Harold Ford senior

Harold Ford

Harold Eugene Ford Sr. (born May 20, 1945 in Memphis , Tennessee ) is an American politician . Between 1975 and 1997 he represented the state of Tennessee in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Harold Ford attended Greeter High School in Memphis until 1963 and then studied at Tennessee State University in Nashville until 1968 . He then attended John A. Gupton College . There he was trained as a funeral director - a job his father also did. In 1982 he studied at Howard University in the federal capital Washington . Ford's career was in the funeral industry. At the same time he began a political career as a member of the Democratic Party .

Between 1971 and 1974, Ford was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives . In 1972 he took part as a delegate at the Democratic Regional Convention in Tennessee. From 1972 to 1996 he was also a delegate to all Democratic National Conventions . In the 1974 congressional election , Ford was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington in the eighth constituency of Tennessee, where he succeeded Dan Kuykendall , whom he had defeated in the election, on January 3, 1975 . Ford's election victory was also due to the fact that his predecessor and rival candidate had long supported President Richard Nixon during the Watergate Affair in 1974 . After ten re-elections, Ford was able to complete eleven legislative terms in Congress by January 3, 1997 . From 1991 to 1995 he was chairman of the committee dealing with the problems of aging ( Select Committee on Aging ). Since 1983, Ford represented the ninth district of his home state in Congress. At the end of the 1980s he came under suspicion of fraud, which after lengthy judicial investigations proved unsustainable: Ford was acquitted.

In 1996 he renounced another congressional candidacy. Today Harold Ford lives in retirement. But he is still active in his party. His son Harold , born in 1970, was elected his successor in Congress and held that mandate until 2007.

Web links

• Harold Ford in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)