Background
Ida Ford was born in Lafayette County, Lewisville, Arkansas, as the only child to Henry B. Ford and Bessie White. Kinney and her mother lived in Santa Monica until she graduated from Santa Monica High School.
Ida Ford was born in Lafayette County, Lewisville, Arkansas, as the only child to Henry B. Ford and Bessie White. Kinney and her mother lived in Santa Monica until she graduated from Santa Monica High School.
She attended Philander Smith College in Arkansas for one year. Carl Binion died ten years later from a war injury from War World I. Kinney moved to the Valley in 1940, and returned to school to continue her education where she graduated with a bachelor"s degree from the San Fernando Valley State College, which is now known as California State University, Northridge.
They were very industrious people who taught her valuable lessons about the ethics of life and putting God first. In 1920 Kinney, then 16, moved to California. Thus began her 84-year journey for civil rights, which included hundreds of marches and protests and associations with Rosa Parks, Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. and Medger Evers.
She was appointed to the Mother"s Board by her Pastor Review
Doctor.D.D Chatman. They shared over 50 years of love and life together until he died at age 104 in 2004. Kinney was an elementary school teacher, first as a substitute in Ken County and then for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
She was influential in the struggle to allow black women in the hospital located in Van Nuys, California. In addition, she started the Head Start Program.
One of the first blacks to work for Lockheed Aerospace, she campaigned and was successful in opening the doors to allow black workers to join the union.
As a retired teacher, she was appointed to the commission on aging for the County of Los Angeles where she served actively for 12 years. Ida was very active and in the forefront of establishing a center for seniors in the Valley. Former Councilmen Howard Finn credits Kinney with the building of the multipurpose senior center which opened in 1971 in the Pacomia neighborhood of Los Los Angeles
She continued her involvement and financial support of the center throughout the rest of her life.
This honor resulted in a commendatory United States postal stamp, being commissioned and soon to be released. She died in Lake View Terrace, California.
In December 1942, Kinney became a pioneer member of Great Community Missionary Baptist Church, in Pacomia, under the leadership of the late Review T.G. Pledger, Organizer/Pastor. Kinney was also honored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on her 100th birthday as being a member of its organization since May 1955.