11
Politics

Paulette Coleman

• Race, Politics, and Government

• Congressional Black Caucus Members (110th U.S. Congress)

• Government Officials

RACE, POLITICS, AND GOVERNMENT

The history of African American participation in the political process is complex and includes multiple responses to the deliberate and systematic exclusion of African Americans from American life. In colonial times, most African Americans were slaves and thus denied the basic rights of citizenship. Legally, they were prohibited from voting and other means of political expression. Though they could not participate formally in the political process, slaves found other avenues for political expression including various forms of resistance.

A small number of free African Americans were occasionally allowed to vote in certain places. There is evidence that some free African Americans voted in South Carolina’s 1701 gubernatorial election. In the early eighteenth century, African Americans petitioned the courts and political leaders for legal protection but with limited success.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, political participation by African Americans was rare. Though slave revolts were an exception, the revolutionary fervor of the times did not go unnoticed by the African Americans. The revolutionary rhetoric resonated with the slaves and served as a catalyst for the filing of petitions with state legislatures and even with Congress to protest slavery. During the Revolutionary War, some freedmen saw military service as a way to be included as citizens in the new nation.

The American Colonization Society, founded by African Americans in 1816, promoted emigration to Africa. Members of this emigration movement eventually established the African nation of Liberia. Meanwhile, others emigrated to Canada, Central and South America, and island nations such as Haiti.

In 1830, free African Americans in Philadelphia convened the National Negro Convention. For two decades the national convention movement continued its development as a mass self-help movement involving African American churches, fraternal organizations, and mutual aid societies. The more militant participants became dominant in the convention by the 1850s. As a result, there was a growing dual determination to build African American institutions while demanding the rights of full participation as citizens of the United States.

The abolitionist movement of the 1830s was part of a multiracial quest for African American emancipation and equality. In addition to campaigning for civil rights through traditional legal means, the abolitionists took a daring step by operating the Underground Railroad system, a covert network of safe havens that assisted fugitive slaves in their flight to freedom in the North. Approximately 50,000 slaves are believed to have escaped to the Northern United States and Canada through the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War.

In the 1850s, new efforts were made to exclude African Americans from citizenship with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Similarly, the Kansas-Nebraska Act attempted to extend slavery into new territories. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott case held that African Americans had no rights as U.S. citizens and that a state could not forbid slavery. These legal decisions convinced large numbers of African Americans and others that radical action was necessary. Among them were: Martin Delany and Henry McNeal Turner, who advocated separation from the white race; and John Brown, who believed nothing short of a violent overthrow of the slave system would yield any meaningful results. Frederick Douglass, who opposed efforts like those suggested by Brown, pushed for African Americans to seek rights through assimilation. The ultimate compromise between the two factions was proposed in 1853 when the Colored National Convention in Rochester, New York, advanced the idea of a separate African American society on American soil.

The Union victory in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery under President Abraham Lincoln consolidated African American political support in the Republican Party. This affiliation lasted throughout the end of the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the twentieth century—even after the Republicans began to loosen the reins on the Democratic South in 1876 after the last federal troops were removed.

During the Reconstruction era, from 1865 to 1877, African Americans made significant gains towards increased participation in the political process. Both the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1870 and the Fourteenth Amendment—ratified by the States in 1868—to the Constitution were intended to provide full citizenship with all its rights and privileges to all African Americans. For the first time, Black males could participate legally in the electoral system. Among the rights that had been denied prior to these acts were the right to sue and be sued, the right to own real and personal property, and the right to testify and present evidence in legal proceedings. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, granted African American men the right to vote. The voting rights amendment failed, however, in its attempts to guarantee African Americans the real freedom to choose at the ballot box. Poll taxes, literacy tests, gerrymandered districts, and grandfather clauses were established by some state and local governments to deny African Americans their right to vote. The poll tax, for example, would not be declared unconstitutional until 1964, with the passage of the Twenty-fourth Amendment. Black codes also restricted the newly won freedom of African Americans by controlling their ability to move about the country, in spite of the fact that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlawed racial discrimination in hotels, inns, theaters, and other places of entertainment and public transportation.

Even though these legalized forms of exclusion presented obstacles to African American advancement in the politics of the United States, African Americans were able

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to achieve a degree of political participation during the Reconstruction era shortly after the end of the Civil War. Between 1879 and 1901 more than 1,000 African Americans served in local and state elected offices including a governor and six lieutenant governors. For example, Richmond, Virginia had thirty-three black city council members between 1871 and 1896. In Atlanta, William Finch was elected to the city council. Likewise, Holland Thompson was also elected to the city council of Montgomery, Alabama.

During that same time, there were 20 African American U.S. Congressmen and two U.S. Senators. In 1869, Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett became the first African American diplomat when he was appointed consul general to Haiti. In 1870 the Mississippi legislature elected Hiram R. Revels to represent the state in the U.S. Senate after that state was readmitted to the Union. Serving just over a year, Revels was the first African American U.S. senator. Blanche K. Bruce became the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate for a full six-year term in 1874. P. B. S. Pinchback won a U.S. Senate seat in 1873, but a vote by the other senators ousted him in 1876. The same thing happened one year earlier when, in 1875, Pinchback was removed from a House seat to which he had been elected in 1872.

A colorful individual, Pinchback made enemies because his strong support of equal rights for African Americans and a gambling habit. Pinchback was the nation’s first African American governor. Named lieutenant governor of Louisiana in 1871, Pinchback became acting governor after the impeachment of Governor Warmouth on bribery charges. Pinchback served just 43 days and when the new election was held, Pinchback was defeated.

In the mid-1870s when the northern political and military presence withdrew from the South, black political participation diminished considerably. Voting fraud, voter intimidation, redistricting, and the transition from ward to at-large elections were among the factors that all but eliminated black participation in electoral politics. There were some exceptions, however, and among them were the election of George White of North Carolina to Congress from 1897 to 1901. Charles L. Mitchell and Edward G. Walker of Boston were elected to the state legislature in 1866. This was significant because they were the first African Americans elected to office from an urban area. In 1883, George L. Ruffin, a member of the Boston’s Common Council, became the first African American appointed to the Massachusetts judiciary.

Reconstruction came to an end in 1877 after considerable controversy about the 1876 presidential election. Rutherford Hayes, the Republican, claimed victory based on the electoral college vote, while Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden made a claim to the presidency due to the popular vote. Furthermore, the election results from Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were disputed. Hayes was declared the winner, but the controversy weakened the federal government’s role in Southern politics and the civil rights process. As the government in Washington, D.C., withdrew support for the progressive policies on race instituted during the era of Reconstruction, African Americans witnessed a swift decline in their political power and an increased infringement on their civil rights. This assault was expressed in various ways such as the Jim Crow laws, voting rights abuses, and physical violence, including nearly 3,500 lynchings between 1889 and 1922. The lynchings occurred primarily in the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, but also in some northern cities. After Reconstruction and with the elimination of African Americans from most southern electoral politics by 1889, most Blacks were fighting against disenfranchisement in the South and seeking Congressional support to prevent violations of their hard-won constitutional rights. In the post-Reconstruction period, there were more African Americans appointed to government or political posts than were elected.

During the nineteenth century most African Americans were supporters of the Republican Party, but as the century drew to a close, a backlash occurred. In the 1890s, a group of white Republicans calling themselves the “Lily Whites” were heavily opposed to rights for African Americans and thus resented the presence of the so-called “Black and Tan Republicans” in their party. African Americans migrating from the south to the north and were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Republican Party and its efforts to gain support from conservative white voters. Further there was no support from the Republican Party when issues of race arose in northern cities. African Americans began to question what were the benefits of supporting Republican Party and its candidates, although they remained remain locked into a pattern of almost automatic support of Republicans until the late 1920s.

In 1900, Southern Blacks were disenfranchised and northern Blacks were not able to wield any significant political influence. During this period, Black political power was almost non-existent with the exception of business and political leaders such as Robert Church, Jr. in Memphis, Charles Anderson in New York City, and educator, Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee, Alabama. By the turn of the twentieth century, Booker T. Washington had gained prominence as the chief spokesperson on behalf of African Americans and had considerable influence over Republican Party patronage. Recognized throughout the United States as a prominent African American leader and mediator, he advocated for accommodation as the preferred method of attaining civil rights. His leading opponents included journalist Thomas T. Fortune, an African American historian, and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois.

Fortune, who had founded the New York Freeman newspaper in 1884, attempted to create a national political organization for African Americans. His short-lived, Chicago-based National Afro-American League was aimed at remedying the disenfranchisement of African Americans. Du Bois, on the other hand, felt it was necessary to take more aggressive measures in the fight for equality. In addition to participating in the first Pan-African Conference (London) in 1900, in 1905 he spear-headed the Niagara Movement, a radical African American intellectual forum. Members of the group merged with white progressives four years later to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After Washington’s death in 1915, the NAACP became a greater force in the struggle for racial reform.

Women played a significant role at the turn of the century as well, coming together as the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. The female activists met with success in their agitation for rights. Standouts included NACW founder Mary Church Terrell and NACW presidents Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary McLeod Bethune. Chief among their causes were speaking out against lynching and the promotion of women’s rights. Arguably, ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women of all races the right to vote in 1920, did not make that much of a practical difference in the lives of African American women.

The migration of large numbers of Blacks from the south to northern and Midwestern cities couples with their residential concentration meant potential political power for African Americans. For example, Oscar DePriest, an African-American Republican was elected to Chicago’s Board of Alderman when a predominantly Black district was created there. Later in 1928, DePriest was elected the first northern Black congressman.

Racist attitudes, combined with the desperate economic pressures of the Great Depression, exerted a profound effect on politics nationwide during the 1930s. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932 with his reform agenda. He attracted African American voters with his “New Deal” relief and recovery programs. In addition to benefits from the socio-economic programs of the New Deal, the growing activism of labor unions, and the consolidation of machine politics in big cities caused many African Americans to become aligned with the Democratic Party. For 70 years African Americans had been faithful to the Republican Party, but their belief in Roosevelt and his New Deal led many to switch to the Democratic Party. African Americans, as well as others benefited from the housing and employment opportunities that came about as a result of Roosevelt’s programs. As beneficiaries of these new programs, African Americans saw a direct link between their votes for the Democratic Party and jobs, housing, and other benefits to their community. By 1936, most African Americans had switched to the Democratic Party. Democrats did not fully embrace a civil rights agenda, but offered more symbolic support for African Americans’ demands for greater equality.

The Communist Party of the United States of America offered an alternative for African Americans alienated by the Republicans and the Democrats. White Communists actively recruited African Americans to their ranks, supporting civil rights through demonstrations and boycotts. They even selected an African American, James Ford, as their vice presidential candidate during the U.S. presidential campaigns of 1932, 1936, and 1940.

World War II ushered in an era of unswerving commitment to the fight for civil rights. As African Americans migrated to the North in search of jobs, several urban entities gained new concentrations of African Americans. In cities such as Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland, African Americans had such a presence that they swayed the course of local politics by

the strength of their vote. At times the African American vote affected the balance of power on the national front as well.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was elected the first African American member of the New York City Council in 1941. By 1944, Powell had gained a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a House member, he challenged a white racist representative who refused to sit next to him. During his tenure he also initiated legislation against lynching, poll taxes, and discriminatory job hiring practices. The so-called “Powell Amendment” referred to his attempts to tack anti-discriminatory measures onto each and every measure that came before the House.

African Americans were advancing in all areas—national associations, political organizations, unions, the federal branch of the U.S. government, and the nation’s court system. Civil rights became a national political issue when the Democratic National Convention adopted a strong civil rights platform that prompted protests by the white party faithful from the South. After the election of President Harry S. Truman, he contributed much to African American advancement by desegregating the military, establishing fair employment practices in the federal service, and beginning the trend toward integration in public accommodations and housing. In 1949, Rep. William L. Dawson became the first African American to head a standing committee of Congress when he was elected chairman of House Expenditures. Meanwhile, the civil rights proposals of the late 1940s came to fruition a decade later during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration. Eisenhower’s administrative aide, E. Frederic Morrow, was the first African American granted an executive position among White House staff.

After World War II, the African American populations in urban northern communities continued to grow as the white population moved from urban centers to the suburbs. In 1953, Hulan Jack, a New York State assemblyman was elected Manhattan borough president. When the U. S. Supreme Court struck down the “white primary,” which denied many African Americans the right to vote, more blacks registered and they applied increased pressure for full voting rights. As black political power grew, efforts to neutralize it included at-large elections, annexation of suburbs with urban centers, merging black districts with white areas, and various forms of gerry-mandering to dilute black voting strength.

The Civil Rights Act of 1957, also known as the Voting Rights Act of 1957, was the first major piece of civil rights legislation passed by Congress in more than eight decades. It expanded the role of the federal government in civil rights matters and established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to monitor the protection of African Americans’ civil rights. The commission determined that unfair voting practices persisted in the South with African Americans still being denied the right to vote in certain Southern districts. Because of these abuses, a second act was passed in 1960 that offered more protection to African Americans at the polls. In 1965, the third Voting Rights Act was passed to eliminate literacy tests and safeguard African Americans’ rights during the voter registration process.

The post-war movement for African American rights yielded slow but significant advances in school desegregation and suffrage despite bold opposition from some whites. By the mid- to late-1950s, as the African American fight for equality and progress gained momentum, white resistance continued to mount. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. took the helm of the fledgling civil rights movement and launched a multiracial effort to eliminate segregation and achieve equality for blacks through nonviolent resistance. The movement began with the boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, and by 1960, became a national crusade for black rights. During the course of the next decade, civil rights workers organized economic boycotts of racist businesses and attracted front-page news coverage with African American voter registration drives and anti-segregationist demonstrations, marches, and sit-ins. Bolstered by the new era of independence that was sweeping through subSaharan Africa, the movement for African American equality gained international attention.

Racial tensions in the South reached violent levels with the emergence of new white supremacist organizations and an increase in Ku Klux Klan activity. Racially motivated discrimination in all arenas—from housing to employment—rose as Southern resistance to the Civil Rights movement intensified. By the late 1950s, racist hatred had once again degenerated into brutality and bloodshed with African Americans being murdered for the cause, and their white killers escaping punishment.

Democrat John F. Kennedy gained the African American vote in the 1960 presidential elections. His domestic agenda espoused an expansion of federal action in civil rights cases, especially through the empowerment of the U.S. Department of Justice on voting rights issues and the establishment of the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Civil rights organizations continued their peaceful assaults against barriers to integration, but African American resistance to racial injustice was escalating. The protest movement heated up in 1961 when groups such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organized “freedom rides” that defied segregationist policies on public transportation systems.

Major demonstrations were staged in Birmingham, Alabama, under the leadership of King. Cries for equality met with harsh police action against the African American crowds. In 1963, Mississippi’s NAACP leader, Medgar Evers, was assassinated. Meanwhile, on August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 black and white demonstrators convened at the Lincoln Memorial to push for the passage of a new civil rights bill. This historic “March on Washington,” highlighted by King’s legendary “I Have a Dream” speech, brought the promise of stronger legislation from the president.

After Kennedy’s assassination that November, President Johnson finally initiated an aggressive civil rights program. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sparked violence throughout the country, including turmoil in the cities of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. The Ku Klux Klan stepped up its practice of intimidation with venomous racial slurs, cross burnings, firebombings, and acts of murder.

The call for racial reform in the South became louder early in 1965. King, who had been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to race relations, commanded the spotlight for his key role in the 1965 Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. African Americans were disheartened, however, by the lack of true progress in securing civil rights. Despite the legislative gains made over two decades, economic prospects for African Americans were bleak.

African American discontent over economic, employment, and housing discrimination reached frightening proportions in the summer of 1965, with rioting in the Watts section of Los Angeles. This event marked a major change in the temper of the civil rights movement. Nearly one decade of nonviolent resistance had failed to remedy the racial crisis in the United States and a more militant reformist element began to emerge. “Black Power” became the rallying cry of the middle and late 1960s, and more and more civil rights groups adopted all-black leadership. Groups such as the Black Panther Party emerged on the scene promoting black self-determination, militant resistance, and self-defense. The Black Panther Party operated free breakfast and educational programs in their communities with a special emphasis on children and youth. King’s assassination in 1968 only compounded the nation’s explosive racial situation. The new generation of African American leaders seemed to champion independence and separatism for African Americans rather than integration into white American society.

Although many African Americans despaired of winning justice within the American political system during this time of turmoil, there were some who continued to work within the system on behalf of their brethren. Through the 1960s, some prominent African Americans served as members of Congress. Shirley Chisholm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968, making her the first African American woman to serve in Congress. The next year, Charles Diggs Jr., a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, founded the Democratic Select Committee, a group comprised of the eight other African American members of Congress. Two years later they renamed themselves the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Small gains were also made with the elections of Carl Stokes in 1967 and Richard Hatcher in 1972 as the first African American mayors of Cleveland, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana, respectively. Andrew Young of Georgia and Barbara Jordon of Texas became the first African-Americans elected to Congress from the South in the twentieth century. Also in 1972, more than 5,000 African American activists and elected officials gathered in Gary, Indiana for the First National Black Political Assembly. An important result of the meeting was a national strategy for Black political empowerment.

In 1970 the creation of the Joint Center for Political Studies, geared towards monitoring political developments in the African American community, became the CBC’s most important political contribution. Data provided by the Joint Center for Political Studies assisted the Reverend Jesse Jackson during his 1984 presidential campaign. After its founding, the center expanded to include economic studies and currently operates as the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The CBC also laid the groundwork for TransAfrica, a 40,000-person organization dedicated to African American foreign affairs. Founded by Randall Robinson in 1977, TransAfrica came about after the CBC protested against U.S. governmental policy towards minority white rule in such African nations as Rhodesia. Meeting with 130 leaders in September of 1976, the CBC helped Robinson’s initiative gain credibility. In the 1990s, the CBC produced such leaders as Kweisi Mfume, who would later head the NAACP. In 2006, Mfume lost the Maryland Democratic primary in his bid for the U.S. Senate. In that same year, another former CBC member, Harold Ford, Jr. ran a very competitive senatorial campaign, losing the senatorial race by less than three percentage points.

In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter moved stridently to help African Americans. During his tenure he appointed African Americans to key cabinet positions. For example, Andrew Young was named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Patricia Roberts Harris was first the African American secretary of Housing and Urban Development and then secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Fear of black advancement led many whites to shift their allegiance to the Republican Party in the late 1960s. With the exception of Carter’s term in office from 1977 to 1981, Republicans remained in the White House for the rest of the 1970s and 1980s. The rise of conservatism gave birth to such important figures as African American conservatives Thomas Sowell, Anne Wortham, and Shelby Steele. A new era of African American liberal activity began with the institution of Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. Despite two unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency in the 1980s, Jackson helped swing the pendulum back in favor of liberalism. In 1992, a Democratic centrist, Bill Clinton, was elected president.

After a dozen years of conservatism under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Clinton projected a moderate image. Clinton espoused policies that would cut across the lines of gender, race, and economics and offered a vision of social reform, urban renewal, and domestic harmony for the United States. Once in office, Clinton appointed African Americans to key posts in his cabinet, and the African American population began wielding unprecedented influence in government.

In the 1990s, African American participation in government and politics was significant. Gary Franks became the only black Republican in Congress in 1990 when he was elected from Connecticut. He was joined four years later by another African American Republican, J. C. Watts Jr., an ordained Baptist minister, who had left the Democratic Party in 1989. Watts declined membership in the liberal CBC.

The year of 1992 saw the election of the first black woman, Carol Moseley-Braun, to the U.S. Senate. She shocked political observers by scoring a stunning upset over incumbent Senator Alan Dixon in the Democratic primary on March 17, 1992. In the 1992 November election, she was elected senator. Her term was marred by scandal, however, and she was defeated in 1998 in her bid for reelection. She served two years as ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa and ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for President in 2004.

President Bill Clinton’s cabinet included a record number of African Americans. Jesse Brown became the first African American to head the Veterans Affairs Department. In the second term, Togo West was named Secretary of Veterans Affair. Lee P. Brown was selected as head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Ron Brown was chosen as secretary of commerce; Dr. Joycelyn Elders was named U.S. surgeon general; Michael Espy was awarded the position of secretary of agriculture; Hazel O’Leary was chosen as secretary of energy; Rodney Slater was appointed secretary of transportation; and Clifton Wharton Jr. became the deputy secretary of the state department. Clinton also nominated a number of African Americans to major positions in federal government agencies including Jacqueline L. Williams-Bridgers to the State Department as inspector general and Shirley A. Jackson to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as chairperson. As director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, African American Alexis Herman was one of the president’s most trusted advisors and became Secretary of Labor during Clinton’s second term. Also during Clinton’s regime, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division was headed by Deval Patrick, an African American who was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2006.

In 1996, Alan Keyes became the first African American Republican in modern times to seek the nomination of the party for the presidency. Keyes attracted little notice, however, and faded from the spotlight. After the reelection of President Clinton, the Supreme Court dealt African Americans a blow in a series of cases that invalidated “Black majority” congressional districts. These gerrymandered districts were created to ensure African Americans were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Court ruled several times—including Reno, U.S. Attorney General, v. Bossier Parish School Board in 1999—that race could not be the only factor in creating a district.

The Democratic Party has relied on African American voters to sustain Democratic candidates in tough elections. In the 1998 congressional elections, the Democrats, crippled by the personal, ethical, and legal scandals surrounding President Clinton, relied on the African American vote to prevent any losses in either chamber of Congress. Republican leaders acknowledged after the election that they needed to reach out to the African American community.

In large part, the presidential election in 2000 confirmed the importance of the African American vote to the Democratic Party and to presidential candidate and then-Vice President Al Gore. Though the election took place on November 7, 2000, the outcome of the election was not official until December 12 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that hand recounts of votes should be suspended immediately because the recount was unconstitutional. With that decision, the Supreme Court ended the controversy over chads, dimpled and pregnant ballots, and premature calls of the winner of the presidential election by the major networks. Many voters still feel that Al Gore won the popular vote and that the manual recounts of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Volusia Counties would have determined his victory. What is known is that many African Americans and some new immigrant voters experienced unprecedented scrutiny and some harassment in their efforts to vote. Whether there was a conspiracy to deny African Americans and others the right to vote remained hotly debated into the year 2002. As a result of this election debacle, reforms were discussed not only in Florida, but nationally.

George W. Bush, a Republican, became the 45th president of the United States as a result of the hotly-contested election. President Bush did not appoint as many African Americans as did President Clinton, but his appointments were in very significant and non-traditional departments. Colin L. Powell, a retired four-star general, became the first African American head of the U.S. Department of State, making him the top diplomat in the country. Rodney Paige also was the first African American to hold his post when President Bush named him secretary of the Education Department. President Bush also appointed Alphonso Jackson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Another significant appointment of a high-ranking African American by the Bush administration was his selection of Condoleeza Rice, former provost of Stanford University and a Soviet scholar, as his national security advisor. During President Bush’s second term Rice became the first African American and only the second woman to become the Secretary of State. As a result of these major appointments and the growing number of young, conservative African Americans, there is a re-examining of the African American community’s relationship with the Democratic Party. For the foreseeable future, however, African Americans will continue to be closely allied with the Democratic Party while pursuing options to maximize their political interests.

Barack Obama, an African American Democrat, won his 2004 Senate race comfortably becoming the fifth African American to serve in the U. S. Senate. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. Echoes of voting irregularities surfaced around the country in the 2004 election. There were allegations of extremely long voting lines, malfunctioning voting machines, dissemination of incorrect information about location and hours of operation at voting sites, and other forms of voter suppression especially in African American and other communities of color. Notably, Florida, Ohio, and Georgia were among the states in which there were numerous complaints during the 2004 elections.

In the 2006 midterm elections, national voter turn-out was up less than 1 percent compared to 2002. Black voter turnout increased slightly and represented about 10 percent of the vote. In some of the larger states such as California, New York, and Illinois turnout increased modestly because there were no hotly contested races. In other states where there was a significant increase in black voter turnout. Black voters were important in electing a Democratic governor in Ohio; re-electing Democratic governors in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Democratic U.S. Senators in Florida and Michigan. Large turnouts by Blacks in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were critical in electing four new U.S. Senators in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In an analysis by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, in 2006, the black vote was somewhat ore female than male. Young African American voters, Independents, and African Americans in the Midwest gave 95 percent of their votes to Democratic congressional candidates.

Statewide, African American Democrats achieved victories in Massachusetts where Deval Patrick was elected Governor, becoming the second black since Reconstruction to hold a state’s highest office. There were other victories for African Americans in statewide elections. David Paterson succeeded in becoming New York’s first black lieutenant governor. Other African Americans who won new statewide positions in 2006 were Anthony Brown, Maryland lieutenant governor; Thurbert Baker, Georgia Attorney General; Michael Thurmond, Georgia Commissioner of Labor; Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State and Denise Nappier, Connecticut Treasurer.

During the 2006 midterm elections all Black Democratic Congressional incumbents won except the beleaguered U. S. Representative William Jefferson who won in a runoff. There were three black Democratic candidates who were newcomers to Congress and they were Hank Johnson of Georgia, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and Yvette Clark, New York. Ellison became the first black U. S. Representative from Minnesota and the first Muslim ever elected to the U. S. House. With the new Democratic majority in Congress, three Congressional Black Caucus members will chair three full standing committees in the 110th Congress. John Conyers, Illinois will chair the House Judiciary Committee; Bennie Thompson, Mississippi, will chair the House Homeland Security Committee; and Charles Rangel, New York will chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS MEMBERS (110TH U.S. CONGRESS)

Chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick 2264 Rayburn (202) 225-2261 Michigan

1st Vice Chairwoman, Rep. Barbara Lee
2444 Rayburn
(202) 225-2661
California

2nd Vice Chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver
1641 Longworth
(202) 225-4535
Missouri

Secretary, Rep. Danny K. Davis
2159 Rabyburn
(202) 225-5006
Illinois

Whip, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
2264 Longworth
(202) 225-3816
Texas

Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.
2429 Rayburn
(202) 225-36131
Georgia

Rep. Corrine Brown
2336 Rayburn
(202) 225-0123
Florida

Rep. G.K. Butterfield
413 Cannon
(202) 225-3101
North Carolina

Rep. Julia M. Carson
2455 Rayburn
(202) 225-4011
Indiana

Rep. Donna M. Christian-Christensen
1510 Longworth
(202) 225-1790
Virgin Islands

Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay, Jr.
434 Cannon
(202) 225-2406
Missouri

Rep. Yvette Clarke
1029 Longworth
(202) 225-6231
New York

Rep. James E. Clyburn
2135 Rayburn
(202) 225-3315
South Carolina

Founding Member, Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
2426 Rayburn
(202) 225-5126
Michigan

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings
2235 Rayburn
(202) 225-4741
Maryland

Rep. Artur Davis
208 Cannon
(202) 225-2665
Alabama

Rep. Keith Ellison
1130 Longworth
(202) 225-4755
Minnesota

Rep. Chaka Fattah
2301 Rayburn
(202) 225-4001
Pennsylvania

Rep. Al Green
425 Cannon
(202) 225-7508
Texas

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings
2353 Rayburn
(202) 225-1313
Florida

Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
2419 Rayburn
(202) 225-0773
Illinois

Rep. William J. Jefferson
2113 Rayburn
(202) 225-6636
Louisiana

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson
1511 Longworth
(202) 225-8885
Texas

Rep. Hank Johnson
1133 Longworth
(202) 225-1605
Georgia

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones
1009 Longworth
(202) 225-7032
Ohio

Rep. John Lewis
343 Cannon
(202) 225-4272
Georgia

Rep. Kendrick Meek
1039 Longworth
(202) 225-4506
Florida

Rep. Gregory W. Meeks
2342 Rayburn
(202) 225-3461
New York

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald
2233 Rayburn
(202) 225-7924
California

Rep. Gwen Moore
1239 Longworth
(202) 225-4572
Wisconsin

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton
2136 Rayburn
(202) 225-80506
Washington, D.C.

Sen. Barack Obama
713 Hart
(202) 224-2854
Illinois

Rep. Donald M. Payne
2209 Rayburn
(202) 225-3436
New Jersey

Founding Member, Rep. Charles B. Rangel
2354 Rayburn
(202) 225-4365
New York

Rep. Bobby L. Rush
2416 Rayburn
(202) 225-4372
Illinois

Rep. David Scott
417 Cannon
(202) 225-2939
Georgia

Rep. Robert C. Scott
1201 Longworth
(202) 225-8351
Virginia

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson
2432 Rayburn
(202) 225-5876
Mississippi

Rep. Edolphus Towns
2232 Rayburn
(202) 225-5936
New York

Rep. Maxine Waters
2264 Longworth
(202) 225-5006
California

Rep. Diane E. Watson
125 Cannon
(202) 225-2201
California

Rep. Melvin L. Watt
2236 Rayburn
(202) 225-1510
North Carolina

Rep. Albert R. Wynn
2470 Rayburn
(202) 225-8699
Maryland

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

(To locate biographical profiles more readily, please consult the index at the back of the book.)

DENNIS ARCHER (1942– ) Municipal Government Official, Attorney

Former Michigan State Supreme Court justice Dennis Archer became mayor of Detroit on January 3, 1994. During his campaign he promised better city services, a tougher stance on crime, and increased incentives for businesses choosing to locate in the city. Following Coleman Young’s combative reign, Archer represented a distinct change.

Born on January 1, 1942, in Detroit, Archer moved with his family to Cassopolis, Michigan, when he was an infant. After graduating from Cassopolis High School in 1959, Archer worked his way through college. Following studies at Wayne State University and the Detroit Institute of Technology, Archer received his B.S. from Western Michigan University in 1965.

While working as a teacher of emotionally disturbed children he met Trudy DunCombe, who became his wife in 1967. Archer earned a J.D. from the Detroit College of Law in 1970. He practiced law for several years as a partner with Hall, Stone, Allen, Archer & Glenn and later with Charfoos, Christensen & Archer, until he was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1985 by then-Governor James Blanchard.

Active in Democratic politics during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Archer directed campaigns for Mayor Coleman Young and Congressman George Crocket Jr. Archer’s decision to run against Coleman Young in 1993 was a daunting proposition. Young, however, decided not to run for a sixth term, but backed Sharon McPhail, a former City Council member and Archer’s rival for the position.

Archer was considered the candidate of the white business establishment and charged with being an upper-class elitist. Archer balanced these assessments by recalling the hard times of his early life and by going on record in support of the city’s disenfranchised, children, and the homeless. Though Archer did not receive the majority of the African American vote, he won the election with 57 percent of the vote.

High profile economic development projects such as hosting the 1994 G-7 International Jobs Conference, building a downtown casino and a new stadium for the Detroit Tigers were among Archer’s to heal racial breaches and bring all of Detroit together with common goals. Archer’s first term was characterized by a robust economy, a balanced budget, a low unemployment rate, and downtown revitalization. Perhaps the most important legacy of Archer’s first term in office was the restoration of civic pride and confidence in the city and its future. Following his successful first term in office, Archer handily won a second term in 1997 with over 83 percent of the vote.

After his reelection school reform became Archer’s priority. His plan required new legislation at the state level that would wrest power and control of the schools from the locally elected school board. Under the reform scheme, the mayor would have the authority to appoint a new school board and the top administrators. Other aspects of the proposal for educational reform include reduced class size; the hiring of 1200 new certified teachers; legislative benchmarks for assessing the school system’s success or failure; mandatory summer school in particular cases; a substantial array of after-school programs; technical training for teachers; and site-based decision making.

In the spring of 1999, a group called “The Black Slate” spearheaded the effort to collect enough signatures to recall Archer. Backers of the recall cited factors such as the mayor’s handling of a riverfront housing development project, problems with snow removal in January of 1999, damage done to Detroit’s People Mover from the implosion of the J. L. Hudson building, and Archer’s failure to grant one of Detroit’s casino licenses to an African American. The recall effort failed.

Archer announced on April 16, 2001, that he would not seek a third term as mayor of Detroit. He did serve as president of the National League of Cities during his last year as Mayor of Detroit. Following his tenure, Archer returned to the law firm of Dickinson Wright PLLC as chairman. In 2002, Archer became the first African American President-Elect of the American and served as President of that body from 2003-2004.

MARION BARRY (1936– ) Municipal Government Official

Marion Shepilov Barry was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi, on March 6, 1936, and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. He earned a B.S. and M.S. in chemistry by 1960, and while a graduate student at Fisk University became active in NAACP politics and the civil rights movement. He eventually co-founded the famous Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, a civil rights protest group that made significant gains in erasing the last institutional vestiges of racism in the South. Barry was SNCC’s first national chairperson.

After he moved to Washington, D.C., in the mid-1960s, Barry became active in local politics through efforts to move the capital city toward self-government free from congressional interference. Among other achievements, he was instrumental in obtaining federal funding for a citywide youth employment and community service program and was elected to the local school board in 1970. When the “Free D.C.” political movement succeeded in loosening congressional rule over the city, Barry ran for a seat on its first council, which he held for three years.

In 1977, Barry was wounded in an altercation involving the seizure of Washington’s District Building by radical Muslims. Elected mayor in 1978, over the next few years his administration was marked by both controversy and achievement. His former wife was charged with embezzling federal funds, but Barry himself was never under any suspicion. As mayor, he initiated community-improvement programs to better employment opportunities and housing conditions for Washington’s more disadvantaged neighborhoods. During Barry’s administration, access increased for contracting opportunities with the city for women- and minority-owned businesses. One of the hallmarks of Barry’s tenure as mayor was the launching of large numbers of youth development and summer employment programs. He was reelected in 1982 and again in 1986. Near the end of his third term, Barry was indicted by a federal grand jury for drug possession. He was convicted of a misdemeanor for usage after being filmed snorting crack cocaine and served the maximum six months.

Despite the setback, Barry’s support among his Washington, D.C., constituency did not diminish. In 1992, he again won a city council seat, and he ran successfully for mayor in 1994. His fourth term was sullied when Congress established a financial control board in 1995 to oversee the district’s financial recovery. The city faced a growing debt in excess of $722 million. In 1997, Congress and the president extended the control board’s power to nearly every facet of the D.C. government, thus stripping

Barry of most of his executive power. He did not seek reelection.

In 2004, Barry ran in the Democratic primary for the Ward 8 Council seat he held prior to becoming Mayor. He won the general election with more than 95 percent of the vote. Barry pled guilty to misdemeanor charges of failing to pay local and federal taxes and was sentenced to three years probation. Throughout his legal problems and struggle with addition, Barry to continued to serve on the DC Council and to work as an investment banking consultant.

SIDNEY JOHN BARTHELEMY (1942– ) Sociologist, Municipal Government Official, State Legislator

Sidney Barthelemy was born in New Orleans on March 17, 1942. He attended Epiphany Apostolic Junior College in Newburgh, NY from 1960 to 1963 with the intent of entering the priesthood. In 1967, Barthelemy received a B.A. from the St. Joseph Seminary in Washington, D.C. Two years later he earned a M.S.W. from Tulane University. After graduation, Barthelemy worked in administrative and professional positions in various organizations including Total Community Action, the Parent-Child Development Center, Family Health Inc., and the Urban League of New Orleans. From 1972 to 1974, Barthelemy was the director of the Welfare Department of the City of New Orleans. In 1974, he was elected to the Louisiana State Senate. Barthelemy left the state legislature in 1978 after winning a seat on the New Orleans City Council, where he stayed until his 1986 election as mayor.

He was mayor for eight years during the economic slump or oil bust period of high unemployment. The City faced a $30 million deficit which he gradually eliminated. During his tenure, riverboat gambling and land-based casinos were legalized. He recognized tourism as a major economic engine for his city and was successful in New Orleans’ selection as the host city for the 1988 Republican, the NCAA Final Four in 1993, and the opening of the Aquarium of the Americas and the historic visit of Pope John in 1987.

Barthelemy taught at Xavier University as an associate professor of sociology from 1974 to 1986. He also taught at Tulane University and the University of New Orleans. He has been the vice-chairman for voter registration for the Democratic National Party, second vice president for the National League of Cities, and president of the Louisiana Conference of Mayors. Barthelemy belongs to the NAACP, National Association of Black Mayors, Democratic National Committee, National Institute of Education, National League of Cities, and the New Orleans Association of Black Social Workers. He has won numerous awards including Outstanding Alumnus of Tulane University, and the 1987 Louisiana Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers’ Social Worker of the Year Award. He has also won the American Freedom Award presented by the Third Baptist Church of Chicago (1987), the 1989 American Spirit Award given by the U.S. Air Force Recruiting Service, and the NAACP’s New Orleans Chapter Daniel E. Byrd Award (1990).

In 1993, Barthelemy decided not to seek another term as mayor of New Orleans. He went back to teaching at Tulane and the University of New Orleans. Currently, he works in governmental affairs for a New Orleans-based real estate development company. He has also been involved with former New Orleans mayors and parish presidents in planning for post-Katrina regional flood protection.

SHARON SAYLES BELTON (1951– ) Municipal Government Official

Belton was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and attended Macalester College. She did not graduate as she dropped out when she became pregnant. Belton worked in the Twin Cities areas as a volunteer, eventually establishing a series of rape shelters in the area.

Her community involvement led her to pursue a city council seat in Minneapolis. She was elected to the city council in 1984, and represented the 8th ward. In 1993, Belton made the decision to run for mayor. She was endorsed by incumbent mayor Don Fraser and won nearly 60 percent of the vote, despite the fact that less than a quarter of the voters were African American.

Sayles Belton served as mayor of Minneapolis from 1994-2001. As mayor, Belton continued to seek to build coalitions to solve the city’s problems. This style was her hallmark as a member of city council. She reduced crime rates by redirecting resources to public safety and by deploying more police officers to high crime areas. She appointed many women and minorities to positions of power within the city government, changing the political culture in Minneapolis. She was reelected to a second term in 1997, but lost a bid for a third in 2000.

In May 2002, Belton joined the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs as a senior fellow in the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice working on anti-racism initiatives; improving information sharing between community organizations and academic research institutions; and leadership development among people of color and new immigrants.

MARY FRANCES BERRY (1938– ) Educator, Federal Government Official, Civil Rights Activist, Attorney

Mary Frances Berry was born in 1938. She received her B.A. degree from Howard University in 1961 and her M.A. in 1962. In 1966, she received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and her J.D. in 1970. Berry worked for several years as a professor of history and law at several universities throughout the United States. She was appointed assistant secretary of education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Prior to her service at HEW, Berry was provost at the University of Maryland College Park and chancellor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In 1980 Berry was appointed by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate as a commissioner and vice-chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She was fired from the commission by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 for criticizing his civil rights policies. She sued him and won reinstatement in federal court. On November 19, 1993, President Bill Clinton named her chair of the Civil Rights Commission. He reappointed her to the Commission for another six-year term in 1999. In her role as chair, Berry led the investigation that examined minority voter disenfranchisement in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. During her tenure as chairman, the Commission also issued significant reports on police practices in New York, environmental justice, percentage plans and affirmative action, and church burnings. Barry left office in 2004 before her term expired and was succeeded by Gerald A. Reynolds, an African American Republican. Since 1987, Berry has been the Geraldine R. Segal professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches law and history.

Berry was once again in the public eye when she was unanimously selected to become chair of the Pacifica Radio Board. The board initiated new policies and changes in the station’s programming and format which led to massive street protests, litigation, and widespread opposition. Berry left the board at the end of her term.

Berry has published numerous articles and essays. She is the author of eight books, including Military Necessity and Civil Rights Policy: Black Citizenship and the Constitution 1861-1868 (1977); Long Memory: The Black Experience in America, with John Blassingame (1982); Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution (1986); The Politics of Parenthood: Child care, Women’s Rights, and the Myth of the Good Mother (1993); Black Resistence, White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America (1994, orig. 1971); The Pig Farmer’s Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present (1999); My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations (2005).

UNITA BLACKWELL (1933– ) Municipal Government Official, Civil Rights Activist

Unita Blackwell was born on March 18, 1933, in the small Delta town of Lula, Mississippi. The daughter of sharecroppers, Blackwell’s family constantly migrated between Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee in search of work This transitory lifestyle lasted well into her early adulthood. Blackwell worked throughout the South at such jobs as chopping cotton and peeling tomatoes, until she finally settled in Mayersville, Mississippi, in 1962.

Initially, Blackwell’s eighth-grade education kept her in the fields, but she also became involved with the Student

Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) activities in Mississippi. Blackwell began canvassing the state on behalf of the organization, organizing and registering African American voters. In 1964, Blackwell joined fellow-activist Fannie Lou Hamer in the formation of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party. The party challenged the white-controlled Democratic political machine in the state, pushing for laws establishing black schools which would teach mathematics and science and preventing black children’s employment as sharecroppers. In 1967, Blackwell co-founded Mississippi Action Community Education, an organization which promoted the incorporation of rural districts into towns, enabling them to get government aid in the installation of streetlights and electricity. Her work, as a community development specialist, with the National Council of Negro Women in the early 1970s led to the building of low-income housing units throughout the South and in Puerto Rico.

When Blackwell was elected mayor of Mayersville in 1976, she became the first African American woman mayor in Mississippi. During her tenure, the city has acquired streetlights, paved roads, a fire truck, and a sewer system. She has also instituted an effective food assistance program, and sponsored the construction of housing for the elderly and disabled. In 1982, Blackwell earned a master’s degree in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She was elected president of the National Conference of Black Mayors in 1990, a position she held until 1992.

Blackwell, was also a fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1991. In 1992, Blackwell received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award.” She is also the recipient of a 1992 Southern Christian Leadership Award, and the American Planning Association’s Leadership Award for elected officials in 1994.

JULIAN BOND (1940– ) State Representative, Lecturer, Civil Rights Activist, Organization Executive, State Senator, Educator, Media Personality, Media Executive

Throughout his career Julian Bond has been labeled everything from a national hero to a national traitor. He has faced violent segregationists and his own political and personal failures and scandals. He has, however, remained an influential voice in politics, education, and the media.

Horace Julian Bond was born on January 14, 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee. His father, Dr. Horace Mann Bond, an eminent scholar, was the first African American president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. The family lived in Lincoln until Dr. Bond became Dean of the School of Education at Atlanta University. After graduating from the George School, a Quaker school, in 1957, Bond entered Morehouse College. Bond was not an exceptional student, but he won a varsity letter in swimming and was one of the founders of The Pegasus, aliterarymagazine.

While at Morehouse, however, Bond developed an interest in civil rights activism. He and several other students formed the Atlanta Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR). The Atlanta University-based COAHR student civil rights organization held nonvio-lent direct action anti-segregation protests for three years that won integration of Atlanta’s movie theaters, lunch counters, and parks. These activities attracted the attention of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders who invited students, among them Bond, to Shaw University in North Carolina to help devise new civil rights strategies. At this conference where the adult participants were eventually requested to “speak only when asked to do so,” the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was created as an autonomous organization. SNCC eventually absorbed COHAR and Bond accepted a position as the SNCC director of communications, editing the SNCC newsletter, The Student Voice, and working voter registration drives in the rural South.

In 1965, Bond campaigned for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. He won the one year term in the special election following court-ordered reapportionment of the state legislature. Bond prepared to take his seat in the Georgia legislature but became embroiled in a controversy when he announced his opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. This stance outraged many conservative members of the Georgia House of Representatives and on January 10, 1966, they voted to prevent Bond’s admission to the legislature. Bond sought legal recourse to overturn this vote and the case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 5, 1966, the Court ruled that the Georgia vote was a violation of Bond’s First Amendment right of free speech and ordered that he be admitted to the legislature. The members of the Georgia House of Representatives reluctantly allowed Bond to take his seat, but treated him as an outcast.

In 1968, Bond and several other members of the Georgia Loyal National Delegation to the Democratic Convention protested Governor Lester Maddox’s decision to send only six African American delegates out of 107 to the Democratic National Convention. Bond and his supporters arrived at the convention and set up a rival delegation. After several bitter arguments with Georgia’s official delegation, Bond’s delegation captured nearly half of Georgia’s delegate votes. He became the Democratic Party’s first African American candidate for the U.S. vice presidency, but withdrew his name because he did not meet the minimum age requirement.

From 1978 to 1989, Bond was president of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP. He was elected to the Georgia Senate in 1975 and remained a member until 1987. In 1976, he declined an invitation to become a part of President Jimmy Carter’s administration. Bond ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1986 but lost the election to John Lewis. In 1989, he divorced his wife after 28 years of marriage. During the bitter divorce, allegations of Bond’s drug use surfaced. Shortly thereafter, he became embroiled in a paternity suit. He initially denied the allegations, but admitted in May of 1990 to fathering the child and was ordered to pay child support.

Bond has served as a visiting professor at Drexel and Harvard Universities. He is a lecturer and writer and is often called upon to comment on political and social issues. Bond has hosted a popular television program America’s Black Forum, the oldest African American-owned show in television syndication; and narrated the highly acclaimed public television series Eyes on the Prize, a film on the life of artist Henry O. Tanner, the 1992 documentary The American Experience: Duke Ellington—Reminiscing in Tempo, and the Academy Award winning documentary, A Time For Justice.He has written a nationally syndicated newspaper column.

In 1994 he became involved in a power struggle with NAACP Board Chairman William Gibson, which cost Bond his position on the board. In 1998, Bond was elected chair of the NAACP board of directors and chair of the board of the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis. He is currently a distinguished scholar in residence at American University and a Professor of history at the University of Virginia where he is also co-director of Explorations in Black Leadership.

In addition to his role as an active voice in American politics, Bond has written and edited many books, including Mose T’s Slapout Family Album (1996); Black Candidates—Southern Campaign Experiences (1969); and Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Celebration of the Negro National Anthem (2000). A collection of Bond’s essays has been published under the title A Time to Speak, A Time to Act (1972)

CORY BOOKER (1969– ) Attorney, Municipal Government Official

Cory Anthony Booker represents a new breed of African American politicians who reached adulthood in the post-civil rights era. They are often populists or social justice activists with Ivy League educations and corporate experience. Some veteran politicians are critical of newcomers like Booker and their crossover appeal.

Born on April 27, 1969 in Washington, DC to civil rights activists, Booker’s parents were among the first African-American managers at IBM. He grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey, a predominantly white affluent community. He earned his B.A. in political science in 1991 from Stanford University. At Stanford he was a scholar, athlete, and leader. He was elected to Stanford’s Council of Presidents, played varsity football, and ran a student-run crisis hotline. Following the completion of his Master’s in sociology at Stanford in 1992, Booker won a Rhodes scholarship. He studied at Oxford University for two years and was awarded a degree in modern history with honors in 1994.

Upon returning to the United States, Booker entered Yale Law School and earned his J.D. in 1997. While in law school, he started and operated free legal clinics for poor people in New Haven; mentored young boys through the Big Brother program; and was active in the Black Law Students Association.

After graduation, Booker moved back to New Jersey working as a staff attorney for the Urban Justice Center in New York and program coordinator of the Newark Youth Project. Booker attracted public attention when he moved into the Brick Towers, an infamous public housing project and began organizing the tenants.

Booker’s first political race was in 1998 when he successfully unseated a four-term incumbent to get elected to the Newark City Council. As a councilmember, he was principled and outside the conventional political mode. He went on a hunger strike, protested open-air drug dealing, and lived in a motor home for five months on various street corners to bring attention and police action to known drug trafficking locations.

In spite of his energy and penchant for bringing media attention to important social issues such as housing, drug abuse, and education in Newark, many of his Council bills were overwhelmingly defeated by a seven vote bloc of his Council colleagues.

When Booker decided to run for Mayor of Newark in 2002, his opponent, Sharpe James, was a five term veteran of the mayor’s office and a local political powerhouse. The hotly contested and brutal mayoral race received national media attention and was the subject of the documentary, Street Fight, which received an Academy Award nomination. James won the race with percent of the vote.

In 2003, Booker founded Newark Now, a nonprofit organization; became a partner in a New Jersey law firm; and a fellow in public policy and planning at Rutgers University. Booker announced his second candidacy for mayor of Newark in 2006. Ron Rice, a veteran State Senator and Council member, who was serving as Deputy Mayor, also announced his intention to run for mayor provided Mayor James did not seek reelection.

James did not seek reelection as Mayor, but continued to serve in the New Jersey Senate.

Booker had at least a $6 million campaign fund which enabled him to run a very professional and effective campaign. With 72 percent of the vote, Booker won a resounding victory over Rice. The entire slate of victorious Council candidates had allied themselves with Booker.

On July 1, 2006, Booker was sworn in as Mayor. For almost four decades only two other people had held that position, Ken Gibson and Sharpe James. At 37 years of age, Booker was perhaps the youngest mayor in Newark’s recent history. Reducing crime, especially drug trafficking; improving housing and other quality of life indicators for all Newark residents; working for high achieving schools while improving educational options for students; and being accessible to city residents were among the areas of focus for Mayor Booker’s administration.

THOMAS BRADLEY (1917–1998) Civil Rights Activist, Municipal Government Official, Organization Executive, City Council Member, Attorney

Bradley was born December 29, 1917, in Calvert, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. In 1924 he moved with his family to Los Angeles where he graduated from Polytechnic High School in 1937 and attended the University of California, Los Angeles, on an athletic scholarship. He excelled at track before quitting college in 1940 and joining the Los Angeles Police Department. While a member of the police force, Bradley worked as a detective, community relations officer, and in the depart-ment’s juvenile division. In the early 1950s, Bradley began studying law at two Los Angeles universities, Loyola University and later at Southwestern University. He was awarded an LL.B. from Southwestern University in 1956. Bradley stayed with the LAPD until 1961, when he entered private law practice.

In 1963, Bradley became the first African American elected to the Los Angeles City Council. He was reelected in 1967 and 1971. In the 1973 election Bradley became mayor of Los Angeles, winning 56 percent of the vote. During his time as mayor, Bradley compiled a record and was both lauded and criticized. Bradley’s defenders credited him with opening city government to minorities and women, expanding social services to the urban poor, and spurring growth. During Bradley’s tenure as mayor, Los Angeles overtook San Francisco as the West Coast’s financial center and gained international prominence. Though Bradley is credited with turning Los Angeles into a modern metropolis, his detractors accused him of not keeping up with the city’s problems.

One of the toughest situations Bradley faced was the occurrence of the 1992 riots that followed the announcement of “not guilty” verdicts for Los Angeles Police Department officers who were charged with beating African American motorist Rodney King. Bradley was vilified for what some considered to be his lack of response to the incident. Many demanded the firing of Police Chief Daryl Gates. Under the limits of the law, however, Bradley could do no more than ask Gates to resign. Though Gates eventually did leave his post, many considered the situation a serious challenge to Bradley’s authority.

Bradley did attempt to heal the community in other ways. Even before the rioting had ended, he set up the nonprofit organization, Rebuild LA. That organization was criticized for creating unreal expectations, but Bradley’s Neighbor to Neighbor group was viewed in a positive light. Comprised of nearly 800 volunteers, the outreach group regularly canvassed neighborhoods to give residents an outlet for discussing problems and to help citizens organize themselves in order to solve their own difficulties. In a second trial, two of four LAPD officers charged with violating King’s civil rights were found guilty.

One of Bradley’s final acts as a city official was to sign a bill that banned smoking in all restaurants. He was honored for his years of service by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June of 1993. He officially left the mayoral post on July 1, 1993, effectively ending a 30-year public career. After his last term, Bradley returned to the private practice of law. He was then ensnared in a political finance scandal that also caught other California lawmakers, including Governor Pete Wilson and Senator Dianne Feinstein. Laundered campaign funds were traced to Evergreen America Corp., the world’s largest container shipping company. Los Angeles’s Ethics Commission ordered Bradley and others to repay a total of $15,000, but Bradley refused, claiming he did not know the money had been improperly donated.

Bradley served as president of the National League of Cities and the Southern California Association of Governments. He belonged to the Urban League of Los Angeles and was a founding member of the NAACP’s Black Achievers Committee. On the national level he served on President Gerald Ford’s National Committee on Productivity & Work Quality and on the National Energy Advisory Council. Bradley won numerous awards and honors including the 1974 University of California’s Alumnus of the Year, the 1974 Thurgood Marshall Award, the 1978 Award of Merit given by the National Council of Negro Women, and the NAACP’s 1985 Spingarn Medal.

EDWARD W. BROOKE (1919– ) Attorney, Federal Legislator

Edward W. Brooke was born on October 26, 1919, in Washington, D.C. He moved to Massachusetts and, in a state that was overwhelmingly Democratic and in which African Americans constituted only 3 percent of the population, became a popular Republican figure. He first achieved statewide office in 1962 when he defeated Elliot Richardson to become attorney general. His record in that post led to his 1966 election to the Senate over former Massachusetts governor Endicott Peabody.

Born into a middle-class environment, Brooke attended public schools and went on to graduate from Howard. Inducted into an all-African American infantry unit during World War II, Brooke rose to the rank of captain and was ultimately given a Bronze Star for his work in intelligence. Returning to Massachusetts after the war, Brooke attended the Boston University Law School, compiling a top academic record and editing the Law Review. After law school, he established himself as an attorney and also served as chairman of the Boston Finance Commission.

Brooke was later nominated for the attorney general’s office, encountering stiff opposition within his own party. He eventually won both the Republican primary and the general election against his Democratic opponent. In the Senate, Brooke espoused the notion that the Great Society could not become a reality until it was preceded by the “Responsible Society.” He called this a society in which “it’s more profitable to work than not to work. You don’t help a man by constantly giving him more handouts.”

Brooke served two terms as U. S. Senator (1967 to 1979). When elected in November 1966, Brooke became the first popularly elected African American U. S. Senator.

Initially he strongly supported U.S. participation in the Vietnam War, though most African American leaders were increasingly opposing it. However, in 1971, Brooke supported the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment that called for withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam. Matters of race rather than foreign affairs were to become Brooke’s area of expertise. Brooke was a cautious legislator. However, as pressure mounted from the established civil rights groups and African American militants he decided to attack President Nixon’s policies. Brooke was roused into a more active role by the administration’s vacillating school desegregation guidelines, its firing of HEW official Leon Panetta, and the nominations to the Supreme Court of judicial conservatives Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.

In 1972, Brooke was reelected to the Senate overwhelmingly, even though Massachusetts was the only state not carried by his party in the presidential election. While Brooke seconded the nomination of President Richard M. Nixon at the 1972 Republican Convention, he became increasingly critical of the Nixon administration. He also began appearing publicly at meetings of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group he had tended to avoid in the past. Brooke was considered a member of the moderate wing of the Republican Party. In 1978, Brooke’s bid for a third term in the Senate was denied by Democrat Paul Tsongas. Brooke, the recipient of more than 30 honorary degrees and various awards, including the NAACP Spingarn Medal and the National Conference of Christians and Jews’ Charles Evans Hughes Award, returned to private law practice following his Senate career.

In 1996, Brooke became the first chairman of Alpha Phi Alpha’s World Policy Council, a think tank established to broaden the fraternity’s involvement in international affairs. He is currently, the Council’s chairman emeritus.

In 2002, Brooke was diagnosed with breast cancer and since that time has been involved in raising national awareness of the disease among men.

In 2004, Brooke, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his “especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

LEE P. BROWN (1937– ) Municipal Government Official

Lee Brown was born in Wewoka, Oklahoma on October 4, 1937. Later he moved to California where he began his professional career in law enforcement in 1960 as a San Jose police officer. He also earned his bachelor’s degree in criminology that same year from Fresno State University. In 1964 Brown received his master’s degree in sociology from San Jose State University. He pursued his education at the University of California at Berkeley where he earned a second master’s degree in 1968 and his Ph.D. in criminology in 1970.

Brown embarked upon a university teaching career with an appointment as assistant professor at San Jose State in 1968. After earning his second master’s, he established the Department of Administration of Justice at Portland State University in Oregon, becoming chairman at the rank of professor. In 1972 Brown joined the faculty at Howard University as associate director of the Institute of Urban Affairs and Research, professor of Public Administration, and director of Criminal Justice programs at Howard University.

In 1974, Brown returned to law enforcement as Sheriff of Multonomah County, Oregon. A position he held until 1976 when he became director of the Department of Justice Services. After an extensive national search, Brown was selected as public safety commissioner of Atlanta a position he held from 1978 to 1982. In that position he was responsible for Atlanta’s police, fire, corrections, and civil defense departments. During his tenure, the police department solved the Atlanta Child Murders cases. Brown went back to the academy as a professor at Texas Southern University and director of the university’s Black Male Initiative Program.

From 1982 to 1990, Brown served as Chief of Police of Houston, Texas. His appointment by Mayor Kathy Whitmire marked the first time an African American served as Houston’s Police Chief. Brown was an innovative and transformative leader. He reformed the troubled Houston Police Department and pioneered the concept of community policing. The Houston Police Department became a model agency and Brown became known as the “Father of Community Policing.”

Following is success in Houston, he was selected to serve as Police Commissioner of New York City. Brown implemented the community policing citywide and started a dramatic crime reduction in New York City.

In 1993, President Clinton nominated Brown for the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn-in as a member of the President’s cabinet on June 21, 1993. As Drug Czar, Brown shifted the nation’s drug control strategy to place more emphasis on reducing the demand for drugs.

Elected Mayor of Houston, Texas, America’s fourth largest city, in 1997, Brown was very effective leader. Arguably, Brown presided over the most prosperous period in the history of that city. During Brown’s administration Houston revitalized the downtown area; started its first light rail system; expanded public transportation with increased bus service, park and ride, and HOV lanes; built and opened new state-ofthe-art sports venues (football, baseball, and basketball); built and renovated new libraries, police, and fire stations; constructed the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts; constructed the City’s first convention center hotel and doubled the size of the convention center; and increased the number of foreign consulates.

In 2001 Brown was narrowly reelected mayor in a hotly contested race against city councilmember Orlando Sanchez. Brown won by a margin of three percentage points with heavy voter turnout in predominantly Black precincts.

Brown is a co-founder of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) and currently serves as chairman and CEO of Brown Group International, a multinational consulting firm that specializes in complex problems in public safety, homeland security, crisis management, government relations, and international trade, and other concerns.

RON BROWN (1941–1996) Attorney, Federal Government Official, Organization Executive

Ronald H. Brown was born in Washington, D.C., on August 1, 1941, and raised in Harlem, NY. He attended White Plains High School and Rhodes and Walden Preparatory Schools. He graduated from Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, with a B.A. in political science in 1962. Upon graduating, he enlisted in the U.S. Army where he achieved the rank of captain while serving in West Germany and Korea. In 1970, Brown graduated from New York City’s St. John’s University Law School.

While attending law school, Brown began working in 1988 for the National Urban League’s job training center in the Bronx, New York. He continued with them until 1979, working as general counsel, Washington spokesperson, deputy executive director, vice president of Washington operations, and lobbyist. In 1980 he resigned to become chief counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Largely because of his effectiveness as chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee, he became the general counsel and staff coordinator for Senator Edward Kennedy. Brown

also became chief counsel for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and subsequently the deputy chairman of the DNC. After his term as deputy chairman expired, Brown joined the law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow.

In 1989 Brown was appointed chairman of the DNC, making him the first African American to head a major American political party. As head of the DNC, Brown proved to be a successful fund-raiser and an effective team builder. During Brown’s tenure, Democrats elected an African American governor in Virginia and an African American mayor in New York City. Brown was also considered one of the architects of President Bill Clinton’s 1992 election victory. In 1993, President Clinton appointed Brown commerce secretary. He was subsequently confirmed by the U.S. Senate, thus becoming the first African American secretary of commerce.

As commerce secretary, Brown was a leader in developing trade and economic policies which were sometimes controversial. He opened doors that allowed women and minorities to be more involved and aware of business opportunities through the Commerce Department. Brown’s service as a cabinet member was marred somewhat by charges of financial impropriety and influence-peddling. An independent counsel was appointed to investigate the allegations. Brown’s last official act was leading a group of American businessmen and women to war-torn Croatia so that they might assist in rebuilding the country. Brown died in a plane crash on April 3, 1996, near the Croatian coast.

BLANCHE K. BRUCE (1841–1898) Federal Government Official, Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator

Blanche Kelso Bruce was born a slave in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. He received his early formal education in Missouri, where his parents had moved while he was young, and may have studied at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1868, Bruce settled in Floreyville, Mississippi, where he was a successful educator. He later worked as a planter and eventually built up a considerable fortune in property.

In 1870, Bruce entered politics and was elected sergeant-at-arms of the Mississippi Senate. A year later he was named assessor of taxes in Bolivar County. In 1872 he served as sheriff of the county and as a member of the Board of Levee Commissioners of Mississippi. Bruce was nominated for the U.S. Senate from Mississippi in February of 1874. He was elected, becoming the first African American person to serve a full term in the Senate. Bruce became an outspoken defender of the rights of minority groups, including the Chinese and Native Americans. In 1879, he became the first African American to preside over the Senate during a debate. He chaired the investigation into the failure of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust and worked for the improvement of navigation on the Mississippi in the hope of increasing interstate and foreign commerce. Bruce also supported legislation aimed at eliminating reprisals against those who had opposed African American emancipation.

After Bruce completed his term in the Senate in 1881, he failed to win a second term due to the loss of power and influence of the Radical Republicans in the South. He rejected an offer for a diplomatic post to Brazil, because slavery was still practiced there. In 1881, he was named register of the U.S. Treasury Department by President James A. Garfield. Bruce held this position until 1885 when the Democrats regained power. He wrote articles and lectured until 1889, when President Benjamin Harrison appointed him recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia. Bruce served as recorder of deeds until 1893, when he became a trustee for the District of Columbia public schools. In 1897, President William McKinley reappointed him to his former post as register of the treasury. Bruce died on March 17, 1898, in Washington, D.C.

RALPH J. BUNCHE (1904–1971) Federal Government Official, Diplomat, Educator

The first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Ralph Bunche was an internationally acclaimed statesman whose record of achievement places him among the most significant American diplomats of the twentieth century. Bunche received the Peace Prize in 1950 for his role in effecting a cease fire in the Arab-Israeli dispute.

Born in Detroit on August 7, 1904, Bunche graduated summa cum laude in 1927 with Phi Beta Kappa honors from UCLA. A year later he received his M.A. in government from Harvard. Soon thereafter he was named head of the Department of Political Science at Howard University until 1932 when he resumed his work toward his doctorate from Harvard. He later studied at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and Capetown University. Before World War II broke out in 1939, Bunche did field work with the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, author of the widely acclaimed An American Dilemma. During the war, he served initially as senior social analyst for the Office of the Coordinator of Information in African and Far Eastern Affairs, and was then reassigned to the African section of the Office of Strategic Services. In 1942, he helped draw up the territories and trusteeship sections ultimately earmarked for inclusion in the United Nations charter.

The single event that brought the name of Ralph Bunche into the international spotlight occurred soon after his appointment in 1948 as chief assistant to Count Folke Bernadotte, U.N. mediator in the Palestine crisis. With the latter’s assassination, Bunche continued cease-fire talks between Egypt and Israel. After six weeks of intensive negotiations, Bunche worked out the “Four Armistice Agreements,” which brokered an immediate cessation of the hostilities between the two combatants. Once the actual cease-fire was signed, Bunche received numerous congratulatory letters and telegrams from many heads of state and was given a hero’s welcome upon his return to the United States.

Bunche served as undersecretary of Special Political Affairs from 1957 to 1967. By 1968, Bunche had attained the rank of undersecretary general, the highest position ever held by an American at the United Nations. Bunche retired in October of 1971 and died on December 9, 1971. The library of the Department of State was dedicated and renamed in his honor in May of 1997 in recognition of his political and humanitarian contributions.

YVONNE BRAITHWAITE BURKE (1932– ) Attorney, State Legislator

Attorney and former California State Assemblywoman Yvonne Braithwaite Burke became the first African American woman from California ever to be elected to the House of Representatives in November of 1972. More than 20 years later, she became the first woman and African American to chair the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Prior to her governmental career, Burke was a practicing attorney, during which time she served as a deputy corporation commissioner, a hearing officer for the Los Angeles Police Commissioner, and an attorney for the McCone Commission which investigated the Watts riots.

Born on October 5, 1932, in Los Angeles, Congresswoman Burke served in the State Assembly for six years prior to her election to Congress. During her final two years, she was chairperson of the Committee on Urban Development and Housing and a member of the Health, Finance and Insurance committees. As a state legislator, Burke was responsible for the enactment of bills that provided for needy children, relocation of tenants, owners of homes taken by governmental action, and which required major medical insurance programs to grant immediate coverage to newborn infants of the insured.

Burke’s district, created in 1971 by the California legislature, was about 50 percent African American. In 1972, the district gave 64 percent of its vote to Burke. During Burke’s first term in the House, she proved to be an ardent spokesperson for the downtrodden. She became a member of the Committee on Appropriations in December of 1974, and used her position on this committee to advocate an increase in funding for senior citizen services and community nutrition and food programs. Although her proposal for increased spending was defeated by the House of Representatives, Burke’s efforts earned the respect of the African American community. In January of 1977, Burke worked diligently for the passage of the Displaced Homemakers Act, which proposed the creation of counseling programs and job training centers for women entering the work force for the first time.

In 1978, Burke resigned to run for attorney general in California. She lost the race but was appointed to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. She resigned from the board in December 1980, and returned to her private law practice. Burke remained a prominent figure in California politics, taking on a number of civic responsibilities, including serving as a member of the University of California Board of Regents. In 1992, Burke was elected as chairperson of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. She continues to serve on the LA County Board of Supervisors.

CHUCK BURRIS (1951– ) Municipal Government Official

Burris was born in New Orleans in 1951, and was raised in Atlanta. He attended Morehouse College, and in 1971 he received his B.A. In 1975, he received his LL.B. from John Marshall Law School. Burris worked on several of the campaigns of Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. He worked for the city of Atlanta as a member of the Crime Analyst Team and as budget officer. He was also affiliated with the city’s housing department.

While working for the state of Georgia, Burris first discovered the town of Stone Mountain. The city was the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan and had a large monument to the Confederacy carved on Stone Mountain. Burris moved to the town and, in 1991, won election to the city council. Burris was determined to change the town’s image from intolerance to inclusiveness.

In 1997, Burris was elected as the mayor of Stone Mountain. The symbolic victory attracted national attention.

BILL CAMPBELL (1954– ) Municipal Government Official

Bill Campbell was born in 1954 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Campbell became mayor of Atlanta in 1994 at the age of 40, the third African American to hold that position. His election signaled a new generation of leadership for the people of Atlanta.

In 1974, Campbell graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University, completing a triple major (history, political science, and sociology) in just three years. He received his J.D. from Duke University in 1977 and went to work for an Atlanta law firm. Campbell worked from 1980 to 1981 for the U.S. Justice Department in Atlanta.

Campbell began his political career in 1981 when he served on the Atlanta City Council. He served three consecutive terms through 1993, co-sponsoring more than 300 pieces of legislation. By 1993, he had become a partner in an Atlanta law firm, along with serving as floor leader of the city council under Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson. When Jackson’s health began to wane, Campbell was mentioned as a mayoral candidate. The importance of the mayoral election was heightened by the city’s preparations for the 1996 Olympics.

The 1993 election for mayor included other city council members, former mayoral candidates, and 12 non-partisan candidates. Campbell won 49 percent of the vote, shy of the 50 percent needed to win the office outright. He won the runoff election with 73 percent of the vote.

Campbell appointed Beverly J. Harvard the first female police chief of a major American city. He installed mini-police precincts in Atlanta’s housing projects, planned alliances between the city and historically African American colleges, and encouraged young people to become active in community services. In 1996, Campbell hosted many dignitaries, including President Bill Clinton, in celebration of the tenth official holiday celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Campbell proposed a $150 million plan to repair Atlanta’s infrastructure before the Olympics. Following the Olympics, Camp-bell’s major efforts focused on downtown redevelopment, privatization of the Water Department, and a transformation of the housing authority in Atlanta from one of the worst in the nation.

Campbell won reelection as Atlanta’s mayor in 1997. During his second term, he was attacked for the city’s affirmative action program which he vigorously defended, but won wide praise for his handling of a widely publicized shooting rampage that occurred in the city in 1999. In 2000, it was revealed that Campbell was under federal investigation in a corruption probe. Campbell could not seek a third-term in the office due to term limits. Following the inauguration of mayor-elect Shirley Franklin, Campbell moved to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida where he practiced law.

In August 2004, Campbell was indicted by a federal grand jury on racketeering, bribery and wire fraud charges after a five-year federal investigation of corruption in his administration during his tenure as Mayor.

The investigation led to the conviction of more than a dozen City contractors and several senior city officials including three of Campbell’s top aides on corruption-related charges. Mayor Campbell was found guilty of three counts of tax fraud relating to false tax returns for the three years from 1997 to 1000 and was sentenced to two years, six months in federal prison. He reported to prison in Miami, FL in August 2006.

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM (1924–2005) Educator, Federal Legislator, Organization Executive, Civil Rights Activist

Shirley Chisholm was born November 30, 1924, in New York City but spent much of her early life in Barbados with her extended family. She graduated cum laude from Brooklyn College in 1946 with a B.A. in sociology and in 1952 from Columbia University with an M.A. in elementary education. She had an early career in child care and preschool education, culminating in her directorship of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center in New York. From 1959 to 1964 she was a consultant to the Day Care Division of New York City’s Bureau of Child Welfare.

In 1964, Chisholm was elected New York state assemblywoman, representing the 55th district in New York City. In 1968 she became the first African American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives after defeating Republican James Farmer. When she was assigned to the House Forestry Committee, she protested and demanded reassignment. She was placed on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. She supported Hale Boggs as House Majority Leader over John Conyers. Subsequently, Boggs assigned her to the powerful, Education and Labor Committee. In 1969 she was one of the founding members of Congress Black Caucus. When she retired from Congress in 1982, she was the third highest ranking member.

In 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. She campaigned and entered primaries in 12 states, winning 28 delegates and 152 first ballot votes. Chisholm served as a delegate to the Democratic National Mid-Term Conference in 1974 and as a Democratic National Committee member. After retiring from politics Chisholm was named to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College where she taught political science for four years. In 1984, Chisholm co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women. She spent the next year as a visiting scholar at Spelman College. In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Chisholm as ambassador to Jamaica, but due to declining health, she withdrew her name from further consideration. A member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Chisholm was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. She retired to Florida and died there on January 1, 2005.

Chisholm was the author of Unbossed & Unbought (1970) and The Good Fight (1973). She was a member of the NAACP, the National Association of Colored Women, and the League of Women Voters. She has won numerous awards during her life including the 1965 Woman of Achievement Award presented by Key Women Inc. and the 1969 Sojourner Truth Award given to her by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

WILLIAM CLAY (1931– ) Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator

William Clay, the first African American to represent the state of Missouri in the U.S. Congress, was born on April 30, 1931, in the lower end of what is now St. Louis’s 1st District. Clay received a degree in political science at St. Louis University, where he was one of four African Americans in a class of 1,100. After serving in the U.S. Army until 1955, Clay became active in a host of civil rights organizations including the NAACP Youth Council and CORE. During this time he worked as a cardio-graphic aide, bus driver, and insurance agent.

In 1959 and 1963, Clay was elected alderman of the predominantly African American 26th Ward. During his first term, he served nearly four months of a nine-month jail sentence for demonstrations at a local bank. In 1964, Clay stepped down from his alderman’s post to run for ward committeeman; he won and was reelected in 1968.

Clay’s election platform in 1969 included a number of progressive, even radical, ideas. He advocated that all penal institutions make provisions for the creation of facilities in which married prisoners could set up house with their spouses for the duration of their sentences. He branded most testing procedures and diploma requirements, as well as references to arrest records and periods of unemployment, unnecessary obstacles complicating the path of a prospective employee. In his view, a demonstrated willingness to work and an acceptance of responsibility should be the criteria determining one’s selection for a job.

Clay’s last job before his election to Congress was as race relations coordinator for Steamfitters Union Local 562. Subjected to considerable criticism from other St. Louis African Americans who labeled the union racist, Clay pointed out that dramatic changes in the hiring practices of the union since he had joined it in 1966 were responsible for the employment of 30 African American steamfitters in St. Louis. Still, Clay conceded that the high-paying job had led him to reduce his active involvement with the civil rights struggle to some degree.

As a congressman, Clay sponsored many pieces of legislation including the Hatch Act Reform Bill, the City Earnings Tax Bill, the IRS Reform Bill, and the Family and Medical Leave Bill, which was the first bill that President Bill Clinton signed into law. In 1993 the Hatch Act, which Clay championed for two decades, was signed into law. Clay has served as chairman of the Subcommittee on Postal Operations and Civil Service, the House Education and Labor Committee, and the House Administration Committee. He has also been a member of the board of directors for Benedict College, Tougaloo College, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. In 1990, Clay’s first book, To Kill or Not to Kill, was published. In 1993, Clay published Just Permanent Interests: Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1991. Clay served 32 years as Congressman from 1969 to 2001 and was succeeded in that position by his son William Lacy (Bill) Clay, Jr.

EVA CLAYTON (1934– ) Federal Legislator

Eva M. Clayton was born in Savannah, Georgia. Clayton earned a B.S. in 1955 from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. She earned an M.S. in 1963 from North Carolina Central University. She later attended the University of North Carolina Law School.

Clayton first ran for a congressional seat in 1968 without success. In the 1970s she was one of the founders of Soul City, a federally funded project to build a model planned community. She later worked for the campaign of Jim Hunt who was elected governor. Clayton was rewarded with the post of assistant secretary for the Department of Natural Resources. Clayton became active in politics serving as a Warren County Commissioner for 10 years and as chair of that commission for eight years.

When the First District Congressman died in office, Clayton was named to fill his unexpired term and was elected to a full term in 1992. However, her district and others came under fire as racially gerrymandered districts. Though the district is no longer an African American-majority district, Clayton held her seat until she retired in 2002. Clayton was the first woman to serve in Congress from North Carolina and the first African American elected to Congress from that state since 1898.

JAMES E. CLYBURN (1940– ) Federal Legislator

Clyburn was born July 21, 940 in Sumter, South Carolina. He was the eldest son of a fundamentalist preacher and civic-minded beautician. From his family he learned the importance of religious faith and community service. He was active in the NAACP from his youth, serving as president of his youth council when he was 12 years old. As a student at South Carolina State College in Orange-burg, he became a leader and activist. He participated in marches and demonstrations that sometimes led to arrests including the infamous 1960 Orangeburg rebellion in which 388 college students, including Clyburn, were arrested. He was also jailed during a 1961 march on the South Carolina State Capitol.

During one of his incarcerations, he met his wife and they were married on June 24, 1961. He began his career in Charleston as a teacher of history in the public schools. Later he worked as an employment counselor, director of youth and community development programs, and the executive of as program serving migrant and seasonal farm workers.

In 1970, he ran unsuccessfully for the South Carolina House of Representatives and later joined the staff of the newly elected governor. As an advisor to the governor, he was the first African American to hold such a position since Reconstruction. After four years on the governor’s staff, Clyburn was appointed the Human Affairs Commissioner of South Carolina, a position he held for almost two decades. Always committed to serving the people of his home state, South Carolina, Cly-burn ran twice for Secretary of State, in 1978 and again in 1986, but without success.

Clyburn resigned his position as Human Affairs Commissioner in 1992 and vigorously pursued his lifelong dream of serving in the U.S. Congress. With five Democratic primary hopefuls, Clyburn won handily with 56 percent of the vote, and avoided a runoff. When he easily won the general election, Clyburn became the first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress from South Carolina since 1897.

In January 1993, Clyburn was sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina’s Sixth Congressional District. His leadership skills were evident from the outset. He was elected co-President of his freshman class. In 1999, he was unanimously elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and to a seat on the Appropriations Committee. In 2002, he was elected as Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Four years later, Clyburn was unanimously elected Chair of the Caucus.

On November 16, 2006, James Clyburn became the first South Carolinian and the second African American to be elected Majority Whip, the third ranking position in the House of Representatives. In addition to serving as House Majority Whip, Clyburn is the leader of the House Democrat’s Faith Working Group.

CARDISS COLLINS (1931– ) Accountant, Federal Legislator, Civil Rights Activist

Collins was born Cardiss Robertson on September 24, 1931. She moved to Detroit and graduated from Commerce High School. Collins then moved to Chicago where she worked as a secretary for the state’s Department of Revenue. She began studying accounting at Northwestern University and was promoted to accountant and then auditor.

In 1973, Collins was elected U.S. Representative from Illinois’ 7th district. She was elected to fill the seat vacated by her husband George Collins, who was killed in an airplane crash. She became the first African American and the first woman to hold the position of Democratic whip-at-large. Collins served on congressional subcommittees dealing with consumer protection, national security, hazardous materials, narcotic abuse and control, and energy concerns. At various points, she also served as active secretary, vice chair, and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Collins was a proponent of civil rights, airline safety, issues concerning women, affirmative action and anti-apart-heid legislation. She was Chairwoman of the Government Activities and Transportation Subcommittee from 1989 to 1991. In that position she worked for legislation to control the transport of toxic materials and the location of landfills and incinerators in minority communities. Collins introduced the Non-Discrimination in Advertising Act which sought to correct systematic discrimination against minority-owned ad agencies and broadcast stations. Her investigations into Title IX led to legislation that required institutions of higher education to disclose gender participation rates and program expenditures. Collins was a persistent advocate for universal health insurance and fought successfully for the establishment of a federal office on minority health.

In 1994, the CBC Foundation elected her the group’s chair. Early in 1995, Collins became the top Democrat on the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Following her re-election on November 8, 1995, Collins announced her decision to retire after 24 years in the House. Her 12 terms in Congress from 1973 to 1997, made her the longest-serving African American female member of Congress. Collins belongs to the NAACP, Chicago Urban League, Northern Virginia Urban League, National Women’s Political Caucus, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Congressional Women’s Caucus, Alpha Kappa Psi, Black Women’s Agenda, and the National Council of Negro Women. Besides the degree she obtained from Northwestern in 1967, she has honorary degrees from Barber-Scotia College, Winston-Salem State University,and Spelman College. The Black Coaches Association (BCA) named Collins Sports-person of the Year in 1994, after she supported the group’s contention that standardized college entrance examinations are racially and culturally biased and, therefore, should not be used by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to establish athletic eligibility.

JOHN CONYERS (1929– ) Attorney, Federal Legislator, Federal Government Official, Civil Rights Activist, Organization Executive

Conyers was born in Detroit on May 16, 1929. In 1950, three years after graduating from high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private and served in Korea before being honorably discharged in 1957 as a second lieutenant. He attended Wayne State University in Detroit, and, after studying in a dual program, he received a B.A. in 1957 and a J.D. in 1958.

Conyers served as a legislative assistant to Congressman John Dingell Jr. from 1958 to 1961 and was a senior partner in the law firm of Conyers, Bell & Townsend from 1959 to 1961. In 1961, he took a referee position with the Michigan Workman’s Compensation Department. In 1964, he won election as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He has represented the 14th District (it was the 1st District until 1993) since 1965. Conyers’ longevity in Congress is legendary. He is the second-longest serving current member of the House. Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and is considered the Dean of the CBC. He has the longest tenure in Congress of any African American and is considered one of the most liberal members of Congress.

