Metcalfe, Ralph

May 30, 1910
October 10, 1978

The athlete and congressman Ralph Horace Metcalfe was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but moved to Chicago at an early age. While an undergraduate at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Metcalfe was the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion in the 100 yards and 220 yards three years in a row (1932–1934). During the same period, he won the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship in the 100 meters (1932–1934) and 200 meters (1932–1936). He also won the silver medal in the 100 meters at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, running in the same official time (10.3) as the winner (officials declared Metcalfe second after a lengthy study of a film showing the finish), and the bronze medal in the 200 meters. Although he was the dominant sprinter in the world during the early 1930s and set or tied the world records in the 40 yards, 60 yards, 60 meters, 100 yards, 100 meters, 220 yards, and the 200 meters, he again finished second in the 100 meters at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, this time behind Jesse Owens. Metcalfe won an Olympic gold medal as a member of the 1936 U.S. 4- by 100-meter relay team.

In 1936 Metcalfe retired from sprinting and graduated from Marquette. While teaching political science and coaching the track team at Xavier University in New Orleans from 1936 to 1942, he also completed work for an M.A. in political science from the University of Southern California (1939). He joined the army in 1942, and after the war returned to Chicago to become the director of the Department of Civil Rights for the Chicago Commission on Human Rights (1945). From 1949 to 1952 he was the Illinois athletic commissioner, the first African American to hold this position. He became active in Democratic politics in Chicago and was the Democratic Party committeeman for the 3rd Ward of Chicago (1952–1972), and later alderman (1955–1969). In 1970 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As a congressman, Metcalfe worked to make more home and business loans available to minority communities. He served on the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee as well as the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, where as chair of the Subcommittee on the Panama Canal he supported the 1978 treaty turning control of the canal over to Panama.

During his long political career in Chicago, Metcalfe became a political insider and a part of Mayor Richard Daley's political machine. But in 1972 he broke with Daley, challenging him on the issue of police brutality toward blacks. Daley ran a candidate against Metcalfe in the Democratic primary, but with the assistance of the Congressional Black Caucus Metcalfe defeated Daley's candidate. He was in his fourth term as a congressman and was running unopposed for a fifth when he died of a heart attack in 1978.

See also Congressional Black Caucus; Politics in the United States; Sports

Bibliography

Ashe, Arthur R., Jr. A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, 1919–1945. New York: Warner, 1988.

Obituary. New York Times, November 6, 1978.

Ragsdale, Bruce A., and Joel D. Treece. Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1989. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990.

peter schilling (1996)