2024 Grand Marshal: Sam Ford

WJLA’s Sam Ford announced as Grand Marshals for the 19th Annual MLK Holiday DC Peace Walk and Parade on January 15, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Sam Ford is the DC Bureau Chief for 7News and WJLA 24/7.

He has been with WJLA-TV for more than 35 years. He has been a broadcaster for 50 years, starting with radio stations in Kansas and Minnesota before moving on to television.

Previously, Sam spent a decade as a correspondent for CBS News. During his tenure at the network, he was stationed at CBS bureaus in New York, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. Prior to CBS, he reported for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Sam is a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists. His journalistic awards include: AP, New York, Edward R Murrow and several regional Emmys.

In his 40 years in the nation’s capital, he says he has covered everything from the White House to the crack house. His focus at WJLA has mainly been the District of Columbia government, life and crime.

He is extremely interested in history, particularly Black history. He traces some of his ancestry to slaves owned by American Indians in Oklahoma. He is a voting citizen of the Cherokee Nation. It turns out that his father’s ancestors likely came from what today is Nigeria. Ford learned that from the new method of tracing roots through DNA. Ford has traveled to Nigeria twice looking for further clues as to his ancestry.

He was married to journalist and media specialist Gloria Murry Ford for 40 years until her death in 2021. They have a son and a daughter: Murry Ford, a hospital vice president in Atlanta, Georgia and Gina Ford, a strategic communications director in Maryland.

Sam, a Kansas native, is a graduate of the University of Kansas William Allen White Journalism School. He did graduate studies at the University of Minnesota.

Sam is an active member of the historic Ebenezer United Methodist Church on Capitol Hill, where he is lay leader and an occasional organist for Sunday morning worship services.