Conyers had long been active in the Democratic Party, belonging to the Young Democrats, University Democrats, and serving as a precinct delegate to the Democratic Party. After his election, Conyers was assigned to the powerful House Judiciary Committee. In January 2007 when the Democrats became the majority in the 110th Congress, Conyers became chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Conyers worked on legislation dealing with civil rights, Medicare, immigration reform, and truth-in-packaging laws. He was an early opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and an early proponent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, Conyers introduced the bill to make King’s birthday a national holiday.

More recently, Conyers has supported efforts to regulate online gambling. Concerned about possible voter repression activities in the 2004 presidential election, Conyers issued a report, What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election, that details reports of faulty electronic voting machines, statistical differences in exit poll results and actual votes registered, and the inability to validate the totals on machines used to tally votes. Since 9/11 Conyers has been vigilant in providing the necessary law enforcement and intelligence authority to the Administration to prevent terrorism without sacrificing the civil liberties and civil rights of citizens. An advocate for working families, Conyers has a history of fighting for equal pay for women and minorities, raising the minimum wage, full employment for all Americans, and universal health care

In 1994, Conyers, the most senior African American member of Congress, supported a grass-roots movement comprised of nearly 1,000 individuals seeking reparations from the federal government on behalf of their slave ancestors. The participants held their fifth annual Conference on Reparations in Conyers; hometown of Detroit. Other prominent African Americans lending support included Reverend Jesse Jackson. In 1998 and 1999, Conyers served as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee of Impeachment.

Conyers has been vice-chairman of the National Board of Americans for Democratic Action and the American Civil Liberties Union. He is on the executive board of the Detroit Chapter of the NAACP and belongs to the Wolverine Bar Association. He is the recipient of the 1967 Rosa Parks Award and in 1969 received an honorary law degree from Wilberforce University.

RONALD V. DELLUMS (1935– ) Social Worker, Federal Legislator, Organization Executive, Lecturer

Ronald Dellums was born in Oakland, California, on November 24, 1935. After attending McClymonds and Oakland Technical High Schools, Dellums joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1954 and was discharged after two years of service. He returned to school, receiving an associate of arts degree from Oakland City College in 1958, a B.A. from San Francisco State College in 1960, and an M.S.W. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1962.

For the next eight years, Dellums engaged in a variety of social work positions. He was a psychiatric social worker with the Berkeley Department of Mental Hygiene starting in 1962, and then two years later became the Bayview Community Center’s program director. Dellums spent one year as director of the Hunters Point Youth Opportunity Center and one year as a consultant to the Bay Area Social Planning Council. In 1967, Dellums worked as a program director for the San Francisco Economic Opportunity Council. From 1968 to 1970, Dellums lectured at San Francisco State College and the University of California’s School of Social Work. He also served as a consultant to Social Dynamics Inc.

Dellums was elected to the Berkeley City Council in 1967, and served until his election as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1971. As a representative he chaired the House Committee on the District of Columbia and served on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Facilities and Installations as well as the Sub-committee on Military Research and Development. In 1983, Dellums wrote Defense Sense: The Search for a Rational Military Policy.

Dellums, who chaired the Defense Policy Panel, became the first African American to head the House Armed Services Committee on January 27, 1993. Once a militant pacifist, he was recognized as one of the most highly regarded members of Congress to extensively work towards U.S. demilitarization. Dellums chastised U.S. President Bill Clinton for giving in to fear and ignorance, when the president did not follow through on his promise to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. Dellums retired in 1998 after 27 years in Congress and became president of Healthcare International Management Company.

OSCAR STANTON DEPRIEST (1871–1951) County Commissioner, Federal Legislator

Oscar DePriest was the first African American to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the twentieth century. Born in Florence, Alabama, in 1871, DePriest moved to Kansas with his family at the age of six. His formal education consisted of business and bookkeeping classes that he completed before running away to Dayton, Ohio, with two white friends. By 1889, he had reached Chicago and become a painter and master decorator.

In Chicago, DePriest amassed a fortune in real estate and the stock market, and in 1904, he entered politics successfully when he was elected Cook County commissioner. In 1908, he was appointed an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention and in 1915 became Chicago’s first African American alderman. He served on the Chicago City Council from 1915 to 1917 and became Third Ward committeeman in 1924. In 1928, DePriest became the Republican nominee for the congressional seat vacated by fellow Republican Martin Madden. DePriest won the November election over his Democratic rival and an independent candidate to become the first African American from outside of the South to be elected to Congress.

Following his election to Congress, DePriest became the unofficial spokesman for the 11 million African Americans in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. He proposed that states that discriminated against African Americans should receive fewer congressional seats. Also, he proposed that a monthly pension be given to ex-slaves over the age of 75. During the early 1930s, with the United States mired in the Depression, DePriest was faced with a difficult dilemma. Although he empathized with the plight of poor black and white Americans, he did not support the emergency federal relief programs proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt. Rather, DePriest and his fellow Republicans believed that aid programs should be created and implemented by individual states or local communities. DePriest’s stance on the issue of federal relief programs dismayed many of his constituents. In 1934, he was defeated by Arthur Mitchell, the first African American Democrat elected to serve in Congress.

DePriest remained active in public life, serving from 1943 to 1947 as alderman of the Third Ward in Chicago. His final withdrawal from politics came about after a dispute with the Republican Party. DePriest returned to his real estate business, and he died on May 12, 1951.

CHARLES C. DIGGS JR. (1922–1998) Former Federal Legislator

Charles Cole Diggs Jr. was born in Detroit on December 2, 1922. His father, an undertaker and funeral home owner, was elected into Michigan State Legislature in the 1940s. Diggs attended the University of Michigan and Fisk University in Nashville. After serving in the Air Force during World War II, he earned a B.S. in Mortuary Science from Wayne State University in 1946.

Upon receiving his degree, Diggs joined his father in the family mortuary business and soon followed him into politics. Diggs was elected to his father’s seat in the state senate in 1951, and was elected to Congress in 1954 as a representative of Michigan’s Thirteenth District.

Diggs was Michigan’s first African American representative. During his early years in Congress, he emerged as a strong voice for the civil rights movement, attending the Emmett Till murder trial in Mississippi as an observer, calling for the desegregation of public transportation, and traveling to the flashpoint of Selma, Alabama in the 1960s. In 1969, Diggs was a key player in organizing the Congressional Black Caucus.

In the 1970s Diggs chaired the African Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Relations. During this period he pressed for the elimination of apartheid segregation in South Africa, and advocated U.S. aid to newly independent African nations. Trans-Africa, a “think tank” devoted to African affairs, was founded in Diggs’s office in 1978. From 1973-1978 he held the chairmanship of the House District Committee, which was charged with overseeing the affairs of Washington, D.C. His work on the committee played a major role in the establishment of a home-rule government for the District of Columbia.

In 1978, Diggs was charged with illegally diverting $60,000 in office operating funds to pay his own personal expenses. He easily won reelection that year, but was soon convicted of the charges. Diggs was censured by the House and stripped of his committee memberships. He resigned his seat in 1980 after 25 years in Congress.

Following appeals of his conviction, Diggs served seven months in prison. He returned to the mortuary business following his release. During the 1980s, he earned a political science degree from Howard University, and also launched a brief comeback attempt with an unsuccessful run for a Maryland state legislative seat. Diggs died of a stroke in Washington, D.C., on August 24, 1998.

DAVID DINKINS (1927– ) Attorney, Municipal Government Official, State Legislator

In September of 1989, David Dinkins surprised political observers by defeating incumbent Mayor Edward I. Koch in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. Two months later, in the November election, he defeated Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani. Dinkins’s victory marked the first time an African American was elected as mayor of New York. Dinkins thus faced the difficult task of leading a racially polarized and financially troubled city. While many supporters cited Dinkins’s calm, professional demeanor as having a soothing effect upon New York’s festering racial problems, others chided him for not responding forcefully enough to the many fiscal and social challenges facing the city.

David Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1927. His parents separated when he was quite young and he moved to Harlem with his mother and sister. He returned to Trenton to attend high school. Following a stint in the U.S. Marines during World War II, he attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and graduated in 1950 with a B.S. In 1956, Dinkins graduated from the Brooklyn Law School. He became an attorney, and, eventually, a partner in the law firm of Dyett, Alexander, Dinkins, Patterson, Michael, Dinkins, and Jones.

Dinkins’s first foray into the world of politics occurred in 1965, when he won an election to the New York State Assembly. He served until 1967, but did not seek reelection after his district was redrawn. In 1972, Dinkins was appointed as president of elections for the City of New York and served for one year. Two years later, in 1975, he was appointed as city clerk and served until 1985. Dinkins ran for the office of Manhattan borough president in 1977 and 1981. He lost both elections by a wide margin. Dinkins ran again in 1985 and was elected. As Manhattan borough president, he was viewed as a mediator who tried to address a myriad of community concerns such as school decentralization, AIDS treatment and prevention services, and pedestrian safety.

As mayor, Dinkins remained true to the issues he had addressed as Manhattan borough president. Other causes he championed included tolerance and acceptance of gays and lesbians, economic parity for women and minorities, and affirmative action. Dinkins set up a program to provide government contracts to businesses owned by women and minorities. Though the program was blemished by faulty bookkeeping and by the complexity of determining which companies were truly eligible, Dinkins’s successor kept it in place.

In 1991, when riots erupted between African Americans and Jews in the Crown Heights neighborhood, Dinkins entreated both sides to think about their actions and possible consequences rather than react to the emotional volatility surrounding an incident in which a Jewish man’s automobile accidentally struck and killed an African American youth. When riots seized Los Angeles in 1992, most of the nation feared that the violence would spread to other large urban areas with mixed or predominately African American populations. But Dinkins was able to assuage his constituents and prevent the terror and destruction that incapacitated Los Angeles.

In November of 1993, Dinkins’ bid for reelection fell short when he was narrowly defeated by Rudolph W. Giuliani. Dinkins left office on December 31, 1993. Poor management had been an Achilles heel of the Dinkins administration. In 1994, the New York Court of Appeals fined the city more than $3.5 million to compensate 5,000 homeless families forced to live in inadequate shelters. In 1994, Dinkins began hosting a radio talk show. Later in the year, he became a member of the AMREP Corp. board of directors and began teaching at Columbia University. Dinkins successfully underwent triple bypass heart surgery in 1995 and continues his professorship in the practice of public affairs in his role as senior fellow at the Barnard-Columbia Center for Urban Policy.

JULIAN C. DIXON (1934–2000) Attorney, Federal Legislator, Women’s Rights Activist

Julian C. Dixon was born August 8, 1934, in Washington, D.C. He served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1960, and received a B.S. in political science from California State University and an LL.B. from Southwestern University Law School in 1967. In 1972, Dixon was elected on the Democratic ticket to the California State Assembly. In 1978, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

While in the House of Representatives, Dixon served on the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, West Point Board of Supervisors, and the Appropriations Sub-Committee on Foreign Operations. He also chaired the Appropriations Sub-Committee on the District of Columbia. This latter appointment made Dixon the first African American to chair an appropriations sub-committee. Dixon was an original co-sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment and was active in the Congressional Black Caucus.

Julian Dixon died on December 8, 2000, in Los Angeles, California, after suffering a heart attack. He was 66.

SHEILA DIXON (1953– ) Municipal Government Official

Dixon became the 48th Mayor of Baltimore on January 17, 2006 when her predecessor, Mayor Martin O’Malley was elected governor of Maryland. She ascended to the position of Mayor from her position as City Council President. She holds the distinction of being the first woman ever to hold this position. Dixon was first elected to the Baltimore City Council representing the 4th Council District and held that position until 1999 when she was elected City Council President. She was the first African American woman to serve as City Council President. Prior to her involvement in politics, Dixon was a community activist and initiated a number of programs for inner city residents including community food cooperatives and good nutrition.

A native of Baltimore, Dixon was educated in the Baltimore City public school system and received a bach-elor’s degree from Towson University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. She worked as an elementary school teacher and as a Head Start teacher. For 17 years, Dixon was an international trade specialist with the Maryland State Department of Business and Economic Development.

An avid athlete, Dixon has been a strong advocate for health issues such as HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and lead poisoning in children. Dixon champions programs that improve children’s health through a more nutritious diet and exercise routine.

A working mother of two, Dixon is grounded by her faith and continues to serve as a member of the Stewardess Board of Bethel A. M. E. Church in Baltimore.

KEITH ELLISON (1963– ) Attorney, State Legislator, Federal Government Official

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Ellison moved to Minnesota in 1987 when he entered the University of Minnesota Law School. He graduated from Law School in 1990. After Law School he practiced with the firm of Lindquist & Vennum for three years and then served as executive director of the Legal Rights Center. He returned to private practice with the law firm of Hassan & Reed, Ltd. where he was a litigator.

A long time community advocate, Ellison promoted peace, an increase in the state’s minimum wage, promoting civil and human rights, and improved police community relations. For eight years he hosted a public affairs program on community radio and frequently testified before state legislative committees on such issues as privacy, welfre reform, indigent defense, and environmental justice to name a few.

In 2002 Ellison was elected to the Minnesota State House of Representatives and re-elected in 2004. While there he promoted efforts to Minnesota children from environmental pollutants and toxins; he sponsored legislation to restore voting rights of ex-offenders; and successfully advocated for an increase in the state’s minimum wage.

In 2006 ran successfully for Congress with a message of “generosity and inclusiveness.”Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District, one of the most ethnically diverse districts in Minnesota that includes Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs. More than 80 languages are spoken in Minneapolis alone. With his election, Ellison made history as the first African American from Minnesota and also as the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Congress. A controversy arose when Ellison used a Koran belonging to Thomas Jefferson for his swearing-in ceremony.

MICHAEL ESPY (1953– ) Federal Government Official, Attorney

Espy was born November 30, 1953. He received a B.A. from Howard University in 1975, and a J.D. from the Santa Clara School of Law in 1978. After graduating, Espy practiced law in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and managed the Central Mississippi Legal Services from 1978 to 1980. Espy worked for the State of Mississippi as assistant secretary of state for public lands, and from 1984 to 1985, as assistant attorney general for consumer protection.

Espy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986, where he served on numerous committees including the House Budget Committee; House Agricultural Committee; Select Committee on Hunger; SubCommittee on Cotton, Rice & Sugar; Sub-Committee on Conservation, Credit and Rural Development; and the Consumer Relations & Nutrition Committee. In addition, he chaired the Domestic Task Force on Hunger. In 1993, Espy was appointed secretary of agriculture by President Bill Clinton, the first African American to hold this post. However, Espy quickly became the subject of a federal ethics investigation into charges that he accepted gifts from companies that were regulated by the agency he headed. Although he denied any wrong-doing, Espy resigned his post on December 31, 1994. Nearly one year later, charges developed that Espy, while still a cabinet member, had improperly approached an agribusiness lobbyist for money, asking him to help pay off a debt incurred by his brother, who had unsuccessfully run for a House seat.

Espy was the object of a four-year investigation by an independent counsel who charged him with 30 counts of political corruption. The investigation was based on allegations of accepting $33,000 in free gifts, sports tickets, and expensive meals from companies that sought to benefit from good relations with Espy in their dealings with the Department of Agriculture. Espy was exonerated in December 1998 when the jury returned not guilty verdicts on all the counts.

Espy practices law in Mississippi. He is affiliated with the American Bar Association, Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association, and National Conference of Black Leaders, and is on the board of directors of the Jackson Urban League.

CHAKA FATTAH (1956– ) State Legislator, Civil Rights Activist

Born as Arthur Davenport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 21, 1956, Fattah was renamed after the legendary Zulu warrior Chaka by his mother, who with her husband, took new Swahili root names to represent their African heritage. Fattah’s mother, Falaka Fattah started the nationally known youth program House of Umoja as a means of combating and controlling gangs. At the age of 14 in an effort to assist his mother, Fattah received 20 abandoned houses in the neighborhood after giving a slide presentation and written proposal to the First Pennsylvania Bank. Falaka Fattah used the structures to expand the growing House of Umoja youth program.

Fattah continued to help with the youth program while in high school. With the help of Congressman Bill Gray, Fattah won a federal grant to renovate the houses. Meanwhile at Overbrook High School, Fattah organized the Youth Movement to Clean Up Politics. After attending the Community College of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Wharton Community Education Program, Fattah worked as a special assistant to the managing director of the Office of Housing and Community Development in Philadelphia for two years.

In 1974, Fattah and his family launched No Gang War in’74 to end gang violence that had resulted in 40 deaths the previous year. He was so immersed in his mission of saving African American young males and preventing violence, that Fattah quit school, but later earned his GED. After receiving his GED, Fattah took classes at the Community College of Philadelphia in 1974 and 1975. Even though he became a single father at 18, he made caring for his infant daughter and completing his education his top priorities. He continued his education through the Wharton Community Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania and he was later able to transfer those credits towards a degree.

In 1978, Fattah ran for the City Commissioner, his first political race, but cam in fourth among 22 contenders. Because of his advocacy for the poor and his knowledge of housing, he was hired by the Director of the Department of Housing. He advanced rapidly and soon became a special assistant in the managing director’s.

Then in 1982, Fattah decided to run for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. His campaign was unique in that he enlisted and trained hundreds of students from his old high school as campaign workers. He successfully challenged a powerful political machine and became the youngest man ever elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly at the age of 25. While serving as a representative, Fattah was selected for the highly competitive

Senior Executive Program for State Officials at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Harvard officials were some impressed with Fattah’s exemplary performance, that they invited him to return and pursue the M.P.A. He declined the offer in order to keep his new seat in the Pennsylvania legislature. Subsequently, he completed a Master of Government Administration at the Fels School for State and Local Government at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1988, Fattah won an election for state senator in the Seventh District. As a state senator, Fattah raised money for the city of Philadelphia and pioneered programs to rebuild 100 of the country’s deteriorating cities. In 1994, Fattah won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has won an “outstanding contribution award” from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the Simpson Fletcher Award for religion and race.

In 1994, he was a strong advocate for GEAR UP, the country’s largest college awareness initiative. As of 2006, the program had spent $2 billion program putting over 6 million students on the path to college. In 2003, Fattah in conjunction with municipal and public school officials started the CORE Philly program which has provided college scholarships to almost 7,000 Philadelphia.

Fattah continue to serve in Congress, but announced his plans to run for mayor in 2006. The current mayor is prohibited by term limits from seeking another term.

WALTER E. FAUNTROY (1933– ) Federal Legislator, Religious Leader, Civil Rights Activist

Born February 6, 1933, Walter E. Fauntroy represented the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives from 1971 until 1990. Fauntroy is a 1955 graduate of Virginia Union University and a 1958 graduate of Yale University Divinity School. In 1959, he became pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and has held that position for almost half a century.

He was Washington, D.C., coordinator for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, coordinator for the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, D. C. coordinator of the Meredith Mississippi Freedom March in 1966. and national coordinator for the Poor People’s Campaign in 1969. Fauntroy served as chairman of the caucus task force for the 1972 Democratic National Committee and of the platform committee of the National Black Political Convention. He was the chief architect of legislation in 1973 that permitted the District of Columbia to elect its own mayor and city council and engineered the passage by both the House and Senate of a constitutional amendment calling for full congressional representation for District of Columbia residents in the U.S. Congress.

During his tenure in the House of Representatives, Fauntroy built a record of achievement by playing key roles in the mobilization of African American political power from the National Black Political Convention in 1972 to the presidential elections of 1972 and 1976. For 15 years, Fauntroy chaired a bipartisan congressional task force on Haiti. In November of 1984, Fauntroy and two prominent national leaders launched the “Free South Africa Movement” (FSAM) with their arrest at the South African embassy. He served as co-chair of the steering committee of the FSAM. He was a member of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control and co-sponsored the 1988 $2.7 billion anti-drug bill.

In the 95th Congress Fauntroy was a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations and chairman of its Subcommittee on the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a ranking member of the House Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Committee and chairman of its Subcommittee on Government Affairs and Budget. He was also the first ranking member of the House District Committee.

Fauntroy was the recipient of several awards during his political career. In 1984, he was presented with the Hubert H. Humphrey Humanitarian Award by the National Urban Coalition. He also received honorary degrees from Georgetown University Law School, Yale University, and Virginia Union University. After leaving public service, Fauntroy founded Project We Care, a social service located in the Washington, D.C., area. The project is comprised of teams of ministers and church members who canvass neighborhoods in order to serve as conduits between residents and the city. Fauntroy also began his own company.

Fauntroy contracted tuberculosis in the mid-1990s. Through a diligent regimen, however, he remained healthy and actually became an unofficial spokesperson for the disease, urging the public to get tested. Then a discovery was made that he had incorrectly listed a church donation on a disclosure form presented to the Congress. In 1995, Fauntroy was sentenced to two-years probation, $1,000 fine, and 300 hours of community service after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of falsifying a financial report to Congress.

Continuing his fight for human rights, Fauntroy, a leader of the Free Sudan Movement, was arrested on April 13, 2001, for chaining himself to the gates of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., in a protest against Sudan’s black slave trade.

ADRIAN FENTY (1970– ) Municipal Government Official

Fenty is the youngest mayor ever elected in the District of Columbia. In one of the most expensive mayoral races ever, each candidate raised almost $2 million. Fenty defeated longtime Council Chair, Linda Cropp in an unprecedented victory because he carried every precinct in both the primary and the general elections. Fenty won the general election with 89 percent of the vote. Fenty and his team campaigned in every precinct and it is believed that they worked every block in the District.

A native of Washington, Fenty graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor’s degree and received his J.D. from Howard University School of Law.

In 2001, Fenty won his first electoral position by defeating four-term incumbent Charlene Drew Jarvis to become the Ward 4 Councilmember. His performance regarding constituent services set a new standard. He attracted new jobs, businesses and housing in Ward 4; had nuisance properties violations enforced; and dealt with expanded community policing and improved police response times. During his first term, 12 schools and recreation center in Ward 4 were constructed or renovated. Fenty and another Council member in 2003 sponsored the legislation to ban smoking in nearly all indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants. In January 2007, this initial smoking ban will take full effect in the District

In 2004, Fenty easily won re-election and provided leadership for the passage of the School Modernization Act. The bill is important because it requires the Board of Education and Superintendent to develop a comprehensive Facilities Master Plan for the public school system; provides stable long-term funding to rebuild and modernize school facilities; and establishes an Advisory Committee to have over sight over the construction effort.

FLOYD FLAKE. SEERELIGION CHAPTER.

HAROLD E. FORD JR. (1970– ) Federal Legislator

Harold Eugene Ford, Jr. was born May 11, 1970 in Memphis Tennessee. His father, Harold Ford, Sr. was a congressman and a member of the long prominent African American Ford family of Memphis, TN. In addition to the Ford family’s involvement in public service and Democratic politics, members of the family were successfully involved in the mortuary business.

Ford, Jr. attended public school in Memphis, but when his father was elected to Congress in 1972, the family moved to Washington, DC. He graduated from St. Albans School for Boys and received his B. A. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. After graduation he worked on the staff of the Senate Budget committee and as a special assistant to the United States Department of Commerce. He later entered the University of Michigan Law School and graduated in 1996.

In 1996, Ford, Sr. did not seek re-election to a 12th term in Congress and this paved the way for the candidacy of his son, Harold Ford, Jr. for that position. Ford, Jr. campaigned vigorously while in his last semester in law school. Typically he left Michigan on Thursday afternoon or evening for Memphis and returned to school on Monday evening for classes the next day. His family’s name recognition, connections, and political organization, along with Ford, Jr.’s campaign skills made his Democratic primary victory predictable. He won the November election handily and was reelected four times with an average of 80 percent of the vote.

Ford gained national prominence when he was featured as a keynote speaker for the 2000 Democratic National Convention in support of then-Vice President Al Gore’s nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Following the Democratic loses in 2002, Ford challenged Nancy Pelosi, then-House Minority Whip for House Democratic Leader. He made a very good showing, but was unsuccessful

While in Congress, Ford, Jr. was considered a moderate, but was self-described as a “pro-life” candidate who voted to ban same-sex marriage and benefits for same-sex couples. Ford, Jr. was one of the few Democrats who voted for the Bankruptcy Bill He opposed the President’s energy legislation which would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

After a decade in Congress and with the retirement of Tennessee’s senior Senator, William Frist, M.D., Ford, Jr. launched his U.S. campaign on May 25, 2005. He was successful in raising funds nationally and within the state. He assembled an effective campaign staff with numerous volunteers throughout the state and won the Democratic primary overwhelmingly. For much of the campaign, it was too close to call, though Ford, Jr. had a slight lead at various times, however, Ford, Jr. lost the Senate race by 3 percentage points.

In 2007, Ford was named chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. He was also appointed a visiting professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University where he teaches a class on American political leadership. In February, Ford, Jr. was named a vice chairman and senior policy advisor at Merrill Lynch & Co. Finally, in March 2007, Ford, Jr. joined the Fox News Channel as a political commentator and analyst on international affairs and the 2008 elections.

SHIRLEY C. FRANKLIN (1945– ) Municipal Government Official

A native of Philadelphia, Franklin is the 58th Mayor of Atlanta, the first woman to be elected Mayor, and the first African American woman to preside over any major city in the South. She graduated from Howard University in 1968 with a B.A. in sociology. She later earned an M. A. in the same field from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. She worked as a contract officer with the U. S. Department of Labor and as an instructor at Talladega College before marrying and relocating to Atlanta in 1972.

In 1978, Franklin began her career with the city of Atlanta as the director and commissioner of cultural affairs during Maynard Jackson’s tenure as mayor. From 1982-1990, Franklin was the chief administrative officer for Mayor Andrew Young. During those eight years there were many successful large-scale public works projects for which Franklin was responsible including the construction of a new city hall and municipal court building, 14,000 units of new housing, and expansion of Hartsfield International Airport. When Maynard Jackson was elected to a third term, Franklin became executive officer for operations.

Franklin left city government from 1991 to 1996 to serve as senior vice president for external relations of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. She was responsible for the development of Centennial Olympic Park and worked with various labor unions, civil rights, and other community groups to insure their participation in all aspects of hosting the Olympic Games.

Before running for mayor in 2000, Franklin worked with several development companies and headed her own firm, Shirley Clark Franklin and Associates, a community affairs management and consulting firm. In 1998, Franklin served as lead person in Roy Barnes transition team when he was elected governor of Georgia.

