Clyde W. Ford

In this thought-provoking and heartbreaking memoir, an award-winning writer tells the story of his father, John Stanley Ford, the first black software engineer at IBM, revealing how racism insidiously affected his father’s view of himself and their relationship. In 1947, Thomas J. Watson set out to find the best and brightest minds for IBM. At City College he met young accounting student John Stanley Ford and hired him to become IBM’s first black software engineer. But not all of the company’s white employees refused to accept a black colleague and did everything in their power to humiliate, subvert, and undermine Ford. Yet Ford would not quit. Viewing the job as the opportunity of a lifetime, he comported himself with dignity and professionalism, and relied on his community and his “street smarts” to succeed. He did not know that his hiring was meant to distract from IBM’s dubious business practices, including its involvement in the Holocaust, eugenics, and apartheid. While Ford remained at IBM, it came at great emotional cost to himself and his family, especially his son Clyde. Overlooked for promotions he deserved, the embittered Ford began blaming his fate on his skin color and the notion that darker-skinned people like him were less intelligent and less capable—beliefs that painfully divided him and Clyde, who followed him to IBM two decades later. From his first day of work—with his wide-lapelled suit, bright red turtleneck, and huge afro—Clyde made clear he was different. Only IBM hadn’t changed. As he, too, experienced the same institutional racism, Clyde began to better understand the subtle yet daring ways his father had fought back. Think Black includes 10-20 black-and-white photos.

A Memoir of Sacrifice, Success, and Self-Loathing in Corporate America

Think Black

The author and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library Publishing Project gives voice to long silent African Americans from the past, allowing them to tell their own stories that shed new light on critical moments in the Black Freedom Struggle, challenging what we think we know about Black history. History is at its best when new findings and perspectives challenge old ideas and notions about the past, and even overturn common wisdom. What if a former enslaved man in Galveston, Texas, witnessed the first Juneteenth and told a completely different story from what most of us know about that day? Why were slave ships most prone to rebellion, including those carrying the most African women? How has Islam found its way into R&B, soul, jazz, and other American popular music? Who was Benjamin Banneker, really? In A High Price for Freedom, historian Clyde W. Ford addresses these and other questions, amplifying little-known voices from the African American past. In this wide-ranging, impeccably researched book, Ford begins with the 1656 court case of a woman named Elizabeth Key, who won a verdict for her freedom against her would-be enslaver—a victory that would forever change the nature, brutality, and course of American slavery. Ford examines a range of topics, from the role of women in fomenting slave revolts to an in-depth look at how Selma was not really about voting rights or even Martin Luther King, Jr, but about a twenty-six-year-old Black man named Jimmie Lee Jackson who was killed by an Alabama state trooper. As he laying dying in the only hospital that would treat Black people in February 1965, Jimmie Lee whispered to his nurse, a Catholic nun, “Sister, isn’t this a high price for freedom?” Eye-opening, enlightening, and often counterintuitive, this fascinating history includes compelling, heartrending, and factual accounts about people and events in the African American past that teach us things we never learned and challenge the stories we thought we knew.

Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past

A High Price for Freedom

“Ford’s overlap of past and present, narrative and commentary is masterful, and makes this volume all the more valuable to those readers wise enough to allow the past to inform the future. Of Blood and Sweat is a myth-busting work of genius that will stand as the last word on this vital subject for a long time to come.”—Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of A Slave in the White House and The Original Black Elite In this, provocative, timely, and painstakingly researched book, the award-winning author of Think Black tells the story of how Black labor helped to create and sustain the wealth of the white one percent throughout American history. Clyde W. Ford uses the lives of individual Black men and women as a lens to explore the role they have played in creating American institutions of power and wealth—in agriculture, politics, jurisprudence, law enforcement, culture, medicine, financial services, and many other fields—while not being allowed to fully participate or share in the rewards. Today, activists have taken the struggle for racial equity and justice to the streets. Of Blood and Sweat goes back through time to excavate the roots of this struggle, from pre-colonial Africa through post-Civil War America. As Ford reveals, in tracing the history of almost any major American institution of power and wealth you’ll find it was created by Black Americans, or created to control them. Painstakingly researched and documented, Of Blood and Sweat is a compelling look at the past that holds broad implications for present-day calls for racial equity, racial justice, and the abolishment of systemic racism, and offers invaluable insight into our understanding of Black history and the story of America.

Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth

Of Blood and Sweat

J.J., John Shannon's son, is a huge fan of hip-hop artist Yousef al-Salaam, formerly known as Deuce F., who recently converted to Sufism. The musician also happens to be on a terrorist watch list. When al-Salaam is shot dead, John Shannon agrees to investigate.

Deuce's Wild

Drawing on extensive research and his own wide travels, Ford vividly retells ancient African myths and tales and brings to light their universal meanings.

Hero with an African Face

Red Herring is a story about courage triumphant over fear. It's a mystery set in the Pacific Northwest-in Bellingham, Washington and the San Juan Islands. When radar spots a vessel heading toward an oil refinery, a Coast Guard patrol is dispatched, and an unmanned boat operating under autopilot is intercepted. Then the Coast Guard discovers explosives aboard, along with a note threatening the construction of a pipeline beneath an environmentally sensitive body of water. Fear of terrorism erupts. Ex-coast guard commander Charlie Noble, now a marine private investigator, agrees to search for the man most believe is behind the bomb plot. But Noble steps into a dangerous, puzzling web of intrigue involving corporate greed, Homeland Security, and murder. Through personal courage, gritty determination and uncompromising honor, he unravels the truth.

Red Herring

Inspired by the writings on mythology by the late Joseph Campbell, an illustrated survey retells the ancient legends of Africa, reveals their universal messages, and draws illuminating parallels between the symbols of African and those of other cultures.

Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa

The Hero with an African Face

Framed for murder and released from prison on appeal, former police detective John Shannon is determined to clear his name, a task complicated by an ex-CIA agent with mob connections and the abduction of his son.

The Long Mile

Retells the ancient legends of Africa, reveals their universal messages, and draws parallels between the symbols of Africa and those of other cultures.

Clyde W. Ford

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