Long road to here - Metro
Long road to here - Metro
Wayne Ford has always taken necessary precautions for the "controversy that has always stayed with him."
Back in the late 1960s at Rochester Junior College in Minnesota, Ford started carrying a gun on top of some towels in his gym bag after he received a threatening message.
Ford had walked into a restroom and saw "We're going to kill the nigger Wayne Ford" scrawled on the wall near the toilet.
"I'm from the inner city, so when I saw that, I started carrying a gun to school," Ford said. "I went to school every day - had the gun right there looking at me. So if someone tried to kill me, I would hope to get off six shots."
Rep. Ford, D-Des Moines, took a long and rough road before making it in the Statehouse, but every bump along the journey has shaped who he is today.
His struggle started in 1951 in Washington, D.C. His mother, a passionate woman from North Carolina, traveled to the capital to give birth to Ford, who then stayed and was raised by his aunts.
His father was married to another woman, and Ford cites this as the reason he was sent to Washington.
"I had a situation in which I was living with my aunts, so I always felt as though I had to prove myself," he said in his deep booming voice. "I always felt as though I would do anything for attention. So because of that, that lead me to do some juvenile crimes earlier in my life."
Throughout elementary school and middle school, Ford was pulled out of school for fighting his teachers. He was only 14 years old when he robbed his first bus with his gang.
Although his social life was surrounded by prostitutes, drug dealers, and thugs, his football abilities kept him at Ballou High School.
Ford was one of the youngest players, at age 15, to be an all-conference football player. He played for the school's football team and at 17 years, Ford received a football scholarship from Rochester Junior College in 1969.
"I was blessed with natural strength," Ford said as he imitated a body-builder pose.
But in high school, strength and football playing skills were all Ford had going for him. He didn't have enough credits to graduate, and he left high school at 17, with an eighth-grade reading level and with the stigma of being the "most likely to not succeed" in his yearbook.
"Look at me now," Ford said in triumph, although he admits that he's still upset by what his peers thought of him.
Lacking a degree but with his football skills and "the gift of the gab," Ford enrolled in Rochester Junior College.
He said he turned his life around during his three years at Rochester.
He was going to be sent to a local high school to learn how to read, but instead, an English professor at the college invested extra time in him and ignited a love for books in him.
He received another football scholarship from Drake University in Des Moines and finally wore a cap and gown for the first time in 1974 - an achievement he still smiles widely about today. He received a degree in education.
After graduation, he started involving himself in Des Moines' minority community.
In 1976, Ford became the Iowa minority-education coordinator for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. He later held the "Concerned Citizens for Minority Affairs" forum in 1984, with the help of Des Moines community leader Mary Campos, which evolved into the Brown and Black Presidential Forum - now recognized as the oldest minority presidential forum in America.
"Anybody running for president - this is way before Obama - had to deal with minority issues," Ford said emphatically. "I did that."
Campos said she appreciated Ford's sincere interest in the community.
"I'm very proud to work with him," she said. "We present a united front and work on a united front."
During the late-70s, his son Ryan - who is now a deputy editor of The Source Magazine - was born, and he started his first job "working with the people" at a nonprofit organization, Great Opportunities.
After the program lost funding, he started his own nonprofit in 1985, Urban Dreams, a United Way agency that refers locals with problems to the appropriate help. It was first located at the intersection of Forest and Sixth Avenue in Des Moines - once rated one of the most volatile corners in the state.
April Galler, 22, who has worked at Urban Dreams since November 2004, credits the job as changing her life. The information and referral specialist, she was first a volunteer, then hired as a full-time employee after she found out she was pregnant.
"If I wasn't working here, I'd be at the club, smoking, drinking," Galler said. "If it wasn't for [Ford], I wouldn't be the person I am today."
When Zachary Wilson, the Urban Dreams executive director, applied for his job, Ford assumed the recent graduate from Virginia was black. They spoke on the phone several times before meeting in person.
And despite being a minority leader, Ford didn't hold Wilson's skin color against him.