In a very close race, Franklin defeated her two opponents, who were both Council veterans, without a runoff. Succeeding Bill Campbell as mayor, whose administration was under federal investigation for corruption, Franklin emphasized integrity and accountability in city government. Her administration is characterized by efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness. A results-oriented administrator, Franklin has made tough fiscal decisions that have resulted in five balanced budgets and generated a health reserve for the City. Most recently, Franklin led the initiative to secure the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers for the City of Atlanta with corporate and community partnerships that guaranteed a loan for $32 million to accomplish this. During her in inauguration in 2002, Franklin vowed to make Atlanta a cleaner and better place for families by making city government more open and responsive.

GARY A. FRANKS (1953– ) Federal Legislator, Organization Executive

Gary Franks was born February 9, 1953, in Waterbury, Connecticut. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1975. Before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Franks was active in local politics and business. He was president of GAF Realty in Waterbury. Franks was also on the Board of Alderman, vice-chairman of the Zoning Board, a member of the Environmental Control Commission, director of the Naugatuck (Connecticut) chapter of the American Red Cross, president of the Greater Waterbury Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Waterbury Foundation.

In 1991, Franks was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, thus becoming the only African American Republican in the House until J. C. Watts was elected in 1995. Franks served on the Armed Services Committee, Small Business Committee, and the Select Committee on Aging. In 1993, he was appointed to the highly prized House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Franks has fulfilled a controversial role as an African American opposed to affirmative action and other programs based on preference for women and minorities. With such views, Franks had his share of congressional ruckuses. Formerly the only Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus, he was actually voted out of the organization in 1993 by members who did not consider Franks a legitimate African American spokesperson. In 1994, Franks testified in support of a lawsuit to dismantle the African American-majority 11th Congressional District of Cynthia McKinney, an African American Democrat from Georgia. Franks and his political cohorts felt that the district had been improperly designed to increase African American voting strength in the area at the expense of the white electorate.

Franks was known as one of the Republican party’s most prominent African American lawmakers. He entered the political landscape at a time when African American Republicans were nonexistent as members of the Senate and absent at municipal and state levels as mayors of major American cities or governors of any states. He was defeated in 1997 after serving three terms. Franks has been named the 1980 Outstanding Young Man by the Boy’s Club and Man of the Year by the Negro Professional Women’s Club.

LENORA FULANI (1950– ) Political Party Leader, Psychologist, Social Therapist

Born Lenora Branch on April 25, 1950, in Chester, Pennsylvania, she changed her name to Lenora Branch Fulani in 1973. She studied at Hofstra University on scholarship and earned her bachelor’s degree. She furthered her education in social therapy with an M.S.T. from Columbia University Teachers College and a Ph.D. from the New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research. She worked as a guest researcher at Rockefeller University from 1973 to 1977. Affiliated with the Institute, Fulani opened her own therapy practice in Harlem in the 1970s, the Eastside Center for Short Term Psychotherapy. She also founded the National Alliance Party (NAP), a political party for social change in

Fulani has made bids for election as lieutenant governor of New York in 1982 and governor in 1986 and 1990. She also campaigned for election as mayor of New York City in 1985. In 1988 and 1992, she campaigned for election as president of the United States. She made history in 1988 when she became the first woman and the first African American to be included on the presidential ballot in all 50 states. In 1992, she became the first woman to qualify for federal primary matching funds to run her campaign. In 1994, she made a run again for governor of New York, garnering 21 percent of the votes in the primary. Following her gubernatorial defeat, Fulani contributed to the formation of the Patriot Party. The Patriot Party planned to gain wide-range support by appealing to voters independent of the two main political parties in the 1996 elections. The formation of this party was followed by Fulani’s creation of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. In the 2000 presidential election, Fulani made news by backing Reform Party candidate, Pat Buchanan. In 2004, Fulani was a key supporter for Ralph Nader’s candidacy for President as an independent. In 2005, Fulani assembled a network of black and Latino community leaders to organize an unprecedented 47 percent of African-American voters to vote for Independent/Republican Mike Bloomberg.

Fulani has written widely on the subject of politics. She wrote Independent Black Leadership in America in 1990, and The Making of a Fringe Candidate in 1992. In the mid-1990s, her newspaper column, “This Way for Black Empowerment” was carried in more than 140 newspapers nationwide. She is the founder and executive producer of the “All-Stars Talent Show,” the largest anti-violence program for inner city youth in the country. She hosted her own cable television show Fulani!, which aired in more than 20 cities nationwide each week. Fulani remains a leading advocate for the Reform Party and chairs the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. Fulani combines her career as a psychologist and social activist to crusade for structural political reforms such as term limits, ballot access reform, and same day voter registration.

W. WILSON GOODE (1938– ) Municipal Government Official

W. Wilson Goode was born on August 19, 1938, in Seaboard, North Carolina. He received a B.A. in 1961 from Morgan State University. Goode served in the U.S. Army from 1961 to 1963, where he earned a commendation medal for meritorious service and the rank of captain with the military police. In 1968, he earned an M.P.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Between 1966 and 1978 Goode held a wide variety of positions including probation officer, building maintenance supervisor, insurance claims adjuster, and president of the Philadelphia Council for Community Advancement. From 1978 until 1980, Goode was chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission and was managing director of the City of Philadelphia from 1980 to 1982. In 1983, Goode was elected the first African American mayor of Philadelphia.

Goode’s tenure as mayor of Philadelphia was marred by charges that he was a weak and ineffective leader who was unable to handle the traditionally rough and tumble politics of Philadelphia city government. In May of 1985, during a violent confrontation between the city of Philadelphia and members of MOVE, a radical “back-to-nature” cult that took over a row house in West Philadelphia, Goode ordered police to drop a bomb on the roof of the house to evict MOVE members. A massive explosion and fire resulted that killed 11 people, destroyed 61 homes, and caused $8 million in damage.

Goode barely won reelection in 1987 and was faced with mounting problems. Decades of corruption, racial tension, and urban decay had dampened Philadelphia’s civic spirit and created a sense of apathy. Acute tensions between Goode and the city council resulted in a huge budget deficit. In September of 1990, Goode announced that the city was on the verge of bankruptcy. Although a consortium of banks helped to avert disaster, Philadelphia reported a massive $200 million deficit in June of 1991.

Barred by law from seeking a third term, Goode was succeeded as mayor by Edward Rendell in January of 1992. That same year, he wrote his autobiography In Goode Faith. After leaving office, Goode started his own company.

In 2000 at the age of 62, Goode earned a D. Min. from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His dissertation was about moving congregations from looking inward to looking outward to their community. His research showed that a congregation would become involved in the problems of a community if asked to by their faith leader. When he was asked to become the director of Amachi, a nonprofit mentoring and youth development program for children of the incarcerated, it was a natural. Using a faith-based recruitment strategy, Goode called upon pastor to enlist and train their members as mentors. With Goode at the helm, this program has grown exponentially and now has more than 240 programs across the country.

In 2006 Good won The Purpose Prize for his work with Amachi in mentoring children of incarcerated parents.

WILLIAM H. GRAY III (1941– ) Politician, United Negro College Fund President, Special Envoy to Haiti

Born to a minister and a high school teacher in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on August 20, 1941, William H. Gray III earned a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College in 1963, serving during his senior year as an intern for Pennsylvania congressman Robert N. C. Nix. He received a master’s of divinity from Drew Theological School in 1966 and a master’s of theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1970. He also attended the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Oxford University.

Gray served as assistant pastor at Union Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey, from 1964 until 1966. He was promoted to senior pastor in 1966 and served in this capacity until 1972. Gray moved to Philadelphia in 1972 to become pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church. Gray still serves as Senior Pastor of the 5,000 member congregation.

In 1976, Gray decided to become involved in politics, challenging Robert N. C. Nix for his congressional seat. His first attempt to unseat Nix was unsuccessful. However, in 1978, Gray defeated Nix and was elected to Congress. He became a vocal and influential member of the House, challenging the administration of Ronald Reagan on such issues as social spending and U.S. support for the government of South Africa. He served on the House Budget Committee, becoming chair in 1985 and earned the admiration and respect of even his most implacable political foes. Gray was a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for 12 years. For ten of those twelve years, he served on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. He was also vice-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Gray left the House of Representatives in 1991 to head the United Negro College Fund, and he currently serves as president and CEO of that organization. He was President of UNCF from 1991 to 2004. He now works for the government relations firm of Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney in Washington, D.C.

On May 8, 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Gray as his special envoy to Haiti. In this capacity, Gray played an instrumental role in the eventual removal of Haiti’s brutal military government in October of 1994.

Gray was honored in 1997 as one of four recipients of the “Four Freedoms” Award. He has also served on the boards of directors of numerous companies, including Chase Manhattan Bank, EDS Corporation, Visteon Corporation, and Pfizer Corporation.

PATRICIA ROBERTS HARRIS (1924–1985) Organization Executive, Diplomat, Civil Rights Activist, Federal Government Official, Attorney, Educator

Born in Mattoon, Illinois, on May 31, 1924, Harris received her undergraduate degree in 1945 from Howard University. While at Howard, Harris also served as vice-chairman of a student branch of the NAACP and was involved in early nonviolent demonstrations against racial discrimination. Harris worked for the YWCA in Chicago and served as executive director of Delta Sigma Theta, an African American sorority, from 1953 to 1959. After completing postgraduate work at the University of Chicago and at American University, she earned her Ph.D. in jurisprudence from George Washington University Law School in 1960.

An attorney and professor before she entered politics, Harris was appointed co-chairman of the National Women’s Committee on Civil Rights by President John F. Kennedy and later was named to the Commission on the Status of Puerto Rico. In 1965, Harris was chosen by

President Lyndon B. Johnson to become U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, the first African American woman ever to be named an American envoy. In 1969 Harris was appointed dean of the Howard University Law School and served in that role until 1970 when she was selected to join a major Washington, D.C., law firm.

Harris served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and also secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Jimmy Carter. Under President Ronald Reagan, she served as ambassador to Luxembourg, becoming the first African American woman to hold this diplomatic rank in U.S. history. Harris was also the first African American woman to serve in a cabinet post. In 1982, Harris ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Washington, D.C. She became a law professor at George Washington University in 1983 and remained there until her death from cancer on March 23, 1985.

WILLIE W. HERENTON (1940– ) Municipal Government Official

A native of Memphis, Herenton is the first mayor in the city’s history to be elected to a fourth consecutive term as mayor. This occurred in 2003, just 12 years after his 1991 election as the first African American Mayor of Memphis.

Herenton is a graduate of LeMoyne Owen College and the University of Memphis. He complete graduate study for his doctorate at Southern Illinois University. From 1979 to 1991 Herenton served as superintendent of the Memphis City Schools. Herenton’s administration has posted balanced budgets and had surpluses throughout his tenure, though there have been two property tax increases in 12 years.

He has served on several corporate boards including First Tennessee National Corporation and Promus Companies Incorporated. In 2002 Herenton was named 2002 Municipal Leader of the Year by American City & County Magazine because of his visionary leadership.

ALEXIS HERMAN (1947– ) Federal Government Official

Alexis Margaret Herman was born in Mobile, Alabama on July 16, 1947. Her father was said to be the first African American politician elected in the South since Reconstruction. She attended Edgewood College and Spring Hill College before earning her B.A. from Xavier in 1969. She did graduate work at the University of South Alabama.

After graduation from Xavier, she worked for a short time with Interfaith Mobile. She began her professional career in 1969 as a social worker with Catholic Charities developing employment training opportunities for unemployed youth and directing programs for training and employing Black women in rural areas of the southeast. In 1976, President Carter appointed the 29 year old Herman as director of the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau. She was the youngest person to ever hold that position and was also the highest ranking African American in the Labor Department.

In 1981, after the election of President Reagan, she founded A. M. Herman and Associates, a marketing and management company, but remained active in Democratic politics. In 1989, Herman was selected by a longtime friend Ron Brown, chair of the Democratic National Committee, to become chief of staff. By 1992, Herman was selected the CEO of the very successful Democratic National Convention held at Madison Square Garden where Clinton was Clinton won the Democrats’ overwhelming endorsement.

After Clinton’s election as president, Herman was named deputy director of the Clinton-Gore presidential Transition Office. In this capacity, she had responsibility for facilitating the shift from 12 years of Republican control of government to the Democrats. Herman was one of five assistants to President Clinton when she became director of the Office of Public Liaison where her responsibilities primarily entailed managing interaction between the Clinton administration and the public.

After Clinton won his second term, he appointed Herman as Secretary of Labor. She was the first African American to be named to the cabinet post. Her appointment was initially opposed by Republicans in Congress and labor unions, but she won confirmation. During her tenure at the Department of Labor, Herman instituted a global child labor standard; moved people from welfare to work with dignity; and launched an aggressive work initiative directed at unemployed youth. Her efforts focused on bringing minorities and women into the economic mainstream.

Despite her stellar reputation and success as a businesswoman, Herman was investigated after allegations for taking kickbacks and involvement in improper fundraisers held at the White House. She was completely exonerated and the inquiry ended.

Herman is the chair and chief executive officer of New Ventures, Inc. She chairs the Coca-Cola Company Task Force and the Toyota Advisory Board on Diversity. She now serves on the board of several major corporations including Cummins, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and Prudential.

JESSE L. JACKSON JR. (1965– ) United States Congressman, Civil Rights Activist, Organization Executive, Author

U.S. Representative Jesse Louis Jackson Jr. was born to the Reverend Jesse and Jacqueline (Davis) Jackson Sr. on March 11, 1965, in Greenville, South Carolina. He attended Le Mans Academy and St. Albans Episcopal Prep School. After completing his secondary education, Jackson entered North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University in Greensboro, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1987 with a bachelor of science degree in business management. Three years later, he earned the master of arts degree in theology from Chicago Theological Seminary. Jackson continued his education and received the juris doctorate from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1993. Two years before completing his juris doctorate, Jackson married Sandra Lee Stevens.

In 1986, Jackson was arrested for taking part in a demonstration against apartheid at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. He also participated in protests held in front of the South African consulate in Chicago, Illinois. Jackson’s long-time stance against South Africa’s system of racial discrimination provided him the unique opportunity of being the only American to share the platform with Nelson Mandela, the major symbol of the struggle for human rights in the Republic of South Africa, following Mandela’s February of 1990 release from prison.

During the Democratic National Convention in 1988, Jackson was the last of his siblings to introduce his father, the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. The younger Jackson’s introduction of his father catapulted him to a successful public speaking career. While pursuing his law degree, Jackson Jr. frequently campaigned for Democratic candidates. After graduating from the University of Illinois College of Law, he became the national field director for the Rainbow Coalition, a political action band conceived by the Reverend Jackson Sr. While serving in this position, Jackson established a nationwide non-aligned program that successfully registered a multitude of new voters. He also inaugurated a voter education program to educate citizens about the importance of participating in the political system including how to utilize technology to win at the polls and to more effectively participate in the political arena. Additionally, he established new local chapters of Operation Push (People United to Save Humanity).

Jackson, born during the African American struggle to obtain the ballot, resigned his position at the Rainbow Coalition in 1995. A Democrat, he entered the world of politics as a candidate for Chicago’s Second Congressional District, a seat previously held by Mel Reynolds. After winning the primary and general elections, Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. became a member of the 104th Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives on December 12, 1995. Jackson co-wrote the book, Legal Lynching, with his father in 1996.

Self-described as “a public servant—not a politician—with a progressive agenda,” Representative Jackson is part of a new generation of African American leaders who see their work as an extension of their parents’ struggle to eradicate the remaining covert vestiges of discrimination.

JESSE L. JACKSON SR. SEECIVIL RIGHTS CHAPTER.

MAYNARD JACKSON (1938– ) Attorney, Municipal Government Official, Organization Executive

Jackson was born on March 23, 1938, in Dallas, Texas the son of a minister, Maynard Jackson, Sr. and a college professor, Irene Dobbs Jackson. Though born in Texas, he spent much of his youth growing up in Atlanta. At the age of 14 he was admitted to Morehouse College as a Ford Foundation Early Admissions Scholar. He graduated with a B.A. in 1956, with a concentration in history and political science. After graduation, he worked for the Ohio State Bureau of Unemployment Compensation as claims examiner from 1957 to 1958 and as a sales manager and associate district sales manager for P. F. Collier Inc. from 1958 to 1961.

In 1964, Jackson received a J.D. from the North Carolina Central University School of Law and then worked as a lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board. In 1968 and 1969 Jackson was named the managing attorney and director of community relations for the Emory Community Legal Service Center in Atlanta and was a senior partner in the law firm of Jackson, Patterson & Parks from 1970 to 1973.

Jackson had been active in Democratic politics and was the vice-mayor of Atlanta from 1970 to 1974. In 1974, he was elected mayor becoming the first African American mayor of a major city in the Deep South. At the time of his election to Atlanta’s highest office, Jackson was the youngest mayor of a major U.S. city. He remained mayor of Atlanta until 1982. Jackson returned to private life and worked as a bond lawyer before being reelected mayor of Atlanta in 1989. The selection of Atlanta as host of the 1994 Super Bowl and the site of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games were two of the greatest achievements of Jackson’s second term.

In 1993, Jackson vetoed domestic partnership legislation, claiming that the City Council did not provide details on funding benefits for partners of city employees. The response of the gay and lesbian community was fervent, as leaders of 40 Atlanta-based lesbian and gay organizations coordinated a barrage of protest actions during that year’s Fourth of July holiday. Jackson was also deluged with complaints from angry city taxpayers who felt that Jackson’s decision to order more than $45,000 worth of furniture for the mayor’s office was government waste in action. Jackson admitted that city purchasing guidelines had not been followed.

Even after leaving office, Jackson has fallen into controversy. Accusations were levied against him that while he was in office, he improperly influenced the manner in which a $1.3 billion financial portfolio was invested as a city audit revealed that nearly 80 percent of the city’s 1993 investments were turned over to a firm whose principal was Jackson’s 1989 campaign treasurer. Jackson emphatically denied the allegations that he swayed any investment decisions.

Despite the alleged improprieties, Jackson earned a reputation as an aggressive and outspoken mayor. He had the difficult task of leading Atlanta through the difficult transition years from predominantly white leadership to a mixed power structure. Under Jackson’s leadership Atlanta made serious gains as a financial center and distribution hub. Expanded international convention facilities turned Atlanta into a major convention center. In 1981, the prestigious Almanac of Places Rated named Atlanta the best major city in which to live and work. Jackson had taken advantage of affirmative action programs to improve city housing and social conditions. He also transformed the mass transit system into one of the most modern in the country.

Shortly after his last term, Jackson became chairman of the board and a majority stockholder in Jackson Securities Inc., a banking firm. He also held interest in Jackmont Hospitality, a group of real estate companies that hoped to stimulate the economy of some of Atlanta’s depressed areas. In 1995, Jackson became the principal owner of a joint venture to operate a TGI Friday’s restaurant at the city’s Hartfield International Airport. Many complained that Jackson’s use of Atlanta’s affirmative action program to land the premier location was an abuse of a system designed to aid the disadvantaged.

Jackson has served as vice-chairman of the White House Committee on Balanced Growth & Economic Development and the White House Committee on the Windfall Profits Tax. He also served as the National Chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute from 2001–2002. He was also the founding chairman of the Atlanta Economic Development Corporation and the chairman of the Atlanta Urban Residential Finance Authority. Jackson belonged to the Georgia and New York Bar Associations, the National League of Cities, and the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.

In 1975, Jackson was named to Time magazine’s list of 200 young American leaders and Ebony magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential Black Americans in 1976. In 1994, Jackson and six other Morehouse graduates were honored at the college’s sixth annual Candle in the Dark awards dinner.

Jackson died on June 23, 2003 in Arlington, Virginia after suffering a heart attack. He was survived by his second wife, Valerie Richardson, an Atlanta public radio personality, and five children.

SHEILA JACKSON LEE (1950– ) Federal Legislator

Jackson Lee was born in Queens in 1950 and was raised in New York City. She graduated in 1972 from Yale University with a B.A. and then, in 1975, graduated from the University of Virginia Law School with a J.D. Her husband was an official at the University of Houston, and Jackson Lee began her practice in Texas.

After three unsuccessful attempts to become a local judge, Jackson Lee was appointed an associate judge in the Houston municipal court system in 1987. Three years later was elected to an at-large position on the city council. In 1994, she defeated an incumbent Democrat in the congressional primary and was then elected to the seat once held by Barbara Jordan, a mentor.

She has been a member of the U. S. House of Representatives since 1995. She serves on the House Judiciary committee and has used this position to direct attention to civil rights, and abortion rights. Jackson-Lee

has spoken out against racism in South Africa; advocated for sanctions against Sudan; was arrested along with other members of Congress and activists outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington for disorderly conduct while protesting the ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

Jackson Lee is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and served as the first vice-chairwoman of the CBC. In 1997, she was named the caucus’s whip. Jackson Lee served on the House Judiciary Committee that impeached President Clinton and made a name for herself as one of the president’s staunchest defenders. She won reelection in 1998 with 90 percent of the vote and has won each of her subsequent elections. Jackson Lee is chair of the Congressional Children’s Caucus, a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee, and the ranking member on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims.

BARBARA JORDAN (1936–1996) Educator, Federal Legislator, Civil Rights Activist, State Legislator, Attorney

Barbara Jordan was born on February 21, 1936, in Houston, Texas. Afflicted with multiple sclerosis, she died of viral pneumonia, a complication of leukemia, on January 17, 1996.

Jordan attended Phyllis Wheatley High School, and in 1952, graduated as a member of the Honor Society. In 1956, Jordan received a B.A. from Texas Southern University in history and political science. She went on to Boston University, where she earned a J.D. in 1959. After teaching at Tuskegee Institute for one year, Jordan returned to Houston, where she practiced law and was appointed administrative assistant to a Harris County judge.

In 1966, Jordan was elected to the Texas Senate. She was the first African American to serve as president pro tem of that body and to chair the important Labor and Management Relations Committee.

In 1972, Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, thus becoming the first African American woman from a southern state elected to Congress. As a member of Congress, she served on the Judiciary Committee which heard the impeachment proceedings of President Richard M. Nixon and was the first African American selected as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1976. While a representative, Jordan served on the House Judiciary and

Government Operations committees. During her terms in both the Texas Senate and U.S. House, Jordan was known as a champion of civil rights for all and especially minorities and the poor.

From 1979 to 1982, Jordan taught at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. In 1982, she was made holder of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Centennial Chair of National Policy, a post she held until her death. After 15 years out of politics, Jordan was appointed as chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform by U.S. president Bill Clinton in 1993. Jordan was credited for her efforts to address the burgeoning U.S. hostility towards immigrants.

Jordan co-authored two books, Barbara Jordan: A Self-Portrait (1979) and The Great Society: A Twenty Year Critique (1986). She also served on the Democratic Caucus Steering and Policy Committee, and in 1976 and 1992, she was the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention.

Jordan belonged to the American Bar Association as well as the Texas, Massachusetts, and District of Columbia bars. She was a member of the Character Counts Coalition, a group whose aim is to address the values of American society, particularly emphasizing youth. She had been on the board of directors of the Mead Corporation and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Jordan is the recipient of a long list of awards and honors including the 1984 Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award, membership in the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame (public service category, 1984), and listing in both the Ladies Home Journal “100 Most Influential Women in America” and Time magazine’s 1976 “Ten Women of the Year” list. She was bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor in 1994 when President Clinton gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her distinguished career in public service. Jordan had also received 27 honorary doctorate degrees. The LBJ School of Public Affairs has named an endowed chair in her honor and the Barbara Jordan Forum each year in February around the time of her birthday.

SHARON PRATT KELLY (1944– ) Attorney, Municipal Government Official, Media Executive, Educator

Kelly was born Sharon Pratt in Washington, D.C., on January 30, 1944. For a time, she worked under the name Sharon Pratt Dixon, assuming the surname of her former husband. She graduated from Howard University with a B.A. in political science in 1965 and received a J.D. in 1968. In 1967, she edited the Howard University law school journal.

From 1970 through 1971, Kelly was the house counsel for the Joint Center for Political Studies in Washington, D.C. Between 1971 and 1976 she was an associate in the law firm of Pratt and Queen, her father’s firm. During this time she also taught at Antioch Law School. In 1976, Kelly began a 14-year association with the Potomac Electric Power Company where she gained a reputation as a decisive, hardworking, and effective utilities executive. While there, she held increasingly responsible positions including associate general counsel, director of consumer affairs, and vice president of public policy.

In 1990, Kelly left the private sector to win the office of mayor of Washington, D.C. In doing so she became the first African American woman elected mayor of a major American city. She was not able to deliver on campaign promises to reform city government and to fire 2,000 middle managers in the D.C. bureaucracy. Her relations with the Democratic Congress were strained and Kelly’s administration was perceived as ineffective, which helped pave the way for her 1994 defeat and the comeback of former mayor Marion Barry.

In 1976 and 1977, Kelly was general counsel to the Washington, D.C., Democratic Committee. Between 1985 and 1989, she was treasurer of the Democratic Party and has also sat as a national committeewoman on the Washington, D.C., Democratic State Committee.

Kelly belongs to the American Bar Association and the Washington, D.C., Women’s Bar Association. She is affiliated with the Legal Aid Society, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the United Negro College Fund. Kelly was a Falk Fellow at Howard University and has received numerous awards including the 1983 NAACP Presidential Award, the 1985 United Negro College Fund’s Distinguished Leadership Award, and the 1986 Distinguished Service Award presented by the Federation of Women’s Clubs.

ALAN L. KEYES (1950– ) Federal Government Official, Lecturer, Author

Alan Lee Keyes was born on August 7, 1950, in New York City. Keyes lived in the United States and Italy during his childhood. He began his political career by serving as president of his high school’s student council and as the first African American president of the American Legion Boys Nation. Keyes entered Cornell University after completing high school, but left the school after his life was threatened when he refused to prticipate in a demonstration. Keyes earned a B.A. from Harvard in 1972. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard in 1979.

Following his graduate work, Keyes took a position at the U.S. State Department in 1978 where he worked for 11 years. He recruited Jeane Kirkpatrick as a mentor by defending her from verbal attack while serving as U.S. vice-consul in India. At the State Department, Keyes served in the South African Affairs Division, and on the Policy Planning Council. Keyes was appointed Ambassador to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and remained as ambassador to the UN until 1985 when he was appointed assistant secretary of state for International Organizations. Keyes was one of the youngest ever to serve in these posts. He was also the African American of highest rank at the State Department in 1988, but he resigned over a dispute over allocation of U.S. funds to the United Nations. During his tenure at the State Department, Keyes adamantly supported President Reagan’s policy opposing economic sanctions against South Africa’s and system of apartheid.

