James William Ford (December 22, 1893June 21, 1957) was an activist, a politician, and the vice-presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA in the years 1932, 1936, and 1940. Ford was born in Alabama and later worked as a party organizer for the CPUSA in New York City. He was also the first African American to run on a U.S. presidential ticket (1932) in the 20th century.
Early life and military career James William Ford was born in Pratt City, Alabama on December 22, 1893, the son of Lymon Ford and his wife, born Nancy May Reynolds. His father, a former resident of Gainesville, Georgia, had come to Alabama in the 1890s to work in the coal mines and steel mills.Mark Solomon, The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African-Americans, 1917–36. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1998; pg. 74. He worked for 35 years as a coal miner for the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company.Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth. New York: Young Communist League, n.d. ; pg. 19. James' mother earned additional money for the family as a domestic worker. At an early age Ford lost his grandfather, who was burned alive in a lynching for supposedly being too closely acquainted with a white woman.
Ford got his first job at age 13 working on a railroad track in Ensley, Alabama. Here he experienced discrimination by being paid less than white workers and was given the dirtiest tasks. He later worked as a blacksmith's helper at a steel plant, a machinist's helper, and as a laborer at a blast furnace.Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth, pg. 20. Ford worked his way through high school before attending Fisk University.
Just prior to graduation in 1917, Ford enlisted in the U.S. Army in support of the American war effort in World War I, believing that fighting in that war would assist in winning freedom for Black Americans back home. He entered the signal corps with the 325th Field Signal Battalion of the 92nd Infantry Division in France."Lists of Outgoing Passengers", 1917–1938. Textual records. 255 Boxes. NAI: 6234477. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774–1985, Record Group 92. Ford quickly became disillusioned with military service, seeing it as an extension of the Jim Crow policies which he sought to fight at home. Among the discrimination Ford witnessed within the army were false rape allegations levied against Black soldiers who spoke up against their ill-treatment. In the Army, Ford helped organize protest meetings among Black soldiers in order to organize for their rights and protections. Ford saw World War I as an imperialist war which served the interests of Wall Street and big banks. At the end of the war, Ford was discharged from the Army and returned to civilian life.
Ford returned to America as a skilled radio operator, but was deemed unemployable because he was Black. He ended up taking a job as an unskilled laborer at a mattress factory in Chicago.Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth, pg. 21. Ford landed a job working for the United States Post Office as a parcel post dispatcher, joining the Union of Post Office Workers (UPW Local 1) at that same time.Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth, pp. 21–22. Ford became active in his union local, earned the trust of Black and white workers alike, and was elected by them as a delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL). In his work with the CFL, Ford fought against segregationist policies pushed by the leadership of various unions.Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth, pg. 22. The young Ford possessed athletic prowess and was a member of the post office's baseball team. It was during his time working at the post office that Ford was drawn to the political message of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), particularly its call for self-determination for Black Americans. Ford was ultimately fired from his job at the post office due to his left-wing activism, which the party described as federal officials fearing his ability to unify Black and white workers along class lines.
Political career
1925–28 Early Involvement
In 1925, Ford was recruited into the Chicago section of the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC), established by the Communist Party as a mass organization of Black workers. The next year Ford joined the CPUSA.Branko Lazitch and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern: New, Revised, and Expanded Edition. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986; pg. 121.
In 1928 Ford was sent to the Soviet Union to represent the CPUSA at the 4th World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU), which was held in Moscow during March and April. He was elected to the RILU Secretariat.Solomon, The Cry Was Unity, pg. 68. In the Soviet Union, Ford studied various issues relating to the ethnic peoples that comprised various Republics within the USSR. Ford was particularly inspired by the treatment of Jews in the USSR, as opposed to how they had been treated under the Tsar's reign. Ford did not immediately return to the United States, instead remaining in Moscow to work on RILU matters as a full-time functionary.
In August 1928, Ford attended the 6th World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) on behalf of the CPUSA, where he was elected to the Comintern's Negro Commission.
1929 Speech on Black Liberation
In 1929, James Ford was elected as a delegate to the 1929 World Congress of the League Against Imperialism, which met in Frankfurt, Germany.Foster-Ford: The Candidates of Working Youth, pg. 24. Here, he gave a report titled "For the Emancipation of Negroes From Imperialism", (July 1929). In it, Ford argues that the key pillar holding up the exploitation of Black people is imperialism.
