AN UNPLANNED LIFE

A Black leader charts his distinguished career.

Thomas (1934-2021), president and CEO of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in the late 1960s and president of the Ford Foundation from 1979 to 1996, recounts a life marked by talent, determination, and success. Born to immigrant parents and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Thomas excelled at school even while working to help his widowed mother support the family. He graduated from Columbia in 1956 and from Columbia Law School in 1963. After a few years in the U.S. Attorney’s office, he was named as deputy commissioner for legal matters for the New York City Police Department. Thomas characterizes the trajectory of his life as “unplanned.” Clearly, he was in the right places at the right times to make fortuitous connections, but his many achievements reflect his own vision and leadership. In the late 1960s, he met Robert Kennedy, who intrigued Thomas with the innovative idea of promoting urban revitalization through community and for-profit collaboration. That meeting led to Thomas’ taking the helm at a major restoration project that created a new urban development model—which incited fractious debate. As he gained prominence, he was invited to join the boards of major institutions, including Columbia University, Citibank, Alcoa, PepsiCo, and Conoco. “In more cases than not,” he notes, “I’d be made lead director of those boards as well, the first time a Black person would have the position.” Serving as a trustee of the Ford Foundation during its search for a new president, he soon was tapped for the position—a challenging job at a time when the foundation needed major restructuring and refocusing. At the same time, he devoted his energies and influence to ending apartheid in South Africa. In a memoir that privileges the public over the private, Thomas imparts the political, cultural, and economic milieu from which he emerged and the world he indelibly shaped. Darren Walker, the current president of the Ford Foundation, provides the foreword.

A vividly detailed record of significant accomplishments.