the
Nashville Banner wrote in 1976."

Vera's death certificate, like those of her parents, John and Lottie,
identifies her as Black.

There is a level of corruption that even the Ford family of Memphis
have never stooped to - until now. Harold "The Prince" Jr. has
submerged himself in the muck, and all but one close family member has
dived in with him in order to save his senatorial campaign. None say
that Vera ever fessed up to being white. Retroactively, they now say
it was assumed. "She looked white," (indicted) son state senator John
Ford told reporter Wendi Thomas.

Actually, we don't think she looks white - however, we have eyes
trained for this sort of thing. But that's not the point. The Ford's
collective violation against Black people's history in this country is
far more disturbing than the pretensions and self-debasement of one
Black family. They make a fiction of their own family history, and
thus allow others to extrapolate larger fictions, to further confuse
the Black and white public about the real nature of African American's
past and present.

There is really only one definition for the people who became African
Americans: those who were eligible to be legally sold as chattel, and
whose children were condemned to also be chattel for slavemaster scum.
The "one drop" and "one-sixteenth" Black blood rule was simply a
commercial arrangement, that allowed white men to exercise their
sexual privileges among the slaves while carrying no parental
obligations. As a result, the United States became the only country in
the world in which rich and respected men routinely sold their own
children - an abomination almost beyond comprehension, one that
challenges normal notions of human behavior.

Because of the high cost of slaves in the U.S. - the driving force in
this grotesque social arrangement that led to child-selling - and
because the United States had a large and heavily armed white
population, there was no need to create a mulatto class with
privileges recognized by the white rulers. Unlike elsewhere in the
African Diaspora, the "one drop" rule reigned. All of the "one drop"
or more people were herded together, to be sold during slavery, and
Jim Crowed in its aftermath.

However, in this centuries-long process, a people came into being:
African Americans of many hues but sharing the same references and
history. During slavery, all could be sold. Afterwards, all could be
lynched, and all were segregated - unless they "passed," which usually
required leaving the region where everybody knew who was who and where
they came from. But most did not, because of their ties to their land,
family, community and collective aspirations.

A distinct people emerged from the cauldron, a people who developed
their own institutions in opposition to white institutions, and their
own view of the world. A people with a sense of community that had
been forged in - among the many oppressions of slavery and Jim Crow -
the sexual oppression of Black women that created the multi-hued
African American group.

Vera Ford belonged to that group, as did her parents, John and Lottie.
They did not "pass" but stayed within the community. Now, her
grandson, the despicable and underbrained brat who wants to be a
senator, is casting her out, claiming she was white.

Of the Ford family, only aunt Barbara Ford Branch, a retired lawyer
who lives in New York City, seems to have an ounce of pride in her
family or her people. "I will not let them try to make my mother
something she wasn't," Ms. Branch told the Memphis Commercial Appeal's
Wendi Thomas.

However, Ms. Thomas, who is Black, strays into nasty territory when
she introduces the now-familiar white line that race is a "social
construct." Of course it is. But this "construct" has vast social
consequences, that led to annihilation of peoples (most Native
Americans, all Tasmanians) and to the creation of new nations of
people. The "social construct" term has been interpreted by white
popular media as meaning "socially irrelevant" - which is a convenient
way for them to say race doesn't matter, so get over it. But the
centuries of slavery and racial oppression that have been justified by
the "construct" are not irrelevant. They are facts.

These cumulative events - the lives, struggles and accomplishment of
millions of people who came to call themselves Black Americans - have
created a unique people in the world. Vera Ford was one of them, as
were her parents.

Harold Ford Jr. desecrates their graves, and should hang his head in
shame. But he won't, because he is shameless. And amoral.

Glen Ford and Peter Gamble are writing a book titled, "Barack Obama
and the Crisis in Black Leadership."

picture of his G-mom:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/...553713,00.html
She reminds me of my Great Aunt, who is biracial.

I'm slow to understand how these claims would benefit him or his campaign in any way. :confused:

I'm not from Tennessee, but it seems as if Rep. Ford's bid for Senate is "in trouble" (per the articles). Maybe if Rep. Ford asserts that his grandmother was white, it would garner more support from whites.

:confused:


A question that I have...
Have any of you heard of a white person passing for black, during the Segregation Era? :confused:

So this is a black man that is now claiming that his family is acutally white passing for black.

Now, I could see if back during Jim Crow times if a white baby was raise by black folks and just grew up believing he was black, but I can not see grown white people making the decision during those times to all of a sudden which.

I could see it happening now though but that's another thread...:o

A man who has identified as Black, "looks" Black, claiming his grandmama was a white woman passing as Black and using that information to garner white votes? If he's doing this to attract more votes from Whites, he may wanna fire his campaign manager. :o LOL

Where is the White person who will vote for a Black man based on that Black man having a White grandmama? I want to see him. LOL

I can't help but laugh at this. It sounds like a tacky sitcom on Comedy Central.

