Iowa Independent Q&A: ‘From the Hood to the Hill’ With State Rep. Wayne Ford

FADE IN:

A Washington, D.C., street corner:
The bus is coming, and a young Wayne Ford and his friends are waiting, ready to rob someone. He’s voted “most likely not to succeed” by his high school classmates in 1969.

Rochester, Minn.:
A football scholarship whisks him from a predominantly black city to the Midwest to attend Rochester Junior College. He struggles with literacy and carries a gun to school because of racial threats.

Drake University campus, Des Moines, Iowa:
It’s graduation day in 1974. Ford earns a bachelor’s degree in education.

Corner of Sixth and Forest Avenues:
It’s 1985. Even as executive director of Urban Dreams, a nonprofit agency he founded to help ex-offenders and low-income residents, he regularly carries a gun to work. The agency, which experiences financial challenges and controversy, is situated along a dangerous street, rife with prostitutes and crime.

State Capitol:
It’s 2008. February, Black History Month. Ford, a Democrat from Des Moines, is the state’s longest-serving African-American legislator after 12 years.

“From the Hood to the Hill: An Urban Dream.” It’s not a screenplay for Black Entertainment Television’s movie of the week – yet. It’s the working title of Ford’s as-yet-unwritten autobiography, detailing his tumultuous rise from juvenile delinquent to Des Moines political powerhouse.

Ford, 56, a former DJ and radio talk show host, is living the life he prophesied as an eighth-grader when asked to write his own obituary. Iowa Independent caught up with the busy legislator, who tends to talk about himself in the third person and said he could “sell ice to an Eskimo,” to discuss his life, work and the challenges facing blacks Iowans.

Iowa Independent: What are the principles you live by?

Ford: The first thing would be my God. That’s number one. Me and God have got such a good relationship that when I was a young kid in a fight, I was losing the fight. I said, “God I ain’t going to make it through this one, please stop this fight.” God stopped the fight. That’s one of the first times I saw how God affected my life. … Looking back on my life, I know what God was preparing me for … Those of us who have been gifted to know what God put us here for — whether it’s Michelangelo, Einstein, Rembrandt or Dante — some of us are lucky enough to know what God put us here for, and we do our work. We all have the opportunity to know what God put us here for, but that’s a journey, a search, a hit and miss. That’s swinging a left jab, that’s ducking, that’s getting your jaw broken and coming back.

Iowa Independent: How has your long tenure at the Legislature helped Iowans – particularly black Iowans?

Ford: … I went in there with the right philosophy. That I’m not here to turn anybody’s mind around in one day. I’m on a journey. It might be a decade or longer before everything starts coming together. It might be a long time before everything comes together, but it will come together. And my one goal before I leave Capitol Hill is to make sure that you understand the inclusive nature of Iowa — that you understand minorities and black folks way better than you ever have. My legislation speaks for itself.

Iowa Independent: It’s Black History Month. How is that meaningful to you and who are some of your heroes and why?

Ford: Frederick Douglass. “If there is no struggle, there’s no progress.” I used to rob buses when I was kid. I’m out of southeast Washington, D.C. One time I robbed a bus almost near Frederick Douglass’ home in southeast Washington. I admired this man so much I told the guys, “Let’s go further down the street to rob the bus. I don’t want to rob the bus in front of Frederick Douglass’ home.”

Iowa Independent: Seriously?

Ford: I’m too old to lie, Dana. I’m past that. Malcolm X. I like Malcolm X because of his transformation. I like Martin Luther King because he also showed he was a great person and maybe a saint, but he smoked cigarettes, he had issues with his wife. He had other things about him to show us the human qualities of the saint Martin Luther King. Evelyn Davis [who was a community activist and child advocate in Des Moines]. … My son and my wife.

Iowa Independent: What is an issue you want to tackle that people don’t know about?

Ford: Lead paint. It’s affecting all of us, but it’s really affecting minorities. … I really want to make blacks and whites aware that it ain’t water that’s the number one environmental issue in this state, it ain’t the water. It’s lead paint. … Iowa is one of the worst in the country on lead paint.

Ethanol and biofuels. I want to make sure that we’ve got training programs to make sure that blacks and low-income whites and other minorities can have training programs in their communities. … I want minorities to get a chance to get trained to be a part of this new movement.

Iowa Independent: One other thing having to do with that question. What do you see as the top challenge facing blacks in the state?

Ford: Domestication. A lot of blacks who are from Iowa who I’ve met in the 40 years I’ve been here, they told me that their mothers and fathers and grandparents were domesticated workers. Either they worked in the coal mine or their mothers and fathers cleaned up white folks’ houses. … We’ve got to get that domesticated mentality away from blacks and say, “I don’t care what my mother or grandfather did, you can be a doctor. You can be a lawyer.” … Most blacks of power – 95 percent of all of the blacks in power or of influence are not even from this state. … I ain’t from here … In my neighborhood where I grew up when I was out there doing crime and robbing buses and all that, you couldn’t just come in my neighborhood and do what you want. You couldn’t come in my neighborhood and be the kingpin. Be the cool guy. We’d say wait a minute, we’ve got somebody in line for that plus you’re not from my neighborhood. … I mean if George Washington Carver can go to school here, if we can start the National Bar Association in 1925, in 1917 Fort Des Moines … to Edna Griffin. The legacy is here.

Iowa Independent: What’s the biggest challenge for Wayne Ford right now?

