Ford says being 1st Black state attorney general ‘honor of a lifetime’

Aaron Ford says being the first Black attorney general in Nevada history is “the honor of a lifetime.”

In an interview for the Review-Journal’s 7@7 AM newscast, Ford discussed the power of representation and how his background shaped him.

“I have met many people who look like me who have said to me, point blank, that because of the position that I’m in, they feel as though they can aspire to positions that they would like to be in,” he said.

When he was running for attorney general in 2018, Ford campaigned on the idea of looking out for families first, “and I define ‘family’ as broadly as you can imagine,” he said. “Whether you’ve been here three generations or three weeks, you’re part of the Nevada family.”

During the interview, Ford also shared an anecdote from 2013, when he was sworn in as a member of the Nevada Senate. After the ceremony, he walked with his father-in-law to the buses that were taking guests back to the airport.

His father-in-law told him, “As you walked from the front of the building to the back of the building, they opened up doors for you. They called you sir. They called you Senator. … They called me boy until I was 40.”

Contact Renee Summerour at rsummerour@reviewjournal.com. Follow @SummerourTV on Twitter.