"He's there to raise the minority community," Wilson said. "But he's there to raise up the community as a whole."
Since eighth grade, despite the trouble he got in, Ford has known how his life was going to unfold, he said. The students in his class were required to write their own obituaries, and he said he'd be in the Midwest, work in politics, and be in charge of a community center.
"God has given me the vision and been my support all the way," Ford said. "In my life and where I've been, you couldn't do what I've done and not have a strong spiritual belief."
On top of running a presidential forum and a nonprofit, Ford started a consulting firm, Wayne Ford and Associates, in 1992. The company advises businesses on hiring minorities.
In 1996, Ford was elected Iowa representative for House District 71, and he is now the longest serving black legislator in the state's history.
He is working on an autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill: An Urban Dream, but he is waiting to end it until he sees the outcome of the 2008 elections. He added that a sitcom based on his relationship with his son, Ryan, is also in the works.
Ford has also been married to his third wife, Romonda Belcher Ford, for more than three years now. He credits her for mellowing out his normal overly energetic self.
"He allowed me to see the innocence of him," said Belcher Ford, who added that one of his weaknesses is not letting people get to know the real Wayne Ford.
In Ford's cluttered and award-decorated office at Urban Dreams, he said Iowa has had a fairly liberal legacy toward black residents, and he hopes it continues today.
"I believe now, when Gov. Chet Culver won Iowa, when we talk to prison officials, we are doing things about it," Ford exclaimed with happiness. "Other states are not, we are. So my greatest thing about black history is [Iowa] was doing things in the country before other people understood black people."
E-mail DI reporter Ashton Shurson at:
ashton-shurson@uiowa.edu
Wayne Ford
Born: Dec. 21, 1951
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Education: Bachelor of Science education degree from Drake University
Participated in: The Brown and Black Presidential Forum, Urban Dreams, and Wayne Ford and Associates; he is also an Iowa legislator
Long road to here
Ashton Shurson - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Metro
Media Credit: Julie Brayton/The Daily Iowan
Wayne Ford has always taken necessary precautions for the "controversy that has always stayed with him."
Back in the late 1960s at Rochester Junior College in Minnesota, Ford started carrying a gun on top of some towels in his gym bag after he received a threatening message.
Ford had walked into a restroom and saw "We're going to kill the nigger Wayne Ford" scrawled on the wall near the toilet.
"I'm from the inner city, so when I saw that, I started carrying a gun to school," Ford said. "I went to school every day - had the gun right there looking at me. So if someone tried to kill me, I would hope to get off six shots."
Rep. Ford, D-Des Moines, took a long and rough road before making it in the Statehouse, but every bump along the journey has shaped who he is today.
His struggle started in 1951 in Washington, D.C. His mother, a passionate woman from North Carolina, traveled to the capital to give birth to Ford, who then stayed and was raised by his aunts.
His father was married to another woman, and Ford cites this as the reason he was sent to Washington.
"I had a situation in which I was living with my aunts, so I always felt as though I had to prove myself," he said in his deep booming voice. "I always felt as though I would do anything for attention. So because of that, that lead me to do some juvenile crimes earlier in my life."
Throughout elementary school and middle school, Ford was pulled out of school for fighting his teachers. He was only 14 years old when he robbed his first bus with his gang.
Although his social life was surrounded by prostitutes, drug dealers, and thugs, his football abilities kept him at Ballou High School.
Ford was one of the youngest players, at age 15, to be an all-conference football player. He played for the school's football team and at 17 years, Ford received a football scholarship from Rochester Junior College in 1969.
"I was blessed with natural strength," Ford said as he imitated a body-builder pose.
But in high school, strength and football playing skills were all Ford had going for him. He didn't have enough credits to graduate, and he left high school at 17, with an eighth-grade reading level and with the stigma of being the "most likely to not succeed" in his yearbook.
"Look at me now," Ford said in triumph, although he admits that he's still upset by what his peers thought of him.
Lacking a degree but with his football skills and "the gift of the gab," Ford enrolled in Rochester Junior College.
He said he turned his life around during his three years at Rochester.
He was going to be sent to a local high school to learn how to read, but instead, an English professor at the college invested extra time in him and ignited a love for books in him.
He received another football scholarship from Drake University in Des Moines and finally wore a cap and gown for the first time in 1974 - an achievement he still smiles widely about today. He received a degree in education.
After graduation, he started involving himself in Des Moines' minority community.
In 1976, Ford became the Iowa minority-education coordinator for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. He later held the "Concerned Citizens for Minority Affairs" forum in 1984, with the help of Des Moines community leader Mary Campos, which evolved into the Brown and Black Presidential Forum - now recognized as the oldest minority presidential forum in America.
"Anybody running for president - this is way before Obama - had to deal with minority issues," Ford said emphatically. "I did that."
Campos said she appreciated Ford's sincere interest in the community.
"I'm very proud to work with him," she said. "We present a united front and work on a united front."
During the late-70s, his son Ryan - who is now a deputy editor of The Source Magazine - was born, and he started his first job "working with the people" at a nonprofit organization, Great Opportunities.
After the program lost funding, he started his own nonprofit in 1985, Urban Dreams, a United Way agency that refers locals with problems to the appropriate help. It was first located at the intersection of Forest and Sixth Avenue in Des Moines - once rated one of the most volatile corners in the state.
April Galler, 22, who has worked at Urban Dreams since November 2004, credits the job as changing her life. The information and referral specialist, she was first a volunteer, then hired as a full-time employee after she found out she was pregnant.
"If I wasn't working here, I'd be at the club, smoking, drinking," Galler said. "If it wasn't for [Ford], I wouldn't be the person I am today."
When Zachary Wilson, the Urban Dreams executive director, applied for his job, Ford assumed the recent graduate from Virginia was black. They spoke on the phone several times before meeting in person.
And despite being a minority leader, Ford didn't hold Wilson's skin color against him.
"He's there to raise the minority community," Wilson said. "But he's there to raise up the community as a whole."
Since eighth grade, despite the trouble he got in, Ford has known how his life was going to unfold, he said. The students in his class were required to write their own obituaries, and he said he'd be in the Midwest, work in politics, and be in charge of a community center.
"God has given me the vision and been my support all the way," Ford said. "In my life and where I've been, you couldn't do what I've done and not have a strong spiritual belief."
On top of running a presidential forum and a nonprofit, Ford started a consulting firm, Wayne Ford and Associates, in 1992. The company advises businesses on hiring minorities.
In 1996, Ford was elected Iowa representative for House District 71, and he is now the longest serving black legislator in the state's history.
He is working on an autobiography, From the Hood to the Hill: An Urban Dream, but he is waiting to end it until he sees the outcome of the 2008 elections. He added that a sitcom based on his relationship with his son, Ryan, is also in the works.
Ford has also been married to his third wife, Romonda Belcher Ford, for more than three years now. He credits her for mellowing out his normal overly energetic self.
"He allowed me to see the innocence of him," said Belcher Ford, who added that one of his weaknesses is not letting people get to know the real Wayne Ford.
In Ford's cluttered and award-decorated office at Urban Dreams, he said Iowa has had a fairly liberal legacy toward black residents, and he hopes it continues today.
"I believe now, when Gov. Chet Culver won Iowa, when we talk to prison officials, we are doing things about it," Ford exclaimed with happiness. "Other states are not, we are. So my greatest thing about black history is [Iowa] was doing things in the country before other people understood black people."
E-mail DI reporter Ashton Shurson at:
ashton-shurson@uiowa.edu
Wayne Ford
Born: Dec. 21, 1951
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Education: Bachelor of Science education degree from Drake University
Participated in: The Brown and Black Presidential Forum, Urban Dreams, and Wayne Ford and Associates; he is also an Iowa legislator
posted by Nana @ 06:09
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