Kent Ford (activist)

Kent Ford was born in 1943 near Maringouin, Louisiana.[1] At the age of 12 he moved to Redmond, California with his three siblings, mother, and her husband.[1][2] At the age of 18 he had his first brush with police in California when he was arrested and jailed for three days for going 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.[2] Shortly after he moved to Portland, Oregon in 1961.[1] Here he setup a candy business buying supplies wholesale and having adolescents sell door-to-door.[2]

In 1967 he took a job at Safeway as a computer operator for 104 stores.[2] The same year he returned home to find he'd been robbed, and he subsequently called the police because $1,000 was missing.[2] When the police filed their report, it wasn't about the robbery, but instead about "possible subversive subject" - which referred to Kent Ford, who at the time had large maps of Vietnam and Cambodia in his home and writings by Mao Tse-Tung.[2] Several weeks later Ford intervened while police were arresting a man, and was subsequently arrested, assaulted, and held in jail on $80,000 bail on charges that he had incited a riot.[3] He was eventually acquitted and awarded a $6,000 settlement.[3]

Ford has three sons, James, Sekou, and Lumumba.[2]

Kent Ford at a demonstration at Reed College in June 2020.

In 2020, Ford participated in protests against police brutality in Portland, Oregon.[4]

In 1968, after the shooting of Martin Luther King Jr., a group of 20 Black young adults in Portland started regularly meeting to discuss the writings of Malcolm X and other activist writers; not more than a year later, in June 1969, Kent Ford was beaten and jailed for these activities.[5] After Ford's release from jail he organized a press conference on the steps of Portland Central Precinct, then at SW Second & Oak, and proclaimed, "If they keep coming in with these fascist tactics we're going to defend ourselves."[5][2] Shortly thereafter Huey Newton invited him to form and lead a Portland chapter of the Black Panther party.[5] Approximately six members of the reading group formed Portland's chapter.[6] In total, the initial Portland Panthers had approximately 50 members, half of whom were women.[2] One of the requirements of the Black Panther party in Portland was that members read at least two hours a day.[5]

The Portland Black Panther Party was active in demonstrations against the Vietnam War.[5] They created a children's breakfast program and fed hundreds of children daily in the dining room at Highland United Church of Christ in Northeast Portland.[5] The chapter also opened and operated two medical clinics in Portland, The Malcom X Dental Clinic and Fred Hampton Memorial People’s Health Clinic .[5][4]

As of 2020, Ford was active giving historic Black Panther walking tours about six times a year.[5]