The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-05-30
FOrd's Biography
Tells Now Negro
Worker Revolted
JAMES w. roRn

JAMES w. FORD, Communist Party
. candidate for Vice-President Of the
United States and former postal
worker in Chicago, was born De-
Cember 22nd, 1893, at Pratt City, Ala.
Of working -class parents Lylnon
Ford his father, who died IN 1925,
had worked 35 years for the Ten-
nessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Go,
as q coal miner and in the steel mills.
His mother, Nancy Reynolds. helped
to supplement the meager family in
come by doing domestic work,
The earliest memory of James W.
Ford Is the LYNCHtNG OF HIS
GRANDFATHER. in Gainesville, ca.
His grandfather worked as q track
walker between that town and At
lants He was an otitspoken man
and had many enemies amongst the
foremen.. one night he WAS attacked
by 4 group of men, beaten and
thrown into 2 pile Of burning cross
ties. He was accused Of familiar
ity with ! white woman the usual
excuse for lynching Negroes in the
South. That left an everlasting I'M
preston on James ", Ford,
James w Ford went to work at the
age of 10 on a railroad track job at
Enslev, Alabama. working variously
as 4 blacksmith helper in steel
plant, inachinist helper and also a
laborer in blast furnace side by side
with his father. He worked his way
through school, graduating high
school III three years. While attend
ing Fisk University at Nashville, Ten
nessee, and within q few months Of
graduation, he enlisted in 1917 in the
u. S. army, Ford entered the signal
corps service, IN charge Of radio tnd
telegraph communication for The
18th Brigade of the 92nd Division in
France. While over there he helped
organize protest meetings against
JIM Crowisn and mistreatment Of
Negro soldiers, especially frame-up
charges Of rape against soldiers in
his outfit.
When he received his discharge
from the army, and although expert
as a RADIO operator and skilled in
telephone communications, he could
not find work. He finally found a
job in mattress factory in Chicago
and then in the post office Of that
city as parcel post dispatcher. He
joined the Postal Workers Union No
l. He fought against the speed-up
system and the bureaucracy in the
union He was elected delegate to-.
the Chicago Federation of Labor,
where he carried on many struggles
in the interests Of Negro workers and
for general progressive policy. He
was finally fired from his job for his
activities.
Ford participated in the formation,
or the American Negro Labor Con-
gress in 1925, and finally joined the
Communist Party in the early part
of 1926. He was elected delegate in
1927 from the Trade Union Educa-
tional League to the Fourth World
Congress of the Red International Of
Labor Unions meeting in Moscow.
AT the congress he took an active
part in Negro work and was elected
to its Executive Board and General
Council. He remained in Moscow
for about nine months, working in
the Negro Bureau of Labor Unions.
He also attended as delegate the
World Congress Of the Communist
International in 1928. He was dele
gate in 1929 to the World Congress
of the League Against Imperialism
in Hamburg, Germany, and is at pres
ent a member of its Executive Com
mittee. He was arrested in 1929 in
New York City for leading demon
stration against the shooting of ma
tives in Haiti by marines. Ford was
secretary for one year of the Inter
national Trade Union Committee OF
Negro Workers and editor of the
Negro Worker" During 1881 he
toured Europe in behalf of the eight
Scottsboro boys, who have been sem
fenced to death by an Alabama
Court.
Ford was deported from Austria in
1881 by the socialist chief of police
Graetz for speaking in defense of
colonial people, and is at present q
member of the Political Bureau Of
inc Central Committee Of the Com
munist Party of the United states
Of America,
Foster Biography