NC school superintendent questions state board member’s ‘white supremacy’ tweet
State Superintendent Mark Johnson is questioning James E. Ford’s ability to serve on the State Board of Education following a tweet by the former history teacher which appears to link “white moderates” with “white supremacy.”
Ford tweeted his frustration on Monday with the Democratic Party “still playing to ‘swing voters’ aka ‘white moderates’ aka ‘white supremacy.” Ford, who is registered as an unaffiliated voter, tweeted as the Democratic National Convention opened its virtual convention, which on Tuesday officially selected Joe Biden as the presidential nominee.
Ford explained in subsequent tweets that he was referencing the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” where Martin Luther King Jr. complained in 1963 that “white moderates” were holding back the civil rights movement.
On Thursday, Johnson publicly released a letter to Ford saying it’s “unacceptable to equate middle-of-the-road North Carolinians to being racists.” Johnson noted that Ford leads the board’s strategic planning committee, which is responsible for drafting a plan to improve opportunities and equity for all students and educators.
“How can you continue to serve in this role when you have equated a large group of sensible constituents to racists?” Johnson writes. “Your actions have called into question your ability to continue to lead this committee and to serve on the State Board of Education.”
He said in the letter that Ford “should at the very least resign from the Strategic Planning Committee” unless Ford can prove that his “radical views” won’t harm his ability to serve on the committee.
Ford cites ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’
Ford declined comment Thursday on Johnson’s letter. But he addressed a Carolina Journal article about his original tweet with a Twitter thread on Wednesday.
Ford linked to a Washington Post article about the “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” Ford went on to extensively quote from King’s famous letter.
“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate,” Ford quoted in his tweet. “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the [KKK], but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
Ford is an education consultant and former Charlotte-Mecklenburg social studies teacher who was named North Carolina Teacher of the Year in 2014. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper appointed Ford to the state board in 2018.
Ford has been an outspoken activist on making schools more equitable. He has helped lead the state board’s push to make social studies classes more inclusive of the perspectives of minority groups.
Johnson, a Republican, has clashed with both Cooper and the board’s Democratic majority on multiple issues.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 3:39 PM.