Ford: My vision as a young kid got me to about where I am now. … I’m 56 years old. I’m not ready to say job well done. I know when President Bush got on the boat and he said job done. The war is over. And they’re still fighting. I’m not crazy. But the bottom line is that I believe the best days are ahead of me. I believe that one of my dreams will be to leave a legacy, along with Urban Dreams, to show a kid who grows up as a bastard child, who went away, who did anything for attention, who used to rob people and do wrong, but always had a strong belief in God, went to college when I couldn’t even read and write, worked hard, and looked at people for who they are . . .

Iowa Independent: Given some of the things you’ve worked on, the longitudinal study of black families, the disproportionate number of blacks in prison, how optimistic are you about the future for blacks in the state?

Ford: It’s my son’s generation. That gives me a lot of hope. Some of y’all leave and some of y’all stay, but you recognize and you’re proud to say that Des Moines, Iowa, is your home. … I do see educated blacks coming back and visiting and having dreams of doing something, but we’ve got to deal with the majority in this community and state who are not educated. We’ve got to start training programs in their neighborhoods. We have to develop an infrastructure for those blacks who are not getting educated so they can get help. Blacks are suspended at a higher rate than any place in the country. You know the incarceration rate and the challenges. I know at Urban Dreams we’re doing our part, but that’s just one little thing. Urban Dreams reminds me of the story of the little boy who put his little finger in the dam to stop the water. But the pressure one day is going to blow up.

Iowa Independent: Much has been said — a lot of it negative — about the state of the black family and the crisis some say it’s in. What are your thoughts? Is the black family in crisis and what can be done about it?

Ford: I love God. And if I didn’t say this, he’d look at me and say, “Ford, you’re not speaking from the heart.” My mother and father weren’t married when I was born, and I wish they were. Who knows how I might be, but that didn’t happen. Seventy percent of all births of black families — the mother and father are not married. … If we can’t change the morality … We as a community, and this is on us, we have to get rid of some of this black self-hatred. … People like Wayne Ford said, `Yes, I think you should be married before you have a baby.” People in power saying regardless of what happened to me, things do need to change. We’ve got some major issues.

April Galler, 22, receptionist; Akil Jabbar, 28, ex-offender programs, and Ford.

Iowa Independent: How do you change something when it’s generational like that?

Ford: If the spiritual base got us out of slavery, then we need to all go back and think about Timbuktu. We had some of the greatest civilizations in the world. A lot of young kids don’t know this. History shows you that a lot of segments have been enslaved, but some segments have gone further than others. So why haven’t the black people moved further? Traditions and self-hatred … When it comes to blacks, we have a thing about who we are. Our skin tone. We still have some things that we’re still playing on.

Iowa Independent: What are some steps that ordinary citizens can take to work on some of these problems in the state?

Ford: Pick a nonprofit that you love and care for and that you really want to help. … Observe it. Get a feel for it, and ask how you can be involved. If 70 percent of us are born [out of wedlock] then it means the black community is looking for parents. Go to the senior citizens’ homes — the black ones in our community. You’ve got two ways to go, community. Give. Give. Give.

Iowa Independent: If money were no object, what are five things you would do for the black community?

Ford: I would get some black schools. They might be schools for males or females, but they would be black schools. Even in my wildest dreams, for me to say that every white teacher can really teach a black kid and really has no fear of black kids, I’d really be lying to you. I’ve talked to enough teachers who have said, “Wayne, I don’t understand your people.”  I’m not knocking white teachers. White teachers taught me. But I’m saying if I had the money, I would definitely open some black schools … A black charter school. I really think there is a segment of our society that really needs to be trained by blacks. A great example is Marva Collins from Chicago. In a state that used to lead the country in education, we definitely need that.
2. I’m doing one now and that’s the one-stop shop employment training with [Des Moines Area Community College.]
3. A [research project] with Simpson College.
4. Biofuels technology training for all Iowans.
5. Regardless of what your spiritual base is, get closer to God. The church got us out of slavery, and the church will take us through the 21st century.

Iowa Independent: Anything else you want people to know about you that we don’t know?

Ford: I used to carry a gun when I first started Urban Dreams because this was the most dangerous corner in the state of Iowa. That was the Wayne Ford 20-something years ago. Young men fight wars. Old men make them. People probably don’t understand my transformation. That I was the wild talking, rapid talking, take no prisoners, black fanatic of the 70s, which my resume supports. That I have truly evolved to, I think, an individual that some have said has become the most powerful black person in the state of Iowa. I can put my resume up against anyone. … I’ve had a lot of controversy in my life from the people I’ve hired. I’ve had some ups and downs. I’m glad that I’ve mellowed out. I’m glad that people see a different type of Wayne Ford. A lot of us are looking for love. Especially those of us who weren’t raised by a mother or a mother and father. A lot of that yelling is really saying, “Stay away from me because I’m that fragile.” I think at 56 years old, that I’m at peace with myself now more than I’ve ever been. My wife [Assistant Polk County attorney Romonda Belcher-Ford] has helped me a great deal with that. I recognize that the best days are ahead, but if God were to take me today or tomorrow, this legacy that I’ve left: Urban Dreams, the Brown and Black Forum … generations will be able to come and look at my bills … and be able to say the state of Iowa slowly got better. … I have been a part of that. I’m not ready to say job well done yet, but I sure feel good.