Town Hall Seattle and Northwest African American Museum present
Clyde W. Ford with Mike Davis
Black Lives and the Making of White Power and Wealth
Monday, April 18, 2022, 6:00PM Google iCalendar Digital Stage This is a virtual event, no in-person attendance is available.
When we look at American history, it’s impossible to look at our country’s institutions of power and wealth without also looking at the foundational labor of enslaved Black men and women. The slave trade was essential to U.S. commodities like tobacco and cotton, and it shaped institutions from transportation and law enforcement to medicine and financial services. In his newest book, Of Blood and Sweat, author Clyde W. Ford looks at the lives of individual Black men and women and their roles in creating and sustaining the wealth of the white one percent throughout American history. Today, as activists take the fight for racial equity and justice to the streets, Ford traces the roots of this struggle from pre-colonial Africa through post-Civil War America. Ford joins us at Town Hall to discuss how the past holds broad implications for present-day calls for racial equity, racial justice, and the abolishment of systemic racism and offers invaluable insight into our understanding of Black history and the story of America. Clyde W. Ford is the author of thirteen works of fiction and non-fiction. He’s also a psychotherapist, an accomplished mythologist, and a sought-after public speaker. In 2006, Ford received the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award in African American fiction. He was named a “Literary Lion” by the King County Library System in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Clyde was voted “Best Writer of Bellingham, Washington” in 2006 and 2007 by readers of the Cascadia Weekly and he received the 2007 Bellingham Mayor’s Arts Award in Literature. Ford is currently a speaker for Humanities Washington, an affiliate of the NEA, where he presents a program entitled, “Let’s Talk About Race,” around the state. Clyde has participated in hundreds of media interviews and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, New Dimensions Radio, and National Public Radio. He was born in New York City and now lives in Bellingham, Washington, where he writes aboard his 30-foot trawler and cruises the waters of the Inside Passage. Mike Davis is a local journalist covering arts, culture, and politics for the South Seattle Emerald. Davis is also co-host of “Clap Back Culture” on Converge Media. Presented by Town Hall Seattle and the Northwest African American Museum.
