George Ford turned 100 this year, and he is still showing up for his workouts. The Brooklyn illustrator, whose career helped reshape how Black children saw themselves in picture books, now spends his sessions at BYKlyn Studios in Boerum Hill working through a class built for people determined to stay strong well past the century mark.
Ford was born in 1926, during Calvin Coolidge's presidency, and still vividly recalls the decades that followed. “I was born in 1926, Calvin Coolidge was president,” he said, according to ABC7 New York. He remembers Franklin D. Roosevelt's reelection and the 1936 release of Trail of the Lonesome Pine, starring Fred MacMurray and Henry Fonda, which he described as a landmark moment in film. “This was the first technicolor movie in history,” Ford said.
A Childhood Shaped by Ebbets Field
Among Ford's sharpest memories is Jackie Robinson's first appearance at Ebbets Field, a moment that drew crowds of Black fans who had never attended before. “For the first time a lot of black people went to Ebbets Field,” Ford recalled, per the station's report. That memory sits alongside another one he has carried for decades: the near-total absence of Black faces in the books he grew up with.
“There were no Black books that had Black images, no children's books at all in the '40s and '50s,” Ford said. That gap became the mission of his career. ABC7 reports that during a career spanning more than five decades, Ford became known for helping expand representation in children's books, and he is credited with helping change the narrative available to Black children through his illustrations.
A First-of-Its-Kind Honor
Ford's impact on the field carries institutional recognition as well. According to the American Library Association, Ford became the first illustrator to receive the Coretta Scott King Book Award, in 1974, for his work on Ray Charles. The association notes that the award is given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults.
The scarcity Ford described from his own childhood tracks with later research into the publishing industry. A survey of 5,206 books from 63 publishers released between 1962 and 1964 found that just 6.7% included one or more Black characters, and fewer than 1% depicted Black characters in a contemporary American setting, according to Diverse BookFinder. Sixty percent of the books that did include Black characters set those stories outside the United States or before World War II. By the mid-1970s, a separate study of 4,775 books from 51 publishers found that figure had climbed to 14.4%, with 70% of those books set in the United States, the same research shows. A more recent analysis of over 2,000 picture books in Diverse BookFinder's data found about 31% featured Black characters.
Still Getting Stronger at 100
Back in Boerum Hill, Ford's fitness routine is about more than staying in shape. Amy Glosser, owner of BYKlyn Studios, where Ford takes a class called Strong and Steady, described him as a gem and called him spectacular. She said his goal from the very first day was never simply to maintain his strength but to keep building it.
Ford acknowledges the occasional aches and pains that come with age, but he says the work in the gym gives him something more than physical gains. He said exercise helps him feel strong and able to have a voice. Those around him point to that same drive as an inspiration, with Glosser crediting Ford's commitment to lifelong learning, creating, and staying active as a model for everyone training alongside him.
