Arnold Josiah Ford
American rabbi
Arnold Josiah Ford (23 April 1877 – 16 September 1935) was a Barbadian American spiritual leader, recognized as a pioneering figure of the Black Hebrew movement.
Biography
Ford was born in Barbados to Edward Thomas Ford and Elizabeth Augustine Ford. He grew up to become a musician in the Royal Navy before settling in the United States. Talented as a linguist, poet, musician and composer of many Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) songs, Ford co-authored The Universal Ethiopian Anthem with Benjamin E. Burrell. Ford officially functioned as director of UNIA Band, Orchestra, Band of the African Legion, and the Liberty Hall Choir. He published the Universal Ethiopian Hymnal in 1920.
Following Garvey’s arrest and conviction, Ford founded the Beth B’Nai Israel Synagogue in a Harlem storefront, and declared himself to be a rabbi. He was never recognized as such by the wider Jewish community. In 1930 he and a small group of Black Jews went to Ethiopia, where they participated in the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie. They created a school, and acquired 800 acres (320 ha) of land for the purpose of uniting Black Jews of the Diaspora with their brothers already in Ethiopia.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4795119. VIAF identifies the subject as 49184845. The Library of Congress control number is nr2005020426. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1935, 1920 and 1930.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arnold Josiah Ford” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.