Ralph F. Boyd Sr. lived life of service
Ralph F. Boyd Sr. told people that his life had been shaped by what happened to him in the mountains of Italy in 1945. He had just lost several of his World War II comrades in the all-black 366th Infantry Regiment to an aerial attack, and Boyd feared he’d be next.
So the staff sergeant began praying: “God, if you ever send me home alive, I will serve humanity.”
It was a promise he kept after he returned from war. Boyd, who died Saturday at 99, helped start the city’s chapter of the NAACP, founded a Scotia retire-
ment home, and raised a son who went on to lead the Civil Rights Unit of the U.S. Justice Department.
City Council member Marion Porterfield said Boyd died after suffering injuries in a fall.
As he had promised, Boyd’s life was marked by dedication to his church and involvement with various community groups.
“It’s a joy every day I wake up doing something for someone across all racial lines, and I put that into practice every day,” Boyd said in a 2006 Times Union interview. He credited his parents for his volunteerism and work ethic.
Born in Norfolk, Va., and raised in Baltimore, Boyd came to the Capital Region after World War II — where he served as an armament specialist in the Army — to work at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs during the summers of 1946 and 1947.
“I liked it, and was at peace,” he said of his attraction to upstate New York.
He waited tables at hotels during the summer track season, later becoming one of the “first wave” of African-american men hired in the late 1940s at General Electric in Schenectady, where Boyd spent his entire working life — first as a crane follower, and later as a senior supervisor in turbine manufacturing.
In June 1950, he married Catherine Cox, whom he met at Friendship Baptist Church. Boyd and his wife moved to Niskayuna in 1956. He retired in the early 1980s.
In addition to his role as a founding member of the local chapter of the NA ACP — where he held several posts — he also helped found Scotia’s Baptist Retirement Center, now called Baptist Health.
His son, Ralph F. Boyd Jr., said Monday that one word leapt out more than any other when he spoke about his father.
“There are probably more people who know what ‘loquacious’ means because of my father because I think I described him as loquacious so many times,” the son said. “My dad was an extrovert among extroverts who literally never saw another human being he didn’t want to talk to for hours.”
Walter Simpkins, a family friend, said Boyd was a role model who would often impart his tremendous wealth of knowledge to young fathers in Community Fathers, Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to helping men deal with the challenges of fatherhood.
“He was forever talking about the philosophies of life, and what it takes to live a good life and be a good man,” said Simpkins, noting Boyd was a regular at the Thursday support group sessions. “I think that his spirituality and his belief in God really was the moving and motivating force.”
Boyd took an active role in civil rights matters in Schenectady. Even in his 70s and 80s, he prompted discussions and planned rallies at a time when the FBI was investigating the city’s police department for corruption. Four officers were eventually sent to federal prison, and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division opened an investigation of the force.
Ralph Boyd Jr. led the department at the time — but eventually recused himself because of his close ties to the region.
The civil rights division eventually released a scathing preliminary report about the department’s treatment of minorities, but the investigation ended without the completion of a final report.
Boyd’s son, now 61, has held several high-profile federal posts, including heading the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during the early years of President George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House. In 2006, he was named executive vice president and chairman of community relations for Freddie Mac, a government-chartered corporation that works to expand opportunities for home ownership and affordable rental housing.
Boyd’s son said that as his father got older, he spoke more openly about his time in the service and started proudly regularly wearing a medal he received from the state Senate. At a restaurant or other outing, it was not uncommon for the older man to wander away and strike up a conversation with strangers — the medal around his neck serving as a conversation piece.
“Very often, I would go out and laughingly go to quote-unquote rescue people — and invariably people would wave me off and say, ‘Get outta here — we’re enjoying him,’” Boyd’s son said.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced.