Coard (Robert) is born in Grenada, the West Indies.

Robert Coard is sent to live with relatives in Texas at 18, and arrives in Boston in 1950 to attend graduate school at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology He goes to work for the Boston Urban League, then becomes the executive director of Action for Boston Community Development Inc., subsequently the city’s anti-poverty agency in 1968, serving until 2009. Coard subsequently marries Donna Makin and lives in West Roxbury. He dies in Roslindale on November 3, 2009.