Ford explained how the enslavement of Black people went through 3 distinct stages during the roughly 300 years prior to his report. The "First" or "Classical Period" involved the birth of the slave trade and the slave profits accrued by Portuguese, Dutch, and British imperialists. In Ford's estimation, it is the relations of capitalist production that are the foundation for his people's enslavement. The "Second" period was that of industrial capitalism and the division of Africa amongst the world's premier imperialist powers, with the "Third" stage corresponding to modern imperialism and the completion of Africa's division and enslavement.
In this speech, Ford consistently asserted that class struggle is the prime vehicle for the ultimate emancipation of Black people on a global scale. While his life's work focused primarily on the Black liberation struggle within America, Ford saw the struggles and interests of Black Americans as being inseparably tied to that of the international working class. He said:"[T]he Negroes' struggle for freedom cannot be fought upon the basis of race or nationalism solely... The struggle is international, involving the unity of the Negro peoples with the exploited and oppressed of all countries.
The Negro people must begin to break down all policies and tendencies that isolate them and isolate the workers and oppressed peoples of other countries from their struggles. This is of great significance since "race war" slogans and racial issues are being raised to obscure the real struggle against imperialism."According to Ford, only the broad "toiling masses" of Black people themselves are able to break the chains of white supremacy and capitalism. Ford asserted that Black liberation struggles which represent the demands of intellectuals and the middle class will never truly free Black people. Rather, he suggested that the working masses must lead the intellectuals and middle class in order for any Black liberation struggle to even have the hope of being successful.
Ford proposed the adoption of a trade union program, the demands of which included (among other things) an 8-hour working day, protections for young and women workers, opposition to class collaboration, and opposition to white supremacy. In outlining a program for Black liberation struggles in general, Ford voices support for the independence of Liberia, Haiti, and Jamaica (among other countries).
In July 1929, Ford attended the 10th Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), at which he delivered two speeches.Lazitch and Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, pg. 121. Later that month, Ford attended the 2nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism, where he was elected to the General Council and the executive committee.
1930–1934
During the "Third Period" (1929–1933), many in the Comintern advocated that the American Communist Party launch the controversial slogan "Self-determination for the Black Belt" — a call for de facto or even de jure sovereignty of the broad swath of the American South in which Black Americans constituted a demographic majority. Ford considered the question of whether American Blacks constituted an "oppressed nationality" to be a largely academic matter, in view of the exceedingly limited contact which the Communist Party had with the Black community. The supporters of "self-determination" for the Black people as an "oppressed nationality" (as opposed to fighting for equal rights for an "oppressed racial minority" of Americans) won the day. Thereafter Ford dutifully spoke out on behalf of independence of the American Black belt, in accord with the new party line. Within the Black Belt region, most African Americans were more concerned with getting aid for their daily lives: help with evictions, jobs, services, and civil rights.
In 1930 Ford organized the 1st International Conference of Negro Workers in Hamburg, which was sponsored by the Comintern. Here, he was elected as Secretary of the short-lived International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers as well as editor of its journal, The Negro Worker. There he was supplied with a young mistress (an agent of the Soviet GPU) and a monthly pension from Soviet intelligence.Valtin, Jan, Out Of The Night: Memoir Of Richard Julius Herman Krebs, New York: Alliance Book Corporation (1940), pp. 274–275 While in Hamburg, Ford participated in distributing copies of The Negro Worker via couriers to sailors on ships headed to British possessions, including Jamaica and the Union of South Africa.Valtin, Jan, pp. 274–275 In response to disputes on the docks in South Africa, where copies of The Negro Worker were found, the British government lodged a protest with the German government, which resulted in Ford's arrest and departure from Hamburg.
Ford returned to the United States in 1930. He assumed the role of Vice President of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the organizational successor to ANLC. In 1932 Ford was elected to the governing Political Bureau of the CPUSA. He had become a top political leader of the Communist Party USA.
At its 1932 presidential nominating convention, the CPUSA nominated Ford as its candidate for Vice President of the United States, running on the ticket with presidential nominee William Z. Foster; this increased his national recognition. He was the first African American to run on a presidential ticket. The placing of a Black man near the top of the Communist ticket was symbolic of the party's self-declared commitment to racial equality and its commitment to advance Blacks to its own leadership.Solomon, The Cry Was Unity, pg. 216.
Historian Mark Solomon notes that this was part of a broader campaign:
In all, the Foster-Ford ticket tallied 102,991 votes in 1932, which constituted a major step forward when gauged against the organization's performance during its first two electoral efforts in 1924 and 1928.