Too bad Chappelle aint around to make fun of it.

Don't know what to make of this but it seems hard to believe during the era of segregation and Jim Crow that his family would want to be passing for Black, for what reason! usually it is the other way around! Is this some political ploy to garner sympathy from white voters?:(

Smear campaign
 

So someone I know who knows someone... ;)

Would say that this is the beginning of the "smear campaign" against him. They are preparing to throw rocks at him with mud because of something he's done or said to a few folks who do not like him in Capital Hill.

So, this is the start. If folks really want to know what he's all about, they can meet him. I hear his is desparately looking for a wife like Barack Obama's wife. But you have to understand that she is extremely high powered and use to the Beltway set and poor Harold is having trouble finding what he "prefers"--although panties are thrown his way all the time...

Don't ask me how I know this :rolleyes:

Actually, this does not surprise me. At the time a White woman who was with a Black man would pass at Black to keep from being assaulted by her own race. And she would have been embraced by Blacks because of her "light" complexion.

My grandmother's grandmother was Irish, but that piece of info was kept within the family, since she married a Black man.

As for the great grandparents, if they were very poor are for some reason not accepted by other Whites, then they too would have been accepted by Black folx more readily. Those times were really crazy.

Now as to Harold Ford, I do not understand his reasoning for claiming this now. Maybe he is trying to show that "passing" went both ways. :rolleyes:

Re: Smear campaign
 

:rolleyes: How do you know this? :rolleyes: :p












j/k

Re: Smear campaign
 

REALLY? The word inside the Beltway is that he doesn't date AfAm women. So to hear he wants a Michelle Obama is a COMPLETE surprise.

I can't buy the theory that he is doing this to garner support from whites who wouldn't otherwise vote for a black man. The type of person who wouldn't vote for a black man - just because he's black - probably wouldn't be sympathetic to interracial dating during the Jim Crow era (or any other time period).

Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Honestly, I think Michelle Obama is a huge asset to Sen. Obama because she breaks stereotypes. The stereotypical thought is that someone like Sen. Obama would be married to somebody who is light-skinned or non-AfAm.
Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mary Mitchell, as I recall, did speak to this in one of her articles. I think Mrs. Obama gives a great image boost for Sen. Obama because of the anxiety about successful AfAm men dating/mating outside the race.

Re: Smear campaign
 

I wonder if he'll catch mine... j/k

Re: Smear campaign
 

Now this I DO know for certain with my experience on the Hill.

SMDH@ all of this mess.

Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

u stoopid! :D

Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Frankly, Obama's choice of a wife was one of the things that impressed me about him, esp since his own mother is white.

As far as Ford and his supposed comments, something seems very fishy to me. He was a speaker at a past Delta Convention and I really enjoyed his presentation. He is an Alpha, right?

I hadn't heard this bit of controversy, but I believe I read at some point in my studies of American history that when a white woman during that era married a black man, when and where she could (like In D.C. perhaps), all of her government documentation would be changed and she would legally be categorized as black. It sort of makes sense since the whole theory behind the laws of anti-miscegenation was that it was unnatural and wrong for blacks to mix with the white race so once it was determined that some allowed a black person to infiltrate the white race, that white person was "expelled" for the sake of the proverbial "books" so that it wouldn't be documented that there was mixed white and black blood. If the white chick was then deemed to be black, then their offspring would, therefore, also be black.

Whatever.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Harold Ford, Sr. is an Alpha. I don't know about Jr.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Oh snap! Even more reason to throw those Vicky's. I need to go ahead and register for the Congressional Black Caucus Conference. :p

slow your roll, Soror. Slow your roll. She said SR. That means the daddy is an Alpha, not the son. :o



Then again, you never know.... ;) :D :p

Sr. is the Alpha , Not Jr.
 

I have met Jr. and worked on his first campaign for the U.S. House in Memphis. His dad is frat, but he is not.

As far as the whole controversy over his grandmother, I don't know any more facts than in the article. But I don't think the claim could be totally outrageous. The points about miscegenation should be noted. Besides, if she really loved Mr. Ford, then to me it is not a very far fetched notion that a white woman would say that she was really black, if not for love for her husband, than at least to keep him from being targetted by bigoted whites for lynching.

Just my 06 cents worth.

Blackwatch!!!!!!

Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

His ex was a black woman, an attorney. They were planning to get married.

Re: Sr. is the Alpha , Not Jr.
 

Thanks for the clarification :cool:

Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Yeah, Jennifer Baltimore. They were engaged. I wonder what happened with that. When I go to the CBC Conference I will ask him and come back and post it on here. LOL.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

you are a mess!

