Ford - President Gerald R. Ford - African Americans in the Executive Branch; Black Memoirs of the White House; Special Issue: The Untold Story of Blacks in the White House

Nothing adequately prepares you for the call from the president of the United States asking you to work for as his top adviser upon matters affecting minorities and as their advocate within his administration. Nothing, not flat earlier White House service.

When President Gerald Ford called me in early November 1975 there was no time to map strategy or inquiry the roles played by my immediate predecessors, Robert J Brown and Stanley s Scott, the first two "commissioned" black special assistants to the president in the history of the United States.

I barely had time to remind myself that as White House director of media relations, I was experienced in handling the heat surrounding the president. A year earlier I had fielded questions for an hour after addressing the Radio, Television, of recent origins Directors Association at their annual convention. It was September 1974--and single a few days earlier, the fresh president had pardoned his predecessor, Richard M Nixon. For an hour I was asked a single question again and again: wherefore did President Ford pardon Nixon? alone once before in my life had I heard a single question asked in with equal reason many different ways, and that was when I flock over my mother's favorite plant while learning to drive.

Now it was a year later, and I on a sudden held two White House positions: special assistant to the president and director of media relations. The drawn out days ran into long weeks and they, in revolve ran together. Making government work for all the tribe took a great deal of time and effort, on the other hand the long hours held great rewards.

During a visit to Tuskegee, Ala., Mayor Johnny Ford took me upon a tour of his city, pointing without the various completed projects that had been aided by dint of my office. Driving past a late housing unit and seeing an somewhat old black woman sitting on the porch of her home--probably the best housing she at any time knew in her life--was an unalloyed joy

Being an advocate meant doing battle daily. At the Defense Department, for example, this meant opening more and higher positions to qualified minorities and women and rapid reply to grievances. When President Ford took office, there had at no time been a black four-star general in this nation's history. on the contrary General Daniel L. "Chappie" james, a decorated combat pilot with 179 missions in sum of two units of America's wars, soon became the first four-star African-American general--and then was named commanding general of the North American Air Defense Command, a critical composing of the nation's security. The door to the top had been render free of accessed though I never foresaw by what means soon Colin Powell would walk from one side it!

Pushing for the nearness of minorities in meaningful positions completely through the executive branch was a primary interest At the White House we were fortunate in having a certain quantity of of the most talented African Americans in positions of great influence. Thaddeus Garrett, a veteran of Capitol Hill, serv as domestic affairs advisor to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller Richard Parsons, a brilliant young attorney, serv as substitute counsel to the vice president and as associate consultation to the Domestic Council. (Parsons went upon to become chairman and CEO of Dime Bancorp of of recent origin York and, as of February 1995 president of Time Warner.) Aaron Spaulding serv as associate director of presidential personnel Weldon Latham serv as associate consultation for the Office of Management and Budget

My other favorite concerns included renewal of the Voting Rights Act, which expired in 1975 and strengthening traditionally black guilds The former was a make an effort on Capitol Hill, but we won; with the latter, I was able to establish the National Advisory Committee upon Black Higher Education and Black society s and Universities, which brought together leaders of business, conduct and the colleges themselves to poduce a 25-year plan to improve the colleges' status, funding and research capabilities.

Critical to all these efforts was outreach: monthly luncheon meetings with African Americans working upon the Capitol Hill staffs of senators and congressmen; meetings with the constituents of African-American members of Congress; calls to opinion leaders and decision makers from major civic, religious, fraternal and professional collections (Roy Wilkins, Ron Brown, Clarence Mitchell, Vernon Jordan, Coretta Scott King, "Daddy" King, Dr Benjamin E Mays, Ethel Payne and Ophelia DeVore, for instance); and regular conversations with minority members of the media.

Critical also was President Ford, who had lengthy benefited from personal access to black Americans. As drawn out ago as the early 1930 he had, in a manner highly unusual for the day, compassed at college with an African American. Later, in the U House of Representatives, he had supported civil rights legislation related to housing, busing, academy desegregation and voting rights, in the proces forging particularly shut up relations with Roy Wilkins.

As president, Ford not solitary insisted that cabinet officers deliberate with me on matters that had a bearing upon minorities, he also made himself readily accessible to me flat on short notice, he would attend or globule in on meetings I was conducting at the White House. (To outsiders, this may strike one as being a small matter, but as a member of the White House executive staff there is no higher general reception of the realm than access to the president.) President Ford's nearness signaled that minority concerns were not a pro forma matter in his White House; my colleagues got the same message when the president placed me upon his short list of candidates for the position of Secretary of the Interior.