After government service, Keyes, was formed Citizens Against Governmetn Waste (CAGW) until 1991 and founded CAGW’s National Taxpayers’ Action Day.

In 1988 and 1992, Keyes lost senatorial elections in Maryland. In between, he served as president of the Washington, D.C., organization Citizens Against Government Waste from 1989 to 1991. He also served as interim president in 1991 for Alabama A & M University. In 1992, following his second defeat, Keyes started his own talk radio show in Baltimore, America’s WakeUp Call: The Alan Keyes Show. Bolstered by the response to his radio show, Keyes announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency on March 26, 1995. In so doing, he became the first Republican African American in the twentieth century to run for president. He attracted little support, however, and did not win a primary. Despite the showing, Keyes made another unsuccessful run for the GOP nomination in 2000. In 2002, he briefly hosted a televised talk show, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense.

In 2004, Keyes was drafted by the Illinois Republican Party to run against Democrat Barack Obama for the U. S. after the Republican nominee withdrew due to a sex scandal. Some viewed carpetbagger because he mover to Illinois from Maryland just before the election.

A devout Catholic, Keyes is pro-life, raising the standard of the unalienable rights of the unborn. He is anti-homosexual and is said to have severed relations with his only daughter who describes herself as a lesbian. Keyes is the author of Masters of the Dream: The Strength and Betrayal of Black American (1995) and Our Character, Our Future: Reclaiming America’s Moral Destiny (1996).

Keyes’ political priorities are best summarized in this quote from his website:

I aim to strengthen the foundations of political liberty in America. I believe that it remains the destiny of the American people to uphold the right of all humankind to practice responsible self-government.

Dedication to this Providential pupose is the heart and soul of what it means to be an American. I will labor to: abolish the income tax; liberate entrepreneurial and charitable initiative; honor marriage and the family; respect the equal dignity of all human beings, born, and unborn; reclaim American sovereignty rom global bureaucracy; and show, by word and deed, the role of statesmanship in a free republic.

RON KIRK (1954– ) Attorney, Municipal Government Official

Ron Kirk was born on June 27, 1954, in Austin, Texas. He received a B.A. in political science and sociology from Austin College in 1976, during which time he served in 1974 as a legislative aide to the Texas Constitutional Convention. This experience prompted an interest in politics and drove him to complete his law degree in 1979 at the University of Texas School of Law.

After two years, Kirk was unsatisfied as a private practice attorney. He moved to Washington, D.C., to work for U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen from 1981 to 1983. He returned to Dallas in 1983 to work for the Dallas City Attorney’s Office and became the chief lobbyist of Dallas until 1989. He then worked for the firm of Johnson & Gibbs and volunteered for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, the Dallas Zoological Society, Dallas Helps, and the North Texas Food Bank among other organizations.

In 1994, then Texas Governor Ann Richards named Kirk secretary of state. The following year, Kirk ran a very successful campaign and was elected the mayor of Dallas in 1995 with 62 percent of the vote. In 1999, Kirk was re-elected mayor of Dallas with 74 percent of the vote. In 2001, Kirk announced that he was resigning as the city’s mayor in order to seek the nomination as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Phil Gramm. Kirk lost with 43 percent of the vote to his Republican opponents’ 55 percent.

After his defeat, Kirk returned to the law firm of Gardere Wynne Sewell in Dallas and remained active in Democratic politics. He is a partner with the Houston-based law firm of Vinson and Elkins, where his principal area of practice is public finance and public policy.

He was honored in 1992 with a Volunteer of the Year Award from Big Brothers/Big Sisters and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Austin College Alumni Association. He was named Citizen of the Year by Omega Psi Phi in 1994, the same year that he earned the C. B. Bunkley Community Service Award from the Turner Legal Association.

The Anti-Defamation League in 2004 presented Kirk with the coveted Jurisprudence Award. In 2006, Kirk’s alma mater, Austin College, conferred the Honorary Doctor of Human Letters. In 2007 Kirk was listed among the best lawyers in America in government relations law.

JOHN MERCER LANGSTON (1829–1897) Educational Administrator, Federal Legislator, Diplomat, Attorney, Lecturer

Congressman John Mercer Langston was born in Virginia in 1829. Upon the death of his father, Langston was emancipated and sent to Ohio, where he was given over to the care of a friend of his father. Langston spent his childhood there, attending private school in Cincinnati before graduating in 1849 from Oberlin College. Four years later, after getting his degree from the theological department of Oberlin, he studied law and was admitted to the Ohio bar.

Langston began his practice in Brownhelm, Ohio. He was chosen in 1855 to serve as clerk of this township by the Liberty Party. During the Civil War, he was a recruiting agent for African American servicemen, helping

to organize such regiments as the 54th and 55th Massachusetts, and the 5th Ohio. In 1867, Langston served as inspector-general of the Freedmen’s Bureau and as dean and vice president of Howard University from 1868 to 1875. In 1877 he was named minister resident to Haiti and charge d’affaires to Santo Domingo, remaining in diplomatic service until 1885.

Soon after returning to his law practice in the United States, Langston was named president of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute. In 1888, he was elected to Congress from Virginia, but was not seated for two years until vote-counting irregularities had been investigated. He was defeated in his bid for a second term. In 1894 Langston wrote an autobiography From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capital. Langston died in 1897.

GEORGE THOMAS “MICKEY” LELAND (1944–1989) Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator, Educator

Leland was born on November 27, 1944, in Lubbock, Texas. He graduated from Texas Southern University in 1970 with a B.S. in pharmacy. Leland had been active in the civil rights movement during his student years, and he was elected to the Texas state legislature in 1973. In 1978 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to fill Barbara Jordan’s vacated seat. While a representative, Leland served on various committees including Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Post Office and Civil Service, and the committee on the District of Columbia.

In spite of serving on these committees, Leland was devoted to easing the hunger of starving persons in the United States and in other countries, especially African countries. He chaired the House Select Committee on World Hunger and visited starving peoples throughout Africa. In 1989, while traveling to a United Nations refugee camp in Ethiopia the plane on which Leland was traveling crashed near Gambela, Ethiopia, killing all on board.

JOHN ROBERT LEWIS (1940– ) Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator, Organization Executive

Committed to nonviolence and the advancement of African Americans, John Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940 into a sharecropping family.. He received a B.S. in 1961 from the American Baptist Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Fisk University in 1967. While attending these two schools in Nashville, he became actively involved in the sit-in movement, the Freedom Rides, and other efforts to desegregate the South. He was arrested more than 40 times, attached by angry mobs, and severely beaten by police and other law enforcement personnel. He was a leader in the peaceful and orderly march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma toward Montgomery that came to be known as Bloody Sunday because of the vicious and savage attack by police on the more than 600 nonviolent protestors. Before entering politics, Lewis was associated with numerous social justice organizations including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, where he served as President. He served as associate director of the Field Foundation, project director of the Southern Regional Council, and executive director of the Voter Education Project Inc., beginning in 1970.

Lewis first ran for elective office in 1977 to fill the vacancy in Georgia’s 5th Congressional District left when incumbent Andy Young was appointed U. S. ambassador to the United Nations. He lost that race to Wyche Fowler, but was subsequently elected Atlanta city councilman-at-large. When Fowler ran for the U. S. Senate, Lewisand voters sent him to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1987 representing Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District. While in the House, Lewis has served on the Public Works, Interior and Insular Affairs committees as well as the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He has also been a member of the Select Committee on Aging. Lewis’s pet project over the years has been the

encouragement of a museum bill that would allow for a museum of African American history at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Lewis denounced the rhetoric of his homophobic colleagues during a House debate that ultimately led to the adoption of legislation to discourage homosexual enlistment in the military. He considered the Republican Contract With America as the genesis of a wave of intolerance in American society in the early to mid-1990s. In 1995, Lewis headed a group of nearly 100 trade unionists that interrupted a speech on proposed Medicare changes by House Speaker Newt Gingrich during a conference sponsored by the Congressional Institute. Many of Lewis’s critics suggested that the demonstration did little but gain media attention, but Lewis countered that saving Medicare benefits for the elderly was his priority, and he was willing to seize any opportunity to stir up a public debate.

In the 1960s, Lewis was known for his involvement with the U.S. civil rights movement. A strict follower of nonviolent social protest, Lewis was an organizer and participant in numerous sit-ins, freedom rides, and protest marches throughout the South. He abstained from the 1995 Million Man March because he felt that he could not participate in an effort led by Louis Farrakhan. Lewis worked steadfastly in the mid-1990s to help produce a spirit of racial harmony and team spirit in Atlanta as the city prepared for the 1996 Olympics.

Lewis is a 1975 recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize and has been named to Ebony’s “One of the Nation’s Most Influential Blacks” list (1991–92) and Time magazine’s 1974 “One of America’s Rising Leaders” list. He belongs to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Friends of Vista, and the African-American Institute.

Lewis received a special honor in 2001, the year marking the 40th anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides in which he participated, as he was named the winner of a special John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for lifetime achievement. He has received numerous honorary degrees and other honors from prestigious colleges and universities throughout the United States. Lewis has been honored by many imminent national and international institutions. Lewis is the author with Michael D’Orso of a biography entitled Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998).

KWEISI MFUME (1948– ) Federal Legislator, Educator, Civil Rights Activist, Organization Executive

Kweisi Mfume was born Frizzell Gerald Gray in Baltimore on October 24, 1948. Mfume once ran the streets and fathered five children out of wedlock. He turned to education obtained his GED and studied at the Community College of Baltimore where he was president of the Black Student Union and editor of the school newspaper. Later he attended Morgan State University graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in 1976. In 1984, he graduated with an M.L.A. in Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in International Studies.

In 1979, Mfume was elected to the Baltimore City Council by a margin of three votes. He worked hard to diversify city government, improve public safety, enhance minority business development, and divest city funds from South Africa. Active in Democratic politics, Mfume was a member of the Maryland Democratic State Central Committee and a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1980, 1984, and 1988.

Mfume was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1987. During his tenure he served on the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee; the Small Business Committee; the Education and Labor Committee; and the Narcotics Abuse & Control subcommittee. The House speaker chose Mfume to serve on the Ethics Committee and on the Joint Economic Committee of the House and Senate. He also was vice-chair, and later chairperson, of the Congressional Black Caucus.

In addition, Mfume was a member of the Caucus for Women’s Issues, the Congressional Arts Caucus, and the Federal Government Service Task Force.

In February 1996, Mfume became president and CEO of the NAACP after the NAACP board of directors unanimously elected him to that post. His priorities were to restore the confidence of members and supporters in this seminal organization, to ensure greater fiscal accountability, and to secure private sector funding. Within weeks of Mfume’s appointment, Nissan Motor Corp USA donated $100,000 to the NAACP. Among Mfume’s accomplishments were eliminating the association’s debt; setting new standards and expectations for NAACP branches nationwide, and working to engage seasoned local volunteers and a new generation of younger civil rights activists in the mission of the NAACP. In 2000, Mfume led calls for more minority representation on network television. Under his leadership, the NAACP threatened a boycott against the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), but relented when the network agreed to systematically find more minorities to write, produce, and direct its television shows. Mfume served in the position of NAACP President until 2004 when he stepped down.

Mfume announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate held by Paul Sarbanes in March 2005. He ran a vigorous campaign but was defeated by U. S. Congressman Ben Cardin. There were speculations that Mfume would run for mayor of Baltimore, but expressed his belief that everyone should give the current Mayor, Sheila Dixon, the opportunity to lead.

Mfume penned his inspiring 1996 autobiography, No Free Ride: From the Mean Streets to the Mainstream. Mfume is a trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Morgan State University Board of Regents, where he previously taught political science and communications. He is also a member of the senior advisory committee of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the board of trustees for the Enterprise Foundation.

ARTHUR W. MITCHELL (1883–1968) Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator, Lecturer, Attorney, Organization Executive

Born to slave parents in 1883 in Chambers County, Alabama, Mitchell was educated at Tuskegee Institute and at Columbia and Harvard Universities. By 1929, he had founded Armstrong Agricultural School in West Butler, Alabama, and become a wealthy landowner and a lawyer with a thriving practice in Washington, D.C. When he left the nation’s capital that year, it was with the purpose of entering politics and becoming a representative from Illinois.

Mitchell won Democratic approval only after Harry Baker died suddenly. Aided by the overwhelming national sentiment for the Democratic Party during this period, he unseated Oscar DePriest by the slender margin of 3,000 votes. Mitchell’s most significant victory on behalf of civil rights came, not in the legislative chamber, but in the courts. In 1937, Mitchell brought suit against the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad after having been forced to leave his first-class accommodations en route to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and sit in a “Jim Crow” car. He argued his own case before the Supreme Court in 1941 and won a decision which declared Jim Crow practices illegal.

Mitchell proposed that states that discriminated against African Americans should receive fewer congressional seats and advocated strong sanctions against states that practiced lynching. Also, he worked for the elimination of poll taxes to make it easier for African Americans to vote. Following the end of World War II, Mitchell demonstrated that because African Americans fought bravely for the United States, they should be able to vote for their government representatives.

In 1942, Mitchell retired from Congress and continued to pursue his civil rights agenda as a private citizen. He also lectured occasionally and pursued farming on his estate near Petersburg, Virginia, where he died in 1968 at the age of 85.

MARC MORIAL (1958– ) Municipal Official

Morial was born in January 3,1958 to a prominent, African American family in New Orleans. Morial received his B.A. in 1980 from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. three years later from the Georgetown University Law School.

Morial became a supporter of the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr. and worked for Jackson’s 1988 campaign for president. In 1991, he was elected to the state senate in Louisiana. Two years later he announced his candidacy for mayor of New Orleans. The election was marred by racial questions and a run-off was needed before Morial could be declared the winner.

Morial battled crime in his first term as mayor, introducing several innovative and controversial reforms within the police department. In 1998, he began his second term as mayor, grabbing national headlines as the city filed a lawsuit against gun manufacturers. From 1994 to 2002 when he was mayor of New Orleans, Morial maintained a 70 percent approval rating; reduced crime by 60 percent; reformed the beleaguered police department; oversaw massive improvements to the city’s infrastructure; built 15,000 new homes; and brought professional sports to New Orleans when NBA’s Hornets basketball team moved to New Orleans. In 2001, Morial served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a position his father had held 16 years before.

A lawyer by profession, Morial was selected as the 8th president and CEO of the nation’s largest direct services organization, the National Urban League which empowers African Americans and other ethnic communities through effective economic strategies.

CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN (1947– ) Attorney, Federal Legislator

Born Carol Moseley in Chicago on August 16, 1947, Moseley-Braun received her B.A. from the University of Illinois in 1969 and her J.D. in 1972 from the University of Chicago Law School. While attending law school, Moseley-Braun worked as a legal intern and an associate attorney for a number of private law firms. After graduating from law school, Moseley-Braun was an assistant U.S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois from 1973 until 1977. In 1979, Moseley-Braun was elected an Illinois state representative from the 25th district, where she became known as an ardent supporter of civil rights legislation. After her bid for the lieutenant governorship was thwarted, Moseley-Braun was elected in 1986 as the Cook County recorder of deeds.

In 1992 Moseley-Braun became the nation’s first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, making her an icon of the “Year of the Woman.” The following year, Moseley-Braun, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein, was selected for the formerly all-male Senate Judiciary Committee. Her first major legislative proposal—an amendment to an omnibus crime bill that would try young offenders implicated in serious crime from the age of 13 and up as adults—was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate. She served in the Senate from 1993-1999.

A recipient of many honors, Moseley-Braun won the 1981 and 1982 Best Legislation Award presented by the Independent Voters of Illinois. She has also won the 1981 National Association of Negro Business & Professional Women’s Clubs’ Community Recognition Award, the 1981 Chicago Alliance of Black School Educators’ Recognition of Excellence in Education Award, the 1982 Afro-American Voters Alliance Community Recognition Award, and a 1993 Essence Award for African American women of achievement. In 1993, she was chosen as the keynote speaker for the annual, prestigious National Urban League dinner. Moseley-Braun belongs to the League of Black Women; Operation PUSH; Federal, Illinois and Chicago Bar Association; and the Women’s Political Caucus.

In spite of her national prominence, her celebrity status, and the numerous honors, Moseley-Braun’s senate career was dogged by ethical questions which often overshadowed her legislative record. There were allegations and a Federal Elections Commission investigation of $249,000 in unaccounted campaign expenditures. The investigations which lasted nearly five years were found to be without merit. There were no fines or sanctions levied against Moseley-Braun or her campaign. In spite of the findings of no criminal wrongdoing on her part, Moseley-Braun was defeated in 1998.

In 1999, Bill Clinton named her a special consultant to the Department of Education and later nominated Moseley-Braun as ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Following her tenure as ambassador, in the fall of 2001 she took a position as visiting professor of politics at Morris Brown College in Atlanta. In February 2003, Moseley-Braun announced her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Four days before the Iowa Caucus, on January 15, 2006, Moseley Braun withdrew from the race and endorsed Howard Dean.

Currently, Moseley Braun practices law as a private attorney in Chicago.

C. RAY NAGIN (1956– ) Municipal Government Official

Clarence Ray Nagin was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1956 and lived there until he went to college at Tuskegee University to study accounting. He graduated in 1978 with a B.S. Later in 1994 he completed his MBA at Tulane University.

Much of Nagin’s early career was in the private sector. Prior to his entry into politics, Nagin was the vice president and general manager for Cox Communications in Southeast Louisiana. In this position Nagin produced remarkable results for the cable company by transforming one of Cox’s poorest performing markets to one of its most profitable assets. Basically, Nagin utilized the best technology available, hired and developed an efficient staff, and emphasized customer service to turn things around.

With no political experience, Nagin entered the 2002 New Orleans mayoral race as a long shot. His platform was one of reforming the City’s image, fighting political corruption, and restoring confidence in New Orleans as a well-run city. In the crowded primary Nagin received 29 percent of the vote which placed him in a runoff with Police Chief Richard Pennington. His victory in the runoff with 59 percent of the vote was impressive given that he received 85 percent of the white vote and 40 percent of the African American vote.

During his first term, Nagin launched a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign targeting the Taxicab Bureau and Utilities Department. Among the results of this effort were the arrest 84 city workers and a reorganization of the Utilities Department. When investigations revealed rampant corruption among the city vehicle inspection certification workers, Nagin terminated all of the workers in that department. Nagin’s unorthodox methods and commitment to changing the culture of government for the better were met with surprise and disbelief. Nagin’s relationship with the City Council was rocky at best and they did not support much of the legislation he favored.

The real test for his administration came in August 28, 2005 when Katrina became a category 4 hurricane. Nagin declared a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans with the Superdome as a shelter of last resort for those who could not leave. On August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit landfall, 80 percent of the city was flooded. There was much criticism of the slow handling of relief and evacuation efforts by federal, state, and local government officials. Recovery efforts in New Orleans are still ongoing at what many consider a snail’s pace. Displaced citizens have still not been able to return to the City.

Because of post Katrina devastation and the fact that the majority of New Orleans’ citizens were still living elsewhere, the mayoral elections were postponed by the State until April. There were 23 challengers for the mayor’s post and the majority of them were white. Among the most prominent was Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu of the powerful political family. Nagin received much criticism during this period because of several ill-considered statements about New Orleans as a chocolate city and Katrina as a result of God’s anger with America and African Americans in particular. Nagin was the top vote getter in the election of April 22, 2006 with 38 percent of the vote to Landrieu’s 29 percent. In the May 20, 2006 runoff, Nagin beat Landrieu with 52 percent of the vote to 48 percent. This time, Nagin received 80 percent of the African American vote and 20 percent of the white vote.

Nagin’s second term is not without controversy. His 100 day plan to rebuild New Orleans and improve the quality has produced few results. He is criticized for rarely being seen in New Orleans while traveling extensively on a national speaking tour. He continues to make public statements which are considered controversial. In early 2007, Nagin hired Edward Blakely, an internationally renowned city planner to lead the New Orleans’ rebuilding effort.

BARACK OBAMA (1961– ) Federal Government Official

Barack Obama was born August 4, 1961 in Ohua Hawaii. He is the son of a Kenyan economist and white American mother. His parents divorced when he was only two years of age. His father went on to Harvard to pursue doctoral studies. His mother married an Indonesian and the family moved to Jakarta in 1967. Obama returned to Hawaii and was raised by his maternal grandparents in Honolulu. After graduation from high school in 1979, he studied at Occidental College and then transferred to Columbia University where he majored in political science. He graduated in 1983 with a bach-elor’s degree and worked briefly in corporate America.

In 1985, Obama relocated to Chicago to do community organizing and to direct assist local churches in organizing job training programs for low income people. In 1988 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School where he had a stellar career. He was elected the first African American president in the 104 year history of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, directed a voter registration drive and became an associate with the law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland specializing in civil rights. Obama also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

In 1996 Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate and became chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee when the Democrats regained control. In 2000 Obama ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic against four-term incumbent Congressman Bobby Rush. Obama was defeated 2 to 1.

The year 2004 was pivotal for Obama. He ran for the U. S. Senate in an open seat vacated by Peter Fitzgerald and he was catapulted into national celebrity status by his powerful keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. For a brief period leading up to the general election, Obama was unopposed because the Republican primary winner withdrew when damaging allegations of sexual misconduct were revealed in divorce proceedings involving child custody. In August 2004, less than three months before the election, the Republican Party recruited Alan Keyes, a resident of Maryland, to become the replacement nominee. Obama won the general election with 70 percent of the popular vote to Keye’s 27 percent.

On January 4, 2005, Obama was sworn as the junior Senator from Illinois in the 109th Congress. Obama is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans’ Affairs committees.

After much speculation, Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 U. S. presidential election.

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (1938– ) Attorney, Federal Legislator, Civil Rights Activist, Organization Executive, Educator

Eleanor Norton was born Eleanor Holmes on April 8, 1938, in Washington, D.C. She attended Antioch College in Ohio but transferred to Yale University and received an M.A. in American Studies in 1963 and a J.D. in 1964 from Yale’s law school.

After graduating from law school, Norton clerked for a federal judge in Philadelphia before joining the American Civil Liberties Union in 1965 as a litigator specializing in free speech issues. She stayed with the ACLU until 1970, reaching the position of assistant legal director and successfully arguing a First Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1970, she became chairwoman of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, a post she held until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter tapped he to become the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1981, she was a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. In 1982, she accepted the position of professor of law at Georgetown University. As a tenured professor, Norton still teaches at Georgetown. Norton had previously taught African American history at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and law at New York City University Law School.

In 1990 Norton was elected the non-voting congressional delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives for the District of Columbia. Though elected by the citizens of the District of Columbia, Holmes Norton does not have all the rights and privileges of a full Representative. She cannot vote on the House floor, though she may vote in committee. Norton came to Congress as a national figure who had been active in civil rights and feminist issues. She had also previously served on the boards of three Fortune 500 companies.

In 1993, the same year she sponsored legislation that would make Washington, D.C., the 51st state. She was allowed to cast a vote in the full house, thus becoming the first resident of the district to vote on the floor of Congress. In 1995, however, the House voted to strip Washington, D.C., of its floor-voting right. Norton protested that she was elected by federal tax-paying citizens who are entitled to full representation. A bipartisan alliance was formed among Norton, Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Democratic Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry in an effort to save home rule for the district. She continues her important work for full congressional voting representation and full democracy for the citizens of the District of Columbia.

Norton has been named to the Ladies Home Journal 1988 “One Hundred Most Important Women” list and the 1989 “One Hundred Most Powerful Women in Washington” list by Washington magazine. She is also a recipient of the 1985 Distinguished Public Service Award presented by the Center for National Policy. She received more thn 50 honorary degrees.

HAZEL O’LEARY (1937– ) Attorney, Federal Government Official, Financial Planner, University President

Hazel O’Leary was born Hazel Reid on May 17, 1937, in Newport News, Virginia. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1959 from Fisk University with a B.A. She received her J.D. in 1966 from Rutgers University School of Law. O’Leary was a utilities regulator under Presidents Ford and Carter, an executive vice president of the Northern States Power Co., and a Washington lobbyist. A proponent of energy conservation and alternative energy sources, she became secretary of energy in President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1993 and served until 1997.

In addition to formulating energy policy, O’Leary worked to dismantle the nation’s nuclear weaponry complex and to help energy producers finance nuclear-waste storage programs. Reorganizing the Department of Energy at the end of the Cold War was one of the first accountabilities assigned to O’Leary. O’Leary campaigned to unveil the expansive network of secret atomic laboratories and weapons plants harbored in the nation. Results of Cold War nuclear tests, radiation releases, and experiments on civilians were also revealed. O’Leary also encouraged domestic resource development.

In the mid-1990s, O’Leary came under heavy scrutiny. First she was criticized for having spent thousands of government dollars on hiring a consultant firm to rank a number of reporters to find out which had given her the most favorable coverage. Then it was disclosed that she had spent much more than other cabinet members on overseas travel. Vice president Al Gore came to O’Leary’s defense by noting that her trips had helped create new job opportunities in the United States. For example, O’Leary led a delegation of nearly 100 aides, energy experts, and business leaders to South Africa to uncover possibilities in the newly democratic country.

O’Leary is a certified financial planner, a member of the New Jersey and Washington bars, and has been vice president and general counsel of O’Leary Associates in Washington, D.C. In 1993, the Congressional Black Caucus honored O’Leary for her achievements. After completing her term as secretary of energy, O’Leary resigned and returned to the private sector, where she became president and CEO of Blaylock & Partners. In 2004, O’Leary was named president of her alma mater, Fisk University.

DEVAL PATRICK (1956– ) Governor

Deval Patrick was born on the Southside of Chicago on July 31, 1956. His father was a musician who left the family when Patrick and his sister were quite young. Patrick was a bright student and one of his teachers encouraged him to apply to A Better Chance, a nonprofit program that identifies, recruits, and develops leaders among academically talented students of color. He was accepted and received a scholarship to Milton Academy, graduating in 1974.

He matriculated at Harvard University and graduated with honors in 1978. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he spent a year working on a United Nations youth training program in the Darfur region of Sudan. Returning to Cambridge in 1979, he entered Harvard Law School that fall. While he was in Law School Patrick was elected President of the Legal Aid Bureau defending poor families.

