Glen Ford, Black Journalist Who Lashed the Mainstream, Dies at 71

Along with his daughter, he is survived by his sister, Elena Rutherford. He lived in Plainfield, N.J.

Mr. Ford later said that he had led a “bifurcated existence” as a child, one that shaped his career as a progressive journalist. In addition to the geographic divide, his parents came from vastly different worlds: His mother was an Irish-American communist and civil rights activist, while his father, known by his on-air name “the Deuce,” was a disc jockey who hobnobbed with singers like James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Aretha Franklin.

Glen dropped out of high school when he was 17 to join the Army, where he received his G.E.D. He became a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne and served for three years stateside.

After leaving the Army in 1970, he returned to Georgia. He went to work at an Augusta radio station owned by James Brown, who encouraged Mr. Rutherford to shorten his name to Ford because it would be easier for listeners to remember.

Mr. Ford at first wanted to be a D.J., like his father. But the station manager assigned him to news, and gave him a list of the important preachers to contact for comment whenever a story broke. He recalled throwing the list in the trash, after which he went about developing ties with community leaders and activists around town, an approach he would take repeatedly through his career.

“I immersed myself in the real politics, the grass-roots politics, of Augusta, Georgia,” he said in a 2013 interview. “I decided I would find out who the real leaders were and not these accommodationist preachers.”

Mr. Ford later worked as a radio reporter in Atlanta and Baltimore before arriving in Washington, where in 1974 he became a correspondent and bureau chief for the Mutual Black Network, a syndicated news service.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/business/media/glen-ford-dead.html