From Kid to Congressman

The smile is that of a polished politician: wide and easily accessible for a photo op. But unlike most veteran politicians, there is no hint of gray in the hair of 27-year-old Harold E. Ford Jr.

As the youngest member of the 105th Congress, Ford has taken advantage of his rich political family name in Tennessee and a lifetime of growing up running the halls of Congress, noting the best vending machines and befriending politicians he now works with.

Like his namesake father, who served 22 years in Washington before his son took over, he’s a self-starter who knows that his constituents in Memphis’ 9th District want a savvy politician and not a timid kid.

“Where a lot of people checked things out for a while, Harold jumped right in,” said 32-year-old Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., the Chicago Democrat, who, like Ford, followed his father into politics.

Ford and Jackson, part of a new generation of legislators, have been mistaken for interns and even jokingly ordered to pour coffee by some of their Democratic comrades.

But Ford can laugh at himself and knows that his boyish face, slender frame and quiet green eyes fool some people who may think his age is a way to take advantage of him.

“People didn’t elect a young person,” Ford said. “They elected a congressman. I’ve got a job to do and I take it very seriously.”

This past weekend was Ford’s first real West Coast trip. And he took in Los Angeles, seeking to build greater ties in the black community and with other local politicians. He’s traveled to Los Angeles a few times before, but has eagerly awaited this trip since taking office eight months ago.

“California is like a laboratory,” he said Saturday. “All the things that you face here are things that America will face or is facing. I think what happens in the next two to four years here will influence how we move on critical issues like immigration, welfare reform and affirmative action.”

At a time in life when many his age are trying to find a decent-paying job and trudging through the twentysomething discovery period of dating and deciding what to do with their futures, Ford is drafting legislation in Congress. It’s a big shift from the law exams he was taking last year at the University of Michigan.

“The challenge facing any job, especially for a young person, is making folks respect you and understand where you are coming from,” he said.

As of this Congress, 101 African Americans, including Ford, have served on Capitol Hill, 97 in the House and four in the Senate. Ford said he’s thankful for growing up in a far more accepting society than what his father encountered as the first black congressman in Tennessee’s history. And, as the first member of Congress to have been born in the 1970s, Ford acknowledges that all the marching and sacrifice in the turbulent 1950s and 1960s provided the foundation for him to get elected in the 1990s.

“That’s what I tell people wherever I go,” Ford said. “I am your son, your grandson. You created these opportunities for me.”

In college, Ford worked as an assistant to the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and wrote a bimonthly column in the college paper. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then after completing law school in 1996, he started his campaign.

“At an early age I had an interest in politics and I would talk about it casually with my father,” he said. “But it was never something where we sat down and talked about it until then.”

His father served as his campaign manager and still plays a major role in his life. “We talk every day,” Ford said. “He doesn’t call me and urge me to vote one way or admonish me for not voting a certain way. We have a friendship.”

His mother, Dorothy, worked on improving school lunch programs through the Department of Agriculture and was often the person who tended to Ford and his two younger brothers. “She did double duty as a mother and father because my dad was gone so much.”

But the family name can mean both instant recognition and criticism, with some saying that the sons of famous politicians earned their office simply by having the right last names.

Ford, who’s unmarried and was voted as one of Ebony magazine’s most eligible bachelors, said his mission in meeting with local politicians and leaders, including Mayor Richard Riordan on Monday, was to preach the new inclusive and diversity-based politics of Generation X.

“I think young folks have had a tremendous impact on pop culture, the entertainment industry, technology and other areas,” he said. “It’s young people that are really making those breakthroughs and those advances in creating new types of jobs.

“But one of the problems we face in government is that much of the policy or the politicians are not facing the concerns of my generation. Part of it is our fault because we are not as engaged in the process as we ought to be.”

As an Internet and information junkie who can roll off sports statistics and digs the music of the artist formerly known as Prince, Ford is eager to bring more respect to 40 million Generation Xers who are often labeled as slackers.

“In the past, government officials just gave a speech and that was it,” said John Bryant, CEO of the urban renewal program HOPE and head of the the New Leaders, a coalition of black L.A. professionals that Ford addressed Monday. “But we need leaders like Harold who are not isolationists; people who can bring Latinos together with blacks. He might be 27 going on 51, but I think he’s willing to be a bridge-builder.”

Although he is still learning the ropes, Ford has his eyes set on a Senate seat in the coming years.

Ford said he sometimes has to pause to take in what he has accomplished in a short time.

“Every time I am driving to work and I see the Capitol I get this sort of awesome feeling,” he said before breaking into that smile he’s making more picture-perfect by the day. “It sort of underscores why I am doing this. Not only am I the first African American to succeed his father in office, but I want to be around for like 20 years and really make some changes in this country.”