Passing?!?!
 

yes there were White people who passed for Black. They were usually married to a Black person and instead of subjecting themselves to the pressures and possible danger of being married to a black person they would pass for black...remember birth and death certificates are not a good source of ethnic or racial info because it was determined by what the court clerk or mortician thought you were and who they thought your parents were. The intermarrying was very common in the West VA, Eastern VA, Kentucky, and Tenn. area where the Scotch-Irish were known for marrying Black people. I am the product of such a situation so yes it did happen. But it isn't something that is of much importance. They were doing what they had to do to keep their families safe. Nothing more nothing less.

LoJ

Re: Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Here they are:

http://pic12.picturetrail.com/VOL414.../137604195.jpg

Yep...he'll like me. LOL

Are we sure she is an atty? I wanted to see where she worked so I looked up her up in martindalehubble, a national database of attorneys, and she is most definitely not listed.

It really doesn't matter, I was just curious as to where she worked.

I'm a cyberstalker, so I searched her too. Maybe she got the degree but didn't take the BAR. Either that, or Jennifer Baltimore is not her real name. I'll ask Harold when I meet him in September.

Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

TSK TSK LS!! Shame!!:eek:

AS far as Ford is concerned, speaking from someone who was born in good old Shelby County and who has family still there and whose grandmother ran a successful floral shop for over 30 years and did LOTS of business with the Ford's funeral home - let me say this - this doesn't surprise me at all . . . the Fords are not known in Memphis for being the nicest or most fair dealing people. By any means necessary. My grandmother tells a story often of how she designed arrangements one time for a funeral at the Fords establishment for which she was never compensated. . . .so anything that hints of shaddy doesn't shock me at all!!!!

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know...
 

My "inside connections" tell me that poor Harold Jr.--ummm, well, has "game issues"... Not that he lacks it... But more like he's not the "allstar pro athelete" that he outta be... And that he's been a "benchwarmer"... And he has the "equipment" but hasn't been shown how to use it... I've been told he's kinna a "nerd"...

The other issues I've heard is that Tennessee is a tough state to run for senator. He's against Bill Frist and Co.

And his choice in women, well, he needs that high powered woman of "pedigree". Panty-throwing women are not desired. This MUST be a woman who has impeccable--pratically spotless record--just because of that "princess and the pea" requirement. No skeleton issues--like she's had an abortion... Like this woman has to be a "virgin" or something... Etc.

The problem I heard was he also wants a "freak"--even though he does not know how to use the equipment.

As far as the Alpha thing, I was told that he was not allowed to pledge in college--it was not recommended for someone of his "stature" or "caliber", because he was trying to run for office, etc... The "frat boy" image would be too much for him... Okay for others, not him... :rolleyes:

Of course this is all gossip... And I could be full of it and the wool pulled over my eyes...

This is from Ebony's "Ten Hottest Couples" February 2000.

A Powerful Politician and an Entertainment Attorney.

Rep. Harold Ford Jr. & Jennifer Baltimore

Congressman Harold Ford Jr. and attorney Jennifer Baltimore met while students at the University of Pennsylvania, but love didn't blossom until years later when she attended a reception the Memphis congressman hosted during the 1997 Congressional Black Caucus weekend in Washington, D.C. A few weeks later, Jennifer joined Ford and friends for dinner when he was in Los Angeles to tape a television show. The congressman was smitten and spent the next six months wooing the attorney for Universal Music. In May 1998, says Ford, "Things took a turn in the right direction." And on his birthday, May 11, 1999, Ford proposed to Jennifer on the steps of the Capitol. "It was a beautiful day," he says, "so after lunch I suggested we take a walk around the Capitol. I had been nervous all morning with the ring in my pocket. It really caught her by surprise." Jennifer said yes, and the two are set to wed in May in Washington, D.C. I guess this part didn't happen...:confused:

Well....either 1) she has already married somone else or changed her name for some other reason or 2) she stopped paying bar dues or got suspended because she is not listed in martindale hubble either on the mainsite or in lexisnexis.com.

Re: Re: Re: Smear campaign
 

Does this mean you aren't coming to our wedding? :( :p

^LOL

GET IT LAWYER!!! DO THAT RESEARCH!! lmbao!! that is too funny . .only an attorney goes to either site to check someone's creds . . .:D :D

Soror, me and lexisnexis got some issues, but I did find her on westlaw. I think you have to pay to be listed on martindale-hubbell/lexisnexis. My cousin who works for a large firm is listed, but my cousin who shares a practice with her husband isn't listed on lexis.

She could be married though. SKEEphistAKAte, you might get your Ford wedding ;)

Oh wow. Thanks, I am soooooooooooooooooo not a westlaw girl! I don't even know how to do an atty search on westlaw, but now is a fine time to learn!

Thanks for the heads up.

Soror, you can find just about everything short of someone's social security number on Westlaw. I love it. I'm a Westlaw stalker. lol