(I will remember him as my dad.) He could, and often did inspire people with a dollar and a dream or a problem to solve. It is safe to say that my father, Jose Antonio Font will forever be remembered by most as a social and human-rights activist, a leader, a trailblazer, and well, a builder, bold and unafraid to push boundaries and rethink the world. (The biography of John Adams was one of his favorites.) The man was bent on building lasting institutions on causes and purpose. By him, his ventures were always ambitious, never insurmountable - just seemingly impossible, to most. Forget fluff the more weighty, the more complicated or challenging the subject, the more it agreed with him. His last endeavor was the Alianza Democrática, focused on power through knowledge, so that people may never fall prey to demagogues and tyrants.Īnyone who knew the man knows that he was not one to concern himself with the trivial ins-and-outs of pop culture, or even pretend to indulge in such frivolity. And with a gracious appreciation for his new found home (the great country in which most of us here live today) was born a resolute proponent and activist of free enterprise and real representative democracy. Bearing witness to his family’s destruction and the catastrophic demise of all they had worked so hard to build had more than its traumatic effect on him it determined the rest of his painstaking life. From a young age, he was irrefutably profound with a deep respect for life and all living things, becoming an impossibly ethical man of many deeply rooted principles.Ī product of a grand experiment in freedom, his parents left Cuba with the advent of that totalitarian, military regime we all know and love so much. Namely, unscrupulous kids taking pleasure in throwing stones (more often than not, at birds and other guiltless creatures). Story has it that as a precocious, little boy he would often confront a band of aggressors at school given to behaviors he deemed deplorable. I have the black and white photo to prove it. This entailed levelling ten adult males in their attempt to encircle and attack him. You may be entertained to know that in Cuba, as a ten-year-old Judo master, my father appeared on a highly popular live television show, ultimately demonstrating how even a small boy could fend for himself against tyrannous men. They, and tiny-colossal projects like establishing what was once the Washington World Gallery of Art in Georgetown and its adjacent hot-spot, Café de Artistas in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s were to lead him down a fairly different path.īrilliant, sensitive and strong, he was something of a peaceful warrior, invariably fighting bullies, championing the underdog of the moment, and continuously lending a hand to the less fortunate, the worthy and the helpless. and later the National Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, feeling the need to address more critical issues of the time. Nepotism aside, he was incontestably an extraordinary man, not only receiving countless, emeritus tributes and honors for what can most easily be described as various entrepreneurial accomplishments, but for an arduous career to advance freedom in the economies and societies of the Western hemisphere.Īs a student of American University’s School of International Service and Diplomacy, it is interesting to note that he was once granted a “full ride” through his PhD but reluctantly declined mid-way, never finding the time to oblige he was at once consumed by his leadership role in founding the Ibero-American Chamber of Commerce in Greater Washington D.C. Some remarkable men have recently left this world in a rather unexpected and bitingly unfavorable way. José Antonio Font – Decem– December 15, 2015
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