Harold Ford, Sr.

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For his son, the Tennessee congressman from 1997 to present, see Harold Ford, Junior.

Harold Eugene Ford, Sr. (born May 20, 1945) was a United States Representative from Tennessee from 1975 to 1997. He is a Democrat.

Ford was born in Memphis to a prominent black family who were leaders in the funeral industry in Memphis' black community, dating back to the days of E.H. Crump. He attended Tennessee State University in Nashville, graduating in 1967. He also received a mortuary science degree from John A. Gupton College, a private mortuary science school also located in Nashville, in 1969. He later earned a M.B.A. degree at Howard University in 1982.

[edit] Political career

Ford was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1970, one of the youngest members and one of only a few blacks to have served in the Tennessee General Assembly to that point in the 20th century. He was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention and the Democratic National Convention in 1972.

After two terms, he ran for and won the Democratic nomination for the Memphis-based 8th Congressional District in 1974. He faced four-term Republican incumbent Dan Kuykendall. Ford received a significant boost from the 1970 round of redistricting, in which Tennessee lost a congressional district. The Tennessee General Assembly redrew the 8th (which had previously been the 9th) with a considerably larger number of black voters than had previously been in the district. While Kuykendall won reelection in 1972, many analysts believed that this district would not stay Republican for long due to massive "white flight" from Memphis itself to the suburbs. Ford waged a tremendous get-out-the-vote campaign in the black community. The race was very close, and when the votes were first counted it looked like Kuykendall had eked out a narrow victory. Ford's supporters found eight ballot boxes that had reportedly been in a dumpster behind the offices of the then-all white Shelby County Election Commission. When those votes were counted, it was enough to give Ford the victory in what is still considered an upset by some analysts. He was the first African-American to represent Tennessee in Congress in the 20th century. He served on the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated the death, among others, of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ford was extremely popular in the Memphis black community, in part due to his sometimes-confrontational attitude toward whites, especially those whom he felt were not showing him the respect that he and his office were due. Conversely, he was extremely unpopular with many Memphis whites. However, the combination of black and organized labor votes allowed Ford to cruise to reelection in 1976 and 1978, and run unopposed in 1980. In the 1980s round of redistricting, the district was renumbered the 9th (after Tennessee regained the seat it had lost in the 1970s) and drawn as a majority-black district, and Republicans subsequently lost interest in the seat.

While Ford never achieved much national distinction, he seemed to be under constant investigation during his time in Congress, particularly during Republican national administrations. His detractors said this was due to corruption, while his supporters maintained that he was merely the victim of harassment for effectively representing his constituents. One case so polarized Memphis that a jury from outside of Memphis was brought in an attempt to try the case fairly. Ford also suffered in the eyes of many for the antics of his brother John Ford, who had been elected to the Tennessee State Senate in the same 1974 election. John Ford was even more confrontational than his brother and was famous for, among other things, driving between Memphis and Nashville at high speeds in possession of a firearm (although he was never convicted of such charges, ). Harold Ford pointed out that his brother was a separate person over whom he had no control.

Ford groomed his son Harold Ford, Jr. to be his successor and decided that 1996 would be the year that this would occur, as that was the year that young Ford completed University of Michigan Law School. Ford Sr. publicly hoped that the confrontational tactics that he had sometimes used, particularly with regard to race, would never need to be employed by his son. This attitude has served his son well, as the district was considerably enlarged in the 2000 redistricting and now again includes a substantial minority of white voters.

Ford is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established by African Americans.

Ford, Sr. now lives in Miami and is still active in Democratic Party politics.

Preceded by: Dan Kuykendall	U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 8th Congressional District 1975-1983	Succeeded by: Ed Jones
Preceded by: 9th District created as a result of the 1980 Census	U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 9th Congressional District 1983-1997	Succeeded by: Harold Ford, Jr.