
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
A major autobiography of a remarkable life that broke down racial barriers, transformed institutions, and energized the struggle for justice, by the former president of the Ford Foundation
“Frank has that quality of honesty and authenticity and people trusted him . . . and because very disparate people trusted him, he could bring them together across their differences.”
—Gloria Steinem
Franklin Thomas was one of the most influential people of our time. As former president of the Ford Foundation (the first African American to hold this position), former president of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (the first community development organization of its kind), member of countless corporate boards, and a key player in facilitating the end of the apartheid era in South Africa, Thomas shaped public policy, philanthropy, and the movement for human rights for over half a century.
An Unplanned Life offers an insider’s account of some of the most crucial transformations of the contemporary era: efforts to rebuild America’s cities, struggles to reform philanthropy, and the quest to establish a global order based on human rights and racial equity. As a story of firsts, Franklin’s memoir also chronicles a formative era, when a generation of African Americans first broke through into the halls of power, navigating complicated and sometimes treacherous cultural and political currents.
Much of Franklin Thomas’s life was marked by his desire to stay out of the spotlight, and to let his accomplishments speak for themselves. Now, in An Unplanned Life, we have Thomas’s full story, in all of its nuance, drama, and richly narrated detail.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Foreword by Darren Walker
- 1. Growing Up in Bedford-Stuyvesant
- 2. A Higher Education
- 3. Choosing Law
- 4. Policing in Mayor Lindsay’s New York
- 5. A Call to Come Home
- 6. A Battle in Bed-Stuy
- 7. Restoration
- 8. A New Approach to Community Development
- 9. Giving the Community Control
- 10. 1968
- 11. The Loss of Robert Kennedy
- 12. Dueling Boards
- 13. The World of Corporate Boards
- 14. When Two Years Becomes Ten
- 15. An Unexpected Presidency
- 16. A South Africa Study Commission
- 17. Reimagining the Ford Foundation
- 18. A Changing Landscape in South Africa
- 19. Positive Results
- 20. Mandela’s Freedom
- 21. President Mandela
- 22. An Inauguration
- 23. A Farewell to Ford
- 24. The Study Group
- 25. A Call to Action
- 26. Full Circle
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- About the Author
- Publishing in the Public Interest
- Copyright