Think Black_A Memoir of Sacrifice, Success, and Self-Loathing in Corporate America by Clyde W. Ford

Author:Clyde W. Ford [Ford, Clyde W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, History
ISBN: 9780062890566
Goodreads: 43309539
Publisher: Amistad
Published: 2019-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

11

Covert Ops

In the bottom drawer of his blond-wood dresser, beneath his boxer shorts and sleeveless undershirts, my father kept a stash of Playboy magazines. It must have been an open family secret. After all, my mother washed, hung, folded, and put away his laundry. Growing up, I found in the magazines, which changed each month, an endless source of excitement and titillation. I’d carefully replace them after spending time with the centerfolds and the women on adjoining pages. But I soon discovered that the large, gray, dog-eared envelope lying next to the Playboys contained much more risqué material.

Periodically, strange men would appear in our home. My father would insist that my sister and I find something else to do and somewhere else to be. He’d close the bedroom door. I’d hear him slide his bottom dresser drawer open, rummage through its contents, and then close the drawer. Then he would emerge cradling the large dog-eared envelope. He would sit with these men at our kitchen table, the envelope’s contents spread out in front of them, and speak in hushed tones.

A month or two later, my father would announce with great surprise that so-and-so had just been hired by IBM, one of the few Blacks smart enough to pass the IBM entrance examination. During subsequent visits to my father’s bottom dresser drawer, I inspected the contents of that dog-eared envelope. It contained copies of both the questions and the answers to that storied exam.

Exactly how this information came into my father’s possession remained a secret throughout his life. For fear of letting on that I’d thumbed through his Playboys, I too kept his secret. Knowing that my father risked his career for the sake of others elevated him in my eyes. Then came time for me to take the IBM entrance exam and to receive my certain inheritance from that dresser drawer. But when I would have most expected his assistance, that dog-eared envelope suddenly disappeared, even though the Playboys remained. My father would not help me. He denied any knowledge of secret copies of the IBM entrance exam.

I passed my IBM entrance examination, but I never found out my exact score. My father did, and although he never revealed it to me, he reported with glee that, years earlier, he had scored higher on his examination.

Not long after taking the entrance exam, I had a meeting at an IBM office on Wall Street with a man who would ultimately become my manager.

“You’ll start next week,” Art Conrad said.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean? I just offered you a position with the company.”

“And I just graduated from college last week. I’m intending to work the same job over the summer that I’ve worked for the past several summers.”

Art took a deep breath. An awkward silence balanced between us.

“I’ll start the day after Labor Day,” I said.

“It’s not what I intended,” Art said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s what I need to do.”

My father could well have been in that room with us, because by the time I got to our home in Rockland County, he grilled me.

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