After Law School, Patrick served as a law clerk to a federal appellate judge before joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. In 1986, Patrick joined the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow where he became a partner at the age of 34.

President Clinton nominated Patrick as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in 1994 and upon confirmation became the nation’s top civil rights lawyer. At the Justice Department, Patrick and his staff worked on a wide range of issues including racial profiling, police misconduct, employment discrimination, enforcement of fair lending laws, and prosecution of hate crimes including church burnings and abortion clinic violence.

In 1997, Patrick returned to private practice and joined the Boston firm of Day, Berry & Howard. Later in 1997, he was appointed by a federal district court to serve as the first chairperson of Texaco’s Equality and Fairness Task Force following lawsuits from employees alleging discrimination. The Task Force reformed Texaco’s corporate employment culture and developed a more equitable workplace.

In 2001, Patrick was hired as Executive Vice President and General Counsel at The Coca-Cola Company following turmoil within the country after minority workers filed discrimination suits. The next year, Patrick was elected as Corporate Secretary and served as member of the company’s Executive Committee.

When Patrick announced his candidacy in 2005 for Massachusetts governor, he was considered a long shot. During the course of the campaign, his position changed and Patrick won the primary with 49 percent of the vote and carrying every county. Winning the general election handily in November 2006, Patrick the Common-wealth’s first African American Governor and only the second African American ever elected as Governor in the history of the nation.

CLARENCE MCCLANE PENDLETON JR. (1930–1988) Federal Government Official, Organization Executive

Clarence Pendleton Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on November 10, 1930. Raised in Washington, D.C., he attended Dunbar High School and received a B.S. in 1954 from Howard University. Pendleton served three years in the U.S. Army and was assigned to a medical unit. After his discharge in 1957, Pendleton returned to Howard University where he received a master’s degree in 1961 and coached swimming, football, rowing, and baseball.

In 1968, Pendleton became the recreation coordinator of the Baltimore Model Cities Program and became the director of the Urban Affairs Department of the National Recreation and Parks Association in 1970. Pendleton soon began attracting national attention and in 1972 he headed San Diego’s Model Cities Program. In 1975 he became the director of the San Diego Urban League.

By 1980, a change took place in Pendleton’s political philosophy. He began to feel that African Americans’ reliance on government programs was trapping them in a cycle of dependence and welfare handouts. Pendleton believed that it was in the best interest of African Americans to build strong ties with a strong, expanding private sector and eschew the more traditional ties with liberal bureaucrats and liberal philosophies.

To this end he supported the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency and was appointed chairman of the Civil Rights Commission by President Reagan in 1981. Pendleton’s chairmanship was controversial mostly because of his opposition to affirmative action and forced busing as a means of desegregating schools. Pendleton retained a more liberal philosophy on other matters,

however, by supporting the Equal Rights Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. Pendleton died unexpectedly of a heart attack on June 5, 1988, in San Diego.

P. B. S. PINCHBACK (1837–1921) Attorney, Federal Legislator, State Government Official, Municipal Government Official

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was born in Macon, Georgia, on May 10, 1837. Although his mother had been a slave, at Pinchback’s birth she had been emancipated by Pinchback’s father. Moving to Ohio with his mother, Pinchback attended high school in Cincinnati in 1847, and he began working on riverboats as a cabin boy and then as a steward in 1848.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Pinchback went to Louisiana and in 1862 enlisted in the Union Army. He soon began recruiting soldiers for an African American unit known as the Louisiana Native Guards or the Corps d’Afrique. Racial problems soon arose with the military hierarchy and Pinchback resigned his commission in protest. After the war Pinchback became active in Louisiana politics. He organized a Republican Club in 1867, and was a delegate to a state constitutional convention in 1868. In that year he was also elected to the state senate and became president pro-tempore of that body in 1871. He became lieutenant governor of Louisiana through the line of political succession. In late 1872 and early 1873, Pinchback was governor of Louisiana while the elected official underwent impeachment proceedings. In 1872 and 1873 Pinchback was elected to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. He was refused seating both times when the elections were contested and his Democratic opponent was named to Congress.

In 1877, Pinchback switched his allegiance to the Democratic Party and in 1882 was appointed surveyor of customs for New Orleans. In 1887, he began attending law school at Straight University in New Orleans and was later admitted to the bar. In 1890, Pinchback moved to Washington, D.C., where he died December 21, 1921.

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL JR. (1908–1972) Federal Legislator

Born on November 29, 1908, in New Haven, Connecticut, Powell was raised in New York City and graduated in 1930 from Colgate University. In 1931, Powell graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in religious education. Powell launched his career as a crusader for reform during the Depression. He forced several large corporations to drop their unofficial bans on employing African Americans and directed a kitchen and relief operation that fed, clothed, and provided fuel for thousands of Harlem’s needy and destitute. He was instrumental in persuading officials of Harlem Hospital to integrate their medical and nursing staffs, helped many African Americans find employment along 125th Street, and campaigned against the city’s bus lines, which were discriminating against Negro drivers and mechanics.

When Powell Sr. retired from Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1936, his son, who had already served as manager and assistant pastor there, was named his successor. In 1939, Powell served as chairman of the Coordinating Committee on Employment, which organized a picket line before the executive offices of the World’s Fair in the Empire State Building and eventually succeeded in getting employment at the fair for hundreds of African Americans.

Powell won a seat on the New York City Council in 1941 with the third highest number of votes ever cast for a candidate in municipal elections. In 1942, he turned to journalism for a second time and published and edited the weekly The People’s Voice, which he called “the largest Negro tabloid in the world.” He became a member of the New York State Office of Price Administration in 1942 and served until 1944.

In 1944, Powell was elected to Congress and represented a constituency of 300,000, 89 percent of whom were African American. Identified at once as “Mr. Civil Rights,” he encountered a host of discriminatory procedures upon his arrival in the nation’s capital. He could not rent a room or attend a movie in downtown Washington. Within Congress itself, he was not allowed to use such communal facilities as dining rooms, steam baths, showers, and barber shops. Powell met these rebuffs head on by making use of all such facilities and insisting that his entire staff follow his lead.

As a first-year legislator, Powell engaged in fiery debates with segregationists, fought for the abolition of discriminatory practices at U.S. military installations, and sought to deny federal funds to any project where discrimination existed. The latter effect was called the Powell amendment and eventually became part of the Flanagan School Lunch Bill, making Powell the first African American congressman since Reconstruction to have legislation passed by both houses.

Powell also sponsored legislation advocating federal aid to education, a minimum-wage scale, and greater benefits for the chronically unemployed. He also drew attention to certain discriminatory practices on Capitol Hill and worked toward their elimination. It was Powell who first demanded that an African American journalist be allowed to sit in the Senate and House press galleries, introduced the first anti-Jim Crow transportation legislation, and the first bill to prohibit segregation in the armed forces. At one point in his career, the Congressional Record reported that the House Committee on Education and Labor had processed more important legislation than any other major committee. In 1960, Powell, as senior member of this committee, became its chairman. He had a hand in the development and passage of such significant legislation as the Minimum Wage Bill of 1961, the Manpower Development and Training Act, the Anti-Poverty Bill, the Juvenile Delinquency Act, the Vocational Educational Act, and the National Defense Education Act. The Powell committee helped pass 48 laws involving a total outlay of $14 billion. Powell, however, was accused of putting an excessive number of friends on the congressional payroll, of a high rate of absenteeism from congressional votes, and of living a permissive lifestyle.

In 1967, the controversies and irregularities surrounding him led to censure in the House and a vote to exclude him from his seat in the 90th Congress. The House based its decision on the allegation that he had misused public funds and was in contempt of the New York courts due to a lengthy and involved defamation case which had resulted in a trial for civil and criminal contempt. Despite his exclusion, Powell was readmitted to the 91st Congress in 1968. In mid-1969, the Supreme Court ruled that the House had violated the Constitution by excluding him from membership.

Rather than return to Congress, Powell spent most of his time on the West Indian island of Bimini, where process servers could not reach him. But photographers did and the ensuing photos of Powell vacationing on his boat while crucial votes were taken in Congress affected Powell in his home district. In 1970, he lost the Democratic congressional primary to Charles Rangel by 150 votes. Powell retired from public office and worked as a minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. On April 4, 1972, Powell died in Miami.

COLIN POWELL. SEEMILITARY CHAPTER.

JOSEPH H. RAINEY (1832–1887) Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator, Federal Government Official

Joseph H. Rainey, the first African American member of the House of Representatives, was born on June 21, 1832, in Georgetown, South Carolina. Rainey’s father purchased his family’s freedom and moved them to Charleston. During the Civil War, Rainey was drafted to work on Confederate fortifications in Charleston harbor and serve passengers on a Confederate ship. However, Rainey escaped with his wife to the West Indies and remained there until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Rainey and his wife returned to South Carolina in 1866. In 1868, Rainey was elected as a delegate to the state constitutional convention and was elected to the state senate in 1870. A year later, he was elected to the House of Representatives. As a member of Congress, Rainey presented some ten petitions for a civil rights bill that would have guaranteed African Americans full constitutional rights and equal access to public accommodations. On one occasion, Rainey dramatized the latter issue by refusing to leave the dining room of a hotel in Suffolk, Virginia. He was forcibly ejected from the premises. Rainey was a staunch supporter of legislation that prevented racial discrimination in schools, on public transportation, and in the composition of juries. He supported legislation that protected the civil rights of the Chinese minority in California and advocated the use of federal troops to protect African American voters from intimidation by the Ku Klux Klan. Rainey was reelected in 1872 and, during a debate on Indian rights in 1874, became the first African American representative to preside over a session of Congress. Rainey gained reelection to Congress in 1874 and 1876.

Rainey retired from Congress in 1879. He was appointed as a special agent for the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. He served there until 1881, after which he worked for a banking and brokerage firm. After the firm failed, Rainey took a job at a wood and coal factory. In 1886, he returned to Georgetown, where he died on August 2, 1887.

CHARLES RANGEL (1930– ) Federal Legislator

Harlem-born Charles Rangel entered the national spotlight in 1970, when he defeated Adam Clayton Powell Jr. for the Democratic nomination in New York’s 18th Congressional District.

Born June 11, 1930, Rangel attended Harlem elementary and secondary schools before volunteering to serve in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. While stationed in Korea with the 2nd Infantry, he saw heavy combat and received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, as well as U.S. and Korean presidential citations. Discharged honorably as a staff sergeant, Rangel returned to finish high school and to study at New York University’s School of Commerce, from which he graduated in 1957. In 1960, Rangel received his J.D. while on scholarship at St. John’s University.

After being admitted to the bar, Rangel was appointed in 1961 as assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. For the next five years, he worked as legal counsel to the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board, as legal assistant to Judge James L. Watson, as associate counsel to the speaker of the New York State Assembly, and as general counsel to the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service. In 1966, Rangel was chosen to represent the 72nd District, Central Harlem, in the State Assembly. He has served as a member of, and secretary to, the New York State Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code.

In 1971, Rangel easily defeated Livingston Wingate in the Democratic primary and went on to an overwhelming victory in November. In 1974, he was elected chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus. In his first term, he was appointed to the Select Committee on Crime and was influential in passing the 1971 amendment to the drug laws that authorized the president to cut off all military and economic aid to any country that refused to cooperate with the United States in stopping the international traffic in drugs. In 1976, Rangel, a leading congressional expert on the subject, was appointed to the Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control.

Rangel served as chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus from 1974 to 1975 and was a member of the Judiciary Committee when it voted to impeach U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. In 1975, he moved to the Ways and Means Committee, becoming the first African American to serve on the committee. Two years later, his colleagues in the New York Congressional delegation voted him the majority whip for New York State. Rangel,

who has served as deputy whip for the House Democratic Leadership, was a speaker at the 1995 Million Man March. With the new Democratic majority, Rangel became chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He is also chair of the Board of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rangel is the fourth-longest serving Democratic member of the U. S. House of Representative.

Rangel has consistently called for reinstatement of the draft in large part due to the disproportionate representation of poor and minority group members in the enlisted ranks of the military. He considered a liberal, but is also known as a pragmatic deal-maker.

In his capacity as chairman of the Apollo Foundation, Rangel came under fire in the late 1990s for the foundation’s management of the historic theatre. In particular, allegations focused on dealings between Rangel and his long-time friend, businessman Percy Sutton. In 1999, both men were cleared of any wrongdoing by New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer. Following the attorney general’s announcement, Rangel left the board in September 1999.

KENNETH REEVES (1951– ) Municipal Government Official, Attorney

Elected mayor of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1992, Kenneth Reeves was the first openly gay mayor in the state. Reeves was popular enough to be elected to a second term in 1994, running on the promise to break down the barriers between city government and local political groups.

Born to Jamaican parents, Reeves grew up in a middle-class Detroit neighborhood. After high school, he attended Harvard College. While there, he was active in community service, working at a housing development in Dorchester, Massachusetts. After graduation, Reeves traveled to the African nation of Benin, studying there for one year before returning to the United States. In 1976, he graduated from the University of Michigan Law School. Seeking a position in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was hired by the National Consumer Law Center. He ran for public office in a grass-roots effort but lost. He opted to run for city council a second time and was elected in 1989. During that time, he also founded the W. E. B. Du Bois Academy, a mentor program pairing established African American professional men with young African American males for intense tutoring sessions.

A former Vice Mayor and two-term Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Reeves is serving his eighth term as a City Council member. Reeves was the first African American to be elected Mayor in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was also the first openly gay African American mayor in the country. He was Chairman of the Cambridge School Committee for four years. Reeves’ political career is characterized by bringing together diverse groups of people to work collaboratively.

HIRAM RHODES REVELS (1822–1901) Federal Legislator

Hiram Rhodes Revels, a native of North Carolina, was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. Revels was elected from his adopted state of Mississippi, and served for approximately one year, from February of 1870 to March of 1871.

Born in 1827, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Revels was educated in Indiana and attended Knox College in Illinois. Ordained a minister in the African Methodist Church, he worked among African American settlers in Kansas, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri before settling in 1860 in Baltimore. There he served as a church pastor and school principal.

During the Civil War, Revels helped organize a pair of Negro regiments in Maryland, and went to St. Louis in 1863 to establish a freedmen school and to carry on his work as a recruiter. For a year he served as chaplain of a Mississippi regiment before becoming provost marshal of Vicksburg. Revels settled in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1866 and was appointed alderman by the Union military governor of the state. In 1870, Revels was elected to the U.S. Senate to replace Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy. Revels’s appointment caused a storm of protest from white Southerners. However, Revels was allowed to take his seat in the Senate.

As a U.S. Senator, Revels quickly won the respect of many of his constituents for his alert grasp of state issues and for his courageous support of legislation which would have restored voting and office-holding privileges to disenfranchised Southerners. He believed that the best way for African Americans to gain their rightful place in American society was not through violent means, but by obtaining an education and leading an exemplary life of courage and moral fortitude. He spoke out against the segregation of Washington, D.C.’s public school system and defended the rights of African Americans who were denied work at the Washington Navy Yard because of their race.

In 1871, Revels left the Senate. He was named president of Alcorn University near Lorman, Mississippi. He left Alcorn in 1873 to serve as Mississippi’s secretary of state on an interim basis. In 1876, he returned to Alcorn. That year, he became editor of the South-Western Christian Advocate, a religious journal. In 1882, he retired from Alcorn University. Revels lived in Holly Springs, Mississippi, during his later years and taught theology at Shaw University. He died on January 16, 1901.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE (1954– ) Government Official, Educator

Condoleezza Rice was born on November 14, 1954, in Birmingham, Alabama. She completed her bachelor’s degree in political science in 1974, graduating cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver. In 1974, she received her master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, and earned a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.

Rice joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1981 as a professor of political science. At Stanford, Rice’s research and teaching interests included the politics of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In 1984, Rice was awarded the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the following year, she was a fellow at the prestigious Hoover Institute. In 1993 she received the School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Rice served as an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on strategic nuclear policy in 1987. In 1989, she was named director of Soviet and East European affairs on the National Security Council, a position in which she advised President George H.W. Bush during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Following her tenure with the first Bush administration, Rice returned to Stanford. She served as the university’s provost from 1993 to 1999, earning accolades for her handling of the school’s finances, and her implementation of new academic programs. Rice left Stanford in 2000 to serve as a foreign policy advisor during the George W. Bush presidential campaign. When Bush was elected, he appointed Rice as his National Security Advisor. She became the first woman and the first African American to hold the position. During the second term of President Bush, Rice was named Secretary of State in 2005.

Rice’s publication credits include: Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army: 1948-1983 (1984), The Gorbachev Era with Alexander Dallin, and Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft with Phillip Zelikow (1995). She has also published numerous articles in journals and magazines such as Journal of International Affairs, Studies in Comparative Communism, Time, World Politics, and Current History. In addition to her posts in academia and government, Rice has served on the boards of many companies and institutions including, the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors, Hewlett Packard, and San Francisco’s public broadcasting network, KQED.

NORM RICE (1943– ) Municipal Government Official

Rice was born on May 4, 1943, in Denver, Colorado, and attended the University of Colorado. He was disappointed by the segregated housing and labor practices, and dropped out in his second year. Moving to Seattle in 1969, Rice went back to college in the Economic Opportunity Program at the University of Washington, earning a B.A. in communications and an M.P.A. in 1974.

At the age of 35, he ran for Seattle’s City Council in 1978 and beat the incumbent. In 1983, Rice was named president of the council, and was encouraged to run for mayor. He was defeated in 1985 but regrouped and ran again in 1989. The 49th mayor of Seattle, Washington he served two terms from 1990 to 1997 and was the first and only African American to become mayor of Seattle. He began his first term by convening an education summit to include all those interested in discussing ways to improve Seattle’s public schools. An outgrowth of that summit was the Families and Education Levy, which raised $69 million for student health services, drug and alcohol counseling, and after-school activities. During his second term he led the rejuvenation of downtown Seattle and served as the President of the U. S. conference of Mayors.

Because African Americans comprised only 10 percent of Seattle’s population, Rice forged a broad-based coalition to win an overwhelming victory in 1993 for reelection. Along with his many duties as mayor of Seattle, Rice also served as president of the Conference of Mayors from 1995 to 1996.

In March of 1996, Rice announced his candidacy for governor of Washington, but he lost the election. Rice did not seek a third term as mayor in 1997. After 19 years in public service, Rice was president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle from 1998 to 2004. Currently, he is vice president of Capital Access LLC, an investment banking firm specializing in municipal, energy, and philanthropic. He also has an appointment as visiting professor at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.

EDITH SAMPSON (1901–1979) Attorney, Diplomat, Judge, Lecturer

Sampson was born on October 13, 1901, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first African American woman to be named an official representative to the United Nations, Sampson served in the United Nations from 1950 until 1953, first as an appointee of President Harry S. Truman and later during a portion of the Eisenhower administration. A native of Pittsburgh, Sampson acquired an LL.B. from the John Marshall Law School in Chicago in 1925 and two years later became the first woman to receive an LL.M. from Loyola University.

A member of the Illinois bar since 1927, she argued in front of the Supreme Court in 1934. During the 1930s, she maintained her own private practice, specializing particularly in domestic relations and in criminal law. After her U.N. appointment, Sampson traveled around the world as a lecturer. She was elected associate judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago in 1962, becoming the first African American woman ever to sit as a circuit court judge. Sampson presided over divorce courts, traffic courts, and landlord-tenant relations courts. In 1978, she retired from Cook County Circuit Court. Sampson died on October 7, 1979, at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.

KURT L. SCHMOKE (1949– ) Attorney, Municipal Government Official, Federal Government Official, Law School Dean

Born on December 1, 1949, Kurt L. Schmoke was inaugurated as the first elected African American mayor of Baltimore on December 8, 1987. Schmoke graduated with honors from Baltimore City College High School. In 1967, he won the award as the top scholar-athlete in the city. Schmoke received his bachelor of arts degree from Yale University in 1971 and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. He earned his law degree from Harvard University Law School in 1976.

After graduating from Harvard, Schmoke began his law practice with the prestigious Baltimore firm of Piper & Marbury, and shortly thereafter was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as a member of the White House Domestic Policy staff. Schmoke returned to Baltimore as an assistant U.S. attorney, where he prosecuted narcotics and white-collar crime cases. He then returned to private practice and was involved in various civic activities.

In November of 1982, Schmoke was elected state’s attorney for Baltimore, the chief prosecuting office of the city. He created a full-time Narcotics Unit to prosecute all drug cases and underscored the criminal nature of domestic violence and child abuse by setting up separate units to handle those cases. Also, Schmoke hired a community liaison officer to make sure that his office was being responsive to neighborhood questions and concerns.

In his inaugural address as mayor, Schmoke set the tone and future direction for his administration when he said that he wanted Baltimore to reduce its large high school dropout and teenage pregnancy rates and combat illiteracy. He oversaw the passage of the largest ever increase in the city’s education budget, and, in partnership with Baltimore businesses and community-based organizations, Schmoke developed the Commonwealth Agreement and the College Bound Foundation with the goal of guaranteeing opportunities for jobs or college-entrance to qualifying high school graduates. Since taking office, Schmoke has also begun major initiatives in housing, economic development, and public health. Schmoke proposed educational programs to prepare Baltimore’s citizens for high-tech jobs and he has also pushed growth at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The mayor came under fire in the early 1990s because of Baltimore’s persistent crime problems and his failed attempt to privatize nine Baltimore public schools. In 1992, President George Bush awarded Schmoke the national Literacy Award for his efforts to promote adult literacy. In 1994, President Clinton praised Schmoke’s efforts to improve public housing and enhance community economic development. The Clinton Administration in 1994 designated Baltimore one of six cities with an Empowerment Zone.

Despite being considered the leading contender for the role of Maryland governor, Schmoke decided to run for a third term as Baltimore mayor. Interested in drug reform, Schmoke ran on the platform of decriminalizing drugs to stop related crime. An unexpectedly high turn-out of close to 52 percent of registered Democrats gave Schmoke a racially polarized election win in 1995. In December 1998, Schmoke announced he would not seek a fourth term as mayor. Following his final term in office, Schmoke joined the international law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering as a partner. On January 1, 2003, Schmoke was appointed Dean of the Howard University School of Law.

Throughout his career, Schmoke has been active in the civic and cultural life of the Baltimore community by serving as a member of numerous boards of trustees. In recognition of his commitment to excellence in education and his service to the community, Schmoke has received honorary degrees from several colleges and universities.

ROBERT SMALLS (1839–1916) Federal Legislator

Robert Smalls served a longer period in Congress than any other African American Reconstruction congressman. Born a slave in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1839, Smalls received a limited education before moving to Charleston with the family of his owner. While in Charleston, Smalls worked at a number of odd jobs and eventually became adept at piloting boats along the Georgia and South Carolina coasts.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Smalls was forced to become a crew member on the Confederate ship Planter. On the morning of May 13, 1862, Smalls smuggled his wife and three children on board, assumed command of the vessel, and sailed it into the hands of the Union squadron blockading Charleston harbor. His daring exploit led President Abraham Lincoln to name him a pilot in the Union Navy. He was also awarded a large sum of money for what constituted the delivery of war booty. In December of 1863, during the siege of Charleston, Smalls again took command of the Planter and was promoted to captain, the only African American to hold such a rank during the Civil War.

After the war, Smalls was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives and served from 1868 to 1870. In 1870, Smalls became a member of South Carolina’s State Senate and served until 1874. Smalls campaigned for a U.S. Congressional seat in 1874 against an independent candidate and won the election. He took his seat in Congress on March 4, 1875. During his tenure in Congress, Smalls supported a wide variety of progressive legislation including a bill to provide equal accommodations

for African Americans in interstate travel and an amendment designed to safeguard the rights of children born to inter-racial couples. He also sought to protect the rights of African Americans serving in the armed forces.

Smalls won reelection in 1876, an election that was bitterly contested by Smalls’s Democratic challenger, George Tillman. Tillman tried unsuccessfully to have Smalls’s election to Congress overturned. However, Till-man’s supporters were undeterred. In 1877, Smalls was accused of taking a $5,000 bribe while serving as a senator. Although Smalls was exonerated by Governor William D. Simpson, his popularity plummeted. Smalls lost his reelection bid in 1878. In 1880, Smalls ran again for Congress. He lost the election, but maintained that the results were invalid due to vote-counting irregularities. Smalls’s charges were substantiated and he was allowed to take his seat in Congress in July 1882. Two months later, another congressional election was held and Smalls lost his seat to fellow Republican Edward W. M. Mackey. However, Mackey died in January of 1884 and Smalls was allowed to serve the remainder of Mackey’s term. In 1886, Smalls lost an election to Democratic challenger William Elliott. Though Smalls was no longer a congressman, he remained involved in political activities. From 1889 to 1913, Smalls served as collector of the port of Beaufort. He died on February 22, 1916.

CARL B. STOKES (1927–1996) Former Municipal Official

Carl Stokes was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 21, 1927. Stokes and his older brother, Louis, were raised by their mother following the death of their father in 1929. At the age of 18, he joined the Army and served in Europe near the end of World War II. Following the war, Stokes studied at West Virginia State and Western Reserve University, and served as a liquor enforcement agent from 1950-1953. He returned to school at the University of Minnesota, earning a B.S. in law in 1954. Stokes then completed his J.D. degree at the Cleveland Marshall School of Law.

Along with his brother, Stokes started a law practice in Cleveland in 1957, and a year later was appointed assistant city prosecutor by Cleveland mayor Anthony Celebreeze. Involved in the Civil Rights movement, Stokes served on the executive board of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP and joined the Urban League. In 1962 he won a seat in the Ohio General Assembly, becoming the first black Democrat to hold that office. He twice won reelection and served until his election as mayor of Cleveland in 1967.

Stokes’s victory made him the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city. In the election Stokes won 50 percent of the vote in a city with a 37 percent black population. The Stokes administration was defined by an attempt to increase city services in under-served communities, and an opening of city hall jobs to African Americans. The term was also marked by a deadly shoot-out in the city during urban riots in July 1968. Further damage was done when it was later revealed money from the mayor’s program, Cleveland Now!, had been paid to the black nationalist group implicated in the shootout.

Although Stokes won reelection in 1969, the shoot-out weakened the good will toward his administration and created a lasting friction among the administration, the police department, and the city council. Stokes, who enjoyed wide national recognition and was elected to the presidency of the National League of Cities in 1970, announced in 1971 that he would not seek a third term as mayor.

