RICHARD FORD (Photo by Genea L. Webb)
by Genea L. Webb
For New Pittsburgh Courier
Uniting the community of Clairton has been Richard L. Ford’s lifelong mission.
“When I came home from the Air Force, my dad asked me what I was going to do, and I told him I had two job offers—one in Detroit and one in Cleveland—and he said, ‘No, you can’t leave; you’ve got to stay here and take care of Clairton.’ At that time, I had no idea what he meant.”
Ford threw his hat into the city’s political arena in 2005 after serving on several city-based organizations and after noticing how things worked in Clairton.
“It was always so much friction with the people on council and with the school board and City Council, and I just couldn’t see how a city could really work with the two tax-collecting entities at odds with each other and then people on council not getting along,” Ford told the New Pittsburgh Courier in an exclusive interview. “How could they be working for the betterment of the community if everything is an argument?”
After serving 16 years on Clairton’s City Council, Ford retired from the position effective Dec. 31, 2021, the Courier has learned.
Clairton is run on a home rule charter system. There are four members on council including Mayor Richard Lattanzi who has a majority vote. Clairton, home to some 6,300 residents, has a 40 percent Black population. Ford was responsible for Clairton’s second ward, which has a population of about 1,280. In 1988, the city went into Act 47, a state oversight program for financially distressed municipalities. In 2015, the “City of Prayer” was able to come out of it.
When a community is in Act 47, the state will give it first choice for grants and other aid. But Clairton was in it for so long, those opportu nities dried up and the city had to work its way out. “Since becoming Act 47-free, the city has cultivated many partnerships,” Ford told the Courier.
RICHARD FORD (PHOTO BY GENEA L. WEBB)
“Clairton is a good town. It’s a family community and there are generations of families that live here,” said Ford, now 74, who grew up in the former Blair Heights housing projects. “I had a great childhood. We were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. We used to sled ride on curtain rods down Park Avenue and jump off before we hit the bottom.”
Ford graduated from the Clairton school system and attended Steel Valley Tech for electronics. Soon after, he joined the United States Air Force, where he met his wife of over five decades, Georgia. The couple has three surviving children and one son, Richard L. “Juicy” Ford, who passed away in 2016. The couple has several grandchildren.
Following an honorable discharge in the late 1960s, Ford returned to Clairton and became the first Black person hired in the United States Steel Clairton Works electronics department. Following completion of an electronic apprenticeship program and earning his Journeyman’s certificate, Ford moved on to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers where he took another electricity apprenticeship and graduated as salutatorian of his class.
During his years on Clairton City Council, Ford has worked with the Clairton City School District to help combat violence. And long before he took office, he represented the city on the Council of Governments Committee beginning in 1976. He also created the Unity Group of Clairton, which consists of the city, school district, Chamber of Commerce, economic development, and the city’s churches. Established in 2009, the Unity Group of Clairton has initiated Community Day, a 5K Run/2-mile walk and Taste of Clairton.
“That group gives community affairs. Our initial idea was to be more involved in the decision-making of what we would do for the community as a council. We’ve been kind of limited to this, but we are still working,” Ford said.
In 2013, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Clairton, while receiving the endorsement of the Clairton Democratic Committee.
In addition to his council endeavors, Ford ran a fish store called “Clairton’s Fish & More,” and owns about 10 properties in the city.
“Whatever he does—good or bad—he does it seriously. He has tenacity. He spent a great deal of time learning politics. He thought it may be his calling and he hit the ground running in politics to make Clairton a better city,” voiced former Clairton School Board member Pauline Long, who has known Ford since the early ‘70s. “When he tackles something, he goes all in and puts Clairton first. He always has.”
On the non-political side, Ford has served as vice president of the Clairton branch of the NAACP; deacon of Morning Star Baptist Church, chairman of the Clairton Christian Prison Ministry, and vice president of the Board of Directors of the Clairton Public Library.
After 16 years on council, Ford told the Courier it was time for him to step down and let someone else run with the torch. Ford cited his health was declining a bit. “Doctors said it was stress,” Ford said. “I can’t do all those meetings and stay away from home, but I will continue to fight for Clairton getting a grocery store because we need it. I will also continue the Unity Group, community day and some other things.”
Ford’s daughter, Rikell, has taken up her father’s mantle and now serves as vice president of the school board.
Longtime friend and committee person for Clairton’s fourth ward, Amzi Lightner, is excited to see what the future holds for Ford.
“He is concerned about our people and our community; he wants to see us have a better life in our community,” Lightner told the Courier. “It’s not where you live but how you live. He wants our community to flourish like any other community and he wants people to take pride in the community. He wants the same equality in Clairton for Blacks like any other community. He has established himself where he can make a difference in this city. He’s trying to do what’s right.”
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