Think Black Cover

Author Clyde W. Ford to visit LCC to lead a lecture and discussion centered around his new book, Think Black

Lower Columbia College (LCC) is pleased to announce that Clyde W. Ford, author of the new book Think Black, will appear at 6:00 p.m. on October 3 in the Laufman Lecture Hall, located in room 101 of the Health & Science Building (HSB) on the LCC campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Mark your calendar

About the Book

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 accepted their black colleague and some 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.

Read the Seattle Times article, At Big Blue, America’s first black software engineer blazed a trail but paid a heavy price, published July 26, 2019.


Clyde Ford

About the Author

Clyde W. Ford is the author of twelve works of fiction and nonfiction. He is also a psychotherapist, an accomplished mythologist, and a sought-after public speaker. He has received a number of awards, including the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award in fiction. He is currently a speaker for Humanities Washington, an affiliate of the NEA, and has been featured frequently in the media, including the Oprah Show, New Dimensions Radio, and NPR. He lives in Bellingham, Washington.


For more information, contact Paz Clearwater, Director of Student Activities for Lower Columbia College, pclearwater@lowercolumbia.edu or (360) 442-2443.