| Glen Ford is irreplaceable not just because his writing was so sharp, but also because his politics were so clearly of the left. He was not a liberal, or a Democrat, or a progressive. He was a Marxist, and he brought that ideology to all that he did. In so doing he revealed important information that is regularly disregarded or disappeared. He also had a talent for making every issue understandable and making connections with the reality of people's lives. When he spoke of the political duopoly, the Republicans and Democrats who provide political theater as they do the work of the ruling classes, no one was confused about what they were witnessing as large numbers lost their homes in the financial crash of 2008 or were forced to take low wage or even "gig" work, the culmination of capitalist intent for everyone else in the world.
Members of Glen Ford's generation are now among the elders and others are also passing away. Every year there are fewer and fewer people who share his life experience as a Vietnam war era veteran and a member of the Black Panther Party. But the passing away of a generation is not new and we can never rely solely upon the living in order to analyze the past.
We rely on documented history passed on by the relentless truth tellers. That is what Glen Ford did. He told the truth about the history of the Thanksgiving holiday, segregation, imperialism, and billionaire rule. We rely on real journalists to help us understand the world. No one did that better than Glen Ford.
—Margaret Kimberley from her Introduction to The Black Agenda |
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