In 1972 Stokes left his hometown and became the first African American news anchor in the New York City area. He worked for WNBC television for eight years, serving as urban affairs editor and foreign correspondent in Africa. In 1973, Simon and Schuster published Stokes’s political biography, Promises of Power: A Political Autobiography. Stokes returned to law practice in Cleveland in 1981. He reentered the political arena in 1983 and was elected as a municipal court judge, a seat he held until 1994, when President Bill Clinton appointed him ambassador to the Seychelles. Stokes left the Seychelles on a medical leave-of-absence after he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 1995. He died in Cleveland on April 3, 1996.

LOUIS STOKES (1925– ) Civil Rights Activist, Federal Legislator, Attorney

Stokes was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 23, 1925. He was in the U.S. Army from 1943 until 1946. After leaving the service, he attended Case Western Reserve University from 1946 to 1948. He was awarded a J.D. in 1953 from Cleveland-Marshall Law School. After 14 years in private practice with the law firm of Stokes, Character, Terry and Perry, he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1969.

As Ohio’s first African American representative, Stokes served on a number of committees including the Committee on Education and Labor, the House Internal Security Committee, and the Appropriations Committee. He also chaired the House Ethics Committee. As part of the House Assassination Committee, Stokes investigated the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. In 1972 and 1973, Stokes chaired the Congressional Black Caucus, and he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1972, 1976, and 1980. Stokes was the first African American to chair the Intelligence Committee of the House and the only African American that served on the Iran-Contra Committee. When he retired in 1999, Stokes became the first African American in the history of the U.S. Congress to retire having completed 30 years of service. After his tenure in Congress, Stokes became senior counsel at the global law firm og Squire, Sanders, and Dempsey, LLP and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Stokes belongs to the Urban League, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Legion, and the African American Institute. He has served on the board of trustees of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change and was vice president of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP in 1965 and 1966. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the William C. Dawson Award, and a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, of which he was vice-chairman of the Cleveland subcommittee in 1966.

The recipient of numerous awards and honors for his strong commitment to public service, there are a number of landmarks throughout the city of Cleveland that bear his name including The Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Administration Hospital and The Louis Stokes Annex of the Cleveland Public Library. He has received 26 honorary doctorates and was awarded The Congressional Distinguished Service Award.

JOHN F. STREET (1943– ) Municipal Government Official

John F. Street was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on October 15, 1943. He attended Oakwood College, a Seventh Day Adventist school in Huntsville, Alabama and majored in English. He obtained his law degree from Temple University in 1975. After law school he was a clerk at Common Pleas Court and the U.S. Department of Justice. His professional career began as an elementary school and Opportunities Industrialization Center English teacher. He practiced law before being elected to the Philadelphia City Council in 1975.

Street represented North Philadelphia and Center City and became known for his advocacy for fair housing, increased spending for public education, and neighborhood improvements. In 1992 and 1996, Street was unanimously chosen by his council peers to serve as president. With his detailed knowledge of the City’s budget process and in collaboration with his predecessor Mayor Rendell, Street was instrumental in reducing Phil-adelphia’s $250 million deficit and turning it into the City’s largest surplus ever.

Street worked to revitalize Philadelphia’s declining neighborhoods by investing in them and tearing down abandoned buildings. In spite of initial opposition, the emphasis on neighborhoods has proven successful with property values appreciating about 30 percent since 2001; growth in the Center City population of about 14 percent between 1990 and 2000; creation of nearly 4,000 market-rate apartments and condominiums

In addition to forming the Philadelphia Children’s Commission to offer advice and have a positive impact on the lives of Philadelphia’s children, Street privatized Philadelphia/s public schools. Edison Schools and area universities were allowed to operate some of the City’s worst performing schools.

Health and wellness is another important focus of the Street administration. In 1999 when Men’s Fitness rates Philadelphia as the fattest city in the nation, he created the Office of Health and Fitness and initiated a city-wide walking campaign.

Street also is working to make Philadelphia a wireless city. Plans are underway to construct a city-wide wireless Wi-Fi network. Crime including a growing murder rate and youth violence are still significant problems in Philadelphia.

Recently, members of Street’s administration have been the subject of an FBI investigation in which wiretaps and other listening devices were placed in the Mayor’s office. The former city treasurer and one of Street’s fundraisers were involved in a corruption scheme which

led to a 10 year jail term for the city treasurer. The fundraiser died before going to trial. In spite of this investigation involving people close to Street, it is important to note that Street was never the subject of the federal investigation; he has never been charged with any criminal wrongdoing; and to this date, there is no evidence that he was ever involved with corruption.

LOUIS W. SULLIVAN (1933– ) Educational Administrator, Federal Government Official

Louis W. Sullivan was born on November 3, 1933, in Atlanta, Georgia. On March 1, 1989, the U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Sullivan as secretary of health and human services by a vote of 98 to 1, making him the first African American appointed to a cabinet position during the administration of U.S. President George H. W. Bush.

Instrumental in the development of the Morehouse School of Medicine, which he founded in 1975 as a separate entity from Morehouse College, Sullivan served as professor of biology and medicine and as director and founder of the medical education program at Morehouse College. In 1981, he became Morehouse School of Medicine’s first dean and president.

Sullivan graduated from Morehouse College magna cum laude with a B.S. in 1954, and received his M.D. in 1958, graduating cum laude from Boston University. He completed his internship at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center and his medical and general pathology residencies at Cornell Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. He then fulfilled two fellowships and served in a variety of positions with Harvard Medical School, Boston City Hospital, New Jersey College of Medicine, Boston University Medical Center, the Boston Sickle Cell Center, and others.

Sullivan has been involved in numerous educational, medical, scientific, professional, and civic organizations; has earned advisory, consulting, research and academic positions; and has received many professional and public service awards. Sullivan’s research and activities focus on hematology, a branch of biology that deals with the formation of blood and blood-forming organs, and he has authored and coauthored more than 60 publications on this and other subjects. He is also the founding president of the Association of Minority Health Professions.

On January 20, 1989, Sullivan was nominated by President George H. W. Bush for the position of secretary of health and human services. He was sworn in on March 10, 1989. In his position, Sullivan was responsible for ensuring the safety of food, drugs, and medical research, and promoting health education. Upon the expiration of his term in January of 1993, he returned to Atlanta to resume his presidency of the Morehouse School of Medicine. Sullivan served in that capacity until his retirement on May 31, 2002. He continues to serve on the Morehouse School of Medicine Board of Trustees, teaching and assisting in national fundraising activities. Currently, Sullivan serves on the boards of Bristol Myers Squibb and 3M.

HAROLD WASHINGTON (1922–1987) Federal Legislator, Municipal Government Official, Attorney

Washington was born in Chicago on April 15, 1922. After serving with the Army Air Corps in the Pacific theater during World War II, he received a B.A. from Roosevelt University in 1949. Washington then received a J.D. in 1952 from Northwestern University Law School. After graduation, Washington worked as an assistant city prosecutor in Chicago from 1954 to 1958 and while establishing a private law practice, was an arbitrator with the Illinois Industrial Commission from 1960 to 1964.

Running on the Democratic ticket, Washington was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1965 and served until 1976 when he was elected to the Illinois Senate. He served in the state senate from 1977 to 1980. While a state legislator, Washington helped establish Illinois’s Fair Employment Practices Commission, secured passage of consumer protection legislation, and worked to designate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a state holiday. After the death of longtime Chicago mayor Richard J. Daly in 1977, Washington finished third in the four-man contest for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Chicago. In 1980, Washington was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and became a member of the 97th Congress. Washington served on the Education and Labor, Government Operations, and Judiciary Committees. Shortly after his reelection to the House, Washington won the Democratic nomination for mayor. In 1983 he won the election to become Chicago’s first African American mayor.

Although Washington’s mayoralty was marked by political infighting he did manage to institute some reforms including increased city hiring of minorities, deficit reduction, the appointment of an African American police commissioner, and reduction of patronage influence. Washington died while in office on November 25, 1987.

MAXINE WATERS (1938– ) Federal Legislator, Diplomat, State Representative

Waters was born in St. Louis on August 15, 1938. After graduating from high school, she moved to Los Angeles where she worked at a garment factory and for a telephone company. She eventually attended college and received a B.A. in sociology from California State University. She became interested in politics after teaching in a Head Start program and serving as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1972.

In 1976, Waters was elected to the California State Assembly, where she served on numerous committees including the Ways and Means Subcommittee on State Administration, the Joint Committee of Public Pension Fund Investments, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics, the Select Committee on Assistance to Victims of Sexual Assault, the California Committee on the Status of Women, the Natural Resources Committee, and the Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendment Committee. As a member of the California Assembly, she created the nation’s first statewide child abuse prevention training program, gained passage of a law prohibiting strip searches for nonviolent misdemeanors, and promoted legislation to prevent toxic chemical catastrophes.

In 1990, Waters was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives where she has become an outspoken figure. In addition to holding the position of chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997-1998, Waters has served on the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee. She has also served in the influential position of “Chief Deputy Whip” for the Democratic Party since the 106th Congress. Following the 2000 presidential election, Waters was named chair of the “Democratic Caucus Special Committee on Election Reform” by Richard Gephardt. Waters has fought for legislation promoting aid to poor and minority neighborhoods in American cities and combating apartheid in South Africa.

Waters is on the board of directors of Essence magazine, and is involved with the National Woman’s Political Caucus, the National Steering Committee on Education of Black Youth, and the National Steering Committee of the Center for Study of Youth Policy.

J. C. WATTS JR. (1957– ) Federal Legislator, Religious Leader

Julius Caesar Watts was born on November 18, 1957, in Eufaula, Oklahoma. His father is a minister and Eufaula City councilman, and his uncle once headed Oklahoma’s NAACP chapter. Educated at the University of Oklahoma, Watts was a star quarterback and was named Most Valuable Player of the 1980 and 1981 Orange Bowls. He graduated with a journalism degree but chose to continue in athletics, joining the Canadian Football League’s Ottawa Rough Riders. He played five years with the Rough Riders and one with the Toronto Argonauts. An ordained minister and motivational speaker for youth and church groups, Watts served as youth director at the Sunnylane Baptist Church at Del City, Oklahoma, and presided over the Watts Energy Corp.

Though he had long considered himself a Democrat, Watts became disenchanted with the direction the party was taking and decided to become a Republican in 1989. He was also approached by prominent Oklahoma Republicans to run in the state Republican primary. The following year he was elected chairperson of Oklahoma’s Corporation Commission. The win made him the first African American Oklahoman to win a statewide election. Strongly in favor of welfare reform, defense spending cuts, and a balanced budget, the charismatic Watts built a rapport with his home state that led to his 1994 election victory over the Democratic incumbent to the U.S. House of Representatives. In doing so, Watts became the first African American Republican from a southern state to win a seat in Congress since Reconstruction, and only the second African American Republican to win a seat in the House in 60 years. Watts received national publicity when he declined membership in the Congressional Black Caucus because in his opinion many of the members were Democratic liberals who betray Black people in America.

Watts was reelected to Congress in 1996, 1998, and 2000. In a 1996 speech before the Republican National Convention, Watts spoke eloquently about character. In 1997, he delivered the Republican response to President Clinton’s State of the Union Address. Shortly after elections of 1998, Watts was elected to become GOP conference chair, the party’s fourth-highest position. On July 1, 2002, Watts announced that he would not seek a fifth term in Congress in order to spend more time with his family. He became chairman of GOPAC which was formed in 1978 to build a cadre of Republican office-holders to run for higher state and national office. He served in that capacity until February 2007.

Currently, he is chairman of the J. C. Watts Companies which is a multi industry business that provides business development, communications, public affairs, diversity training, and other services to clients.

ROBERT C. WEAVER (1907–1997) Lecturer, Federal Government Official, Educator

Robert Weaver became the first African American appointed to a presidential cabinet post when President Lyndon B. Johnson named him head of the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on January 13, 1966. Previously, Weaver had served as head of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) from 1961 to 1966.

Robert Weaver was born on December 29, 1907, in Washington, D.C., where he attended Dunbar High School and worked during his teens as an electrician. Encountering discrimination when he attempted to join a union, Weaver decided to go to college instead and concentrated on economics. Weaver attended Harvard University where he majored in economics, receiving a B.S., an M.S., and a Ph.D. Weaver’s grandfather, Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, was the first African American to earn a D.O. in dentistry at Harvard.

Weaver was one of the academics brought to Washington during the New Deal. From 1934 to 1938, he served in the Department of the Interior in various roles. He was also a part of President Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet.” After leaving the Interior Department, Weaver served as a special assistant to the head of the National Housing Authority from 1938 to 1940. From 1940 to 1944, Weaver continued his work with the federal government through the War Production Board and the Negro Manpower Commission.

Weaver left the federal government because he felt implementation of anti-discriminatory measures was moving too slow. He moved in 1944 to Chicago, where he directed the Mayor’s Committee on Race Relations. From Chicago he divided his time between teaching and government service.

During the late 1940s and 1950s, Weaver concentrated his energies on the field of education. He became a professor of economics at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina in Greensboro from 1931 to 1932. In 1947, he became a lecturer at Northwestern University and then became a visiting professor at Teachers College (Columbia University) and at the New York University School of Education. During this period, he was also a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research. From 1949 to 1955 he was director of the Opportunity Fellowships Program of the John Hay Whitney Foundation. Weaver also served as a member of the National Selection Committee for Fulbright Fellowships from 1952 to 1954, chairman of the Fellowship Committee of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, and a consultant to the Ford Foundation from 1959 to 1960.

In 1955, Weaver was named deputy state rent commissioner by New York’s governor Averell Harriman. By the end of the year, he had become state rent commissioner and the first African American to hold state cabinet rank in New York. From 1960 to 1961, he served as vice chairman of the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board, a three-man body which supervised New York’s urban renewal and middle-income housing programs. Weaver headed the Department of Housing and Urban Development until 1968. From 1969 to 1970, he served as president of Baruch College. Weaver accepted a teaching position at the Department of Urban Affairs at Hunter College in New York in 1971. After he retired from Hunter College in 1978, Weaver continued to serve on the boards of corporations, as well as educational and public institutions. Weaver wrote four books and 185 articles. In 1985, he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Weaver died in his New York City home on July 17, 1997.

WELLINGTON WEBB (1941– ) Municipal Government Official

Born February 17, 1941, Webb had to leave his South Side Chicago home to live with his grandmother in Denver, Colorado, due to asthma. After graduating from Colorado State College in 1964 with a B.A. in education, Webb worked in various public service-sector jobs, including forklift operator, welfare caseworker and special education teacher, while obtaining a master’s degree. In 1971, Webb received his M.A. in sociology from the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley.

In 1972, Webb was elected to the Colorado state legislature as a representative from the northeast section of Denver. He served there for four years, and rose to prominence within the Democratic Party in 1976 when Democratic presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter chose Webb to head the state’s national election committee. Upon Carter’s election, Webb was named a regional director of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. After leaving federal government service in 1981, Webb received an appointment from Colorado’s governor as executive director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. During his tenure in the early 1980s, Webb was the only African American in the state cabinet.

Webb ran for mayor of Denver first in 1983, but lost. In 1987, he ran successfully for the city auditor post. As city auditor, he was credited with restoring professionalism to the office. In 1991, he faced his city hall colleague, a popular African American district attorney, in another mayoral race. Webb won with 58 percent of the vote, despite being outspent by his well-financed opponent. He was reelected for a second term in 1995. Counted among Webb’s accomplishments as mayor are a 40 percent decrease in crime, an unemployment rate below 2 percent, completion of the new Denver International Airport, a new sports stadium, expansion of the Denver Art Museum, and developmentof a new African American Research Library, a strong economic base, and creation of 50,000 jobs. Webb won a third term in 1999 with a platform promising the revitalization of Denver’s poorer neighborhoods, the creation of more affordable housing, and the improved management of traffic congestion.

Webb has served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, as well as head of the National Conference of Black Mayors.

After his 12 year tenure as mayor of Denver, Webb briefly campaigned for the office of chairman of the Democratic National Committee in late 2004. Subsequently he withdrew endorsing Howard Dean. Webb is president of the Democratic Mayors and frequently lectures on civic issues at such places as Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

MICHAEL R. WHITE (1951– ) Municipal Government Official

Born and raised on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, Michael White was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1989. At the time, 40 percent of the city’s population was at or below the poverty line.

An alumnus of Ohio State University, White received a B.A. in education and an M.P.A. His political career started in 1974 when he became a special assistant for the mayor’s office in Columbus, Ohio. In 1978, White began six years on Cleveland’s city council, followed by four years in Columbus as a state senator. In 1989, White entered Cleveland’s mayoral race, running against three white candidates and City Council President George Forbes. White won the election.

The central issue for White’s administration was the future of Cleveland’s young people. Two focal points White worked toward were an upgrade of public education and the development of new jobs programs. White supported the development of the Lake Erie waterfront, and the completion of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

When Bill Clinton became president in 1992, White was invigorated by the potential changes with govern-ment’s relationship to the cities. He was an outspoken supporter of Clinton’s plans to get rid of the old welfare system. In 1995, White met with the National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to try and keep the Browns from moving to Baltimore. White secured a new team which began play in 1999, the same year a new football stadium opened.

In 1999, White launched a major investigation of Cleveland’s police department. The inquiry focused on allegations of racism within the force. Despite the appearance of racist graffiti in a number of station locker rooms and accusations that some of the city’s officers had worn white supremacist symbols on their uniforms, the investigation ended in March 2000 with White announcing no evidence had been found indicating the operation of hate groups in the department.

Michael White did not seek a fourth term as mayor of the city. He finished serving his third term on December 31, 2001. White retired to an alpaca farm in Ohio after the new mayor assumed office.

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS WILDER (1931– ) Attorney, State Government Official

Wilder was born on January 17, 1931, in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from Virginia Union University in 1951 with a B.S. in chemistry. After graduation he was drafted into the U.S. Army and assigned to a combat infantry unit in Korea. During the Korean War he was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery and valor in combat. After being discharged from the army in 1953 Wilder worked as a chemist in the Virginia State Medical Exam-iner’s Office. Later he studied law under the G. I. Bill graduating in1959 with a J.D. from Howard University Law School.

After co-founding the firm of Wilder, Gregory, and Associates, Wilder practiced law in Richmond until 1969 when he became the first African American elected to the Virginia State Senate since Reconstruction. Wilder chaired the important Privileges and Elections Committee and worked on legislation supporting fair-housing, union rights for public employees, and minority hiring. He also voted against capital punishment (a position he has since rescinded). In 1985 Wilder was elected lieutenant-governor becoming the first African American elected to a statewide executive position in the South in the 20th century. In 1989 he became Virginia’s first African American governor, winning the election by 1/3 of 1 percent of the vote. In recognition of this extraordinary achievement, the NAACP awarded Wilder the Spingarn Medal for 1900, its highest honor.

As governor, Wilder streamlined the state’s budget, eliminated the state’s $2.2 billion deficit, and worked to get civil rights legislation passed. Virginia law does not allow its governor to serve consecutive terms. After his term as governor, Wilder remained active in Virginia politics. From 1995–2001, Wilder hosted a popular weekly radio program, The Doug Wilder Show. In 1998, he was selected as president of his alma mater, Virginia Union University, but rescinded his acceptance of the position shortly before he was to be inaugurated as president. In 2004, Wilder ran successfully for Mayor of Richmond garnering 79 percent of the vote. Wilder was the first directly elected Mayor of Richmond in years.

In 1979, Wilder won the Distinguished Alumni Award presented by Virginia Union University. In succeeding years, he received the 1982 President’s Citation from Norfolk State University, was named the 1993 Alumnus of the Year from the Howard Law School Alumni Association, and earned the 1985 Distinguished Postgraduate Achievement in Law and Politics Award. Wilder belongs to the Richmond Urban League, Richmond Bar Association, American Judicature Society, American Trial Lawyers Association, Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, NAACP, and is vice president of the Virginia Human Relations Council..

Wilder continues to work toward the selection of a site and the construction of a slavery museum in his native state. In February 2002, Wilder was appointed by Governor Mark Warner as chairman of a 13-member commission to study the effectiveness and efficiency of Virginia’s state government. In 2004, Virginia Commonwealth University named its School of Government and Public Affairs in honor of L. Douglas Wilder. The Virginia Union University library is also named in honor of Wilder

ANDREW YOUNG (1932– ) Diplomat, Municipal Government Official/Executive, Federal Legislator, Civil Rights Activist

Andrew Young was born in New Orleans on March 12, 1932, and received a B.S. degree from Howard University in 1951 and a B.Div. in 1955 from the Hartford Theological Seminary. He was ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ and then served in churches in Alabama and Georgia before joining the staff of the National Council of Churches in 1957.

The turning point of Young’s life came in 1961, when he joined Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and became a trusted aide and close confidante. He became executive vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1967, and remained with King until King’s 1968 assassination. During his years with SCLC, Young also developed several programs including antiwar protests, voter registration projects, and other major civil rights drives.

In 1970 Young lost a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives. In the aftermath of the election, Young was appointed chair of the Community Relations Committee (CRC). Though the CRC was an advisory group with no enforcement powers, Young took an activist role, pressing the city government on many issues, from sanitation and open housing to mass transit, consumer affairs, and Atlanta’s drug problem. Young’s leadership in the CRC led to a higher public profile and answered critics’ charges that he was inexperienced in government.

Young launched another bid for a congressional seat in 1972. African Americans comprised only 44 percent of the voters in Young’s congressional district. However, Young captured 23 percent of the white vote and 54 percent of the total vote to win by a margin of 8,000 votes. Young was the first African American representative to be elected from Georgia since Jefferson Long in 1870. One year later, in 1973, Young was named the recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize.

Young was one of the most vocal supporters of his fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter’s campaign for the U.S. presidency in 1976. Following President Carter’s inauguration, Young left Congress in 1977 to become America’s ambassador to the United Nations. Young’s tenure there was marked by controversy—his outspoken manner sometimes ruffled diplomatic feathers. Among his most important contributions were helping to bring peace and a new constitution to Zimbabwe; improving relations with Nigeria; and generally fostering improved relations between the United States and r developing countries.

Young’s career as a diplomat came to an end in 1979 when he met secretly with a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to discuss an upcoming vote in the UN. America had a policy that none of its representatives would meet with the PLO as long as it refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist as a state. When the news of Young’s meeting leaked out, an uproar followed. Young tendered his resignation, which President Carter accepted. The incident badly strained African American-Jewish relations as African Americans felt Jewish leaders were instrumental in Young’s removal.

When Maynard Jackson was prevented by law from running for his third term of office as mayor of Atlanta in 1981, Young entered the race. Race entered the campaign when Jackson charged that African Americans who supported the white candidate, State Legislator Sidney Marcus, with “selling out” the civil rights movement. Jackson’s remarks were widely criticized, and it was feared that they would create a backlash against Young, too. However, Young ended up with 55 percent of the total vote. He had won 10.6 percent of the white vote, compared to the 12 percent he had won in the primary, and 88.4 percent of the black vote, up from 61 percent earlier.

Young took office at a time when Atlanta was going through several economic and social problems including a shrinking population and a stagnating tax base. In addition, almost a quarter of the city’s residents were below the poverty line, and the city was still shaken by the recent murders of 28 African American youths and the disappearance of another. Some critics doubted Young’s ability to deal with Atlanta’s problems. He was seen as anti-business and a weak administrator. But by 1984, the city had become so successful at attracting new businesses that it was experiencing a major growth spurt. In addition, the crime rate dropped sharply and racial harmony seemed an established fact. Young was decisively reelected.

Limited by law to two terms as mayor, Young ran unsuccessfully for governor of Georgia in 1990. His wife died of cancer four years later. In 1994, Young wrote his autobiography A Way Out of No Way: The Spiritual Memoirs of Andrew Young. He was co-chair of the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games and a member of various boards of directors including those of Delta Airlines and Host Marriott Corp. He also remained very active as president of Young Ideas, a consulting firm he founded. In 1995, Young headed up the Southern Africa Enterprise Development Fund, which, in 1996, began offering low-interest loans to small businesses in South Africa and other countries in the same region. In 2001, he attempted to help resolve the issue of forcible land seizure in Zimbabwe from white landowners by black war veterans, meeting with the country’s president, Robert Mugabe.

Currently, Young is co-chair of Good Works International, a consulting firm that offers international market access and political risk analysis in key emerging markets within Africa and the Caribbean.

In February 2006, Young became chair of Working Families for Wal-Mart, an organization sponsored by the retail corporate giant in response to public criticism that the company exploits its workers; discriminates against women and African American employees; and that the company’s American employees and their children are on public assistance. Six months later following his comments in an interview that were controversial and criticized as racist, Young ended his involvement with Working Families for Wal-Mart.

COLEMAN A. YOUNG (1918–1997) Municipal Government Official

Long-time Detroit icon Coleman Young announced on June 22, 1993, that he would not seek reelection for the mayoralty of the city that fall. Young had won each of his mayoral elections by a wide margin. The only mayor in the history of Detroit to serve five consecutive terms led the media to dub him “mayor for life.” Once recognized as an urban savior, Detroit’s highly publicized problems—crime, declining population, and poor economic standing—had finally instilled doubts in the voters regarding Young’s abilities.

Young was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on May 24, 1918. His family moved to Detroit in 1926, after the Ku Klux Klan ransacked a neighborhood in Huntsville, where his father was learning to be a tailor. In Detroit, Young attended Catholic Central and then Eastern High School, graduating from the latter with honors. He had to reject a scholarship to the University of Michigan when the Eastern High School Alumni Association, in contrast to policies followed with poor white students, declined to assist him with costs other than tuition.

Young entered an electrician’s apprentice school at the Ford Motor Company. He finished first in the program but was passed over for the only available electrician job in favor of a white candidate. Working on the assembly line, he soon became engaged in underground union activities. Attacked by a company man one day, Young defended himself by hitting his assailant on the head with a steel bar, leading to Young’s dismissal.

During World War II, Young was a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Force and was commissioned a second lieutenant. Stationed at Freeman Field, Indiana, he demonstrated against the exclusion of African Americans from segregated officers’ clubs and was arrested along with 100 other African American airmen including Thurgood Marshall and Percy Sutton, former president of New York’s Borough of Manhattan. Young spent three days in jail. Shortly thereafter, the clubs were opened to African American officers.

After the war, Young returned to his union-organizing activities and was named director of organization for the Wayne County AFL-CIO in 1947. However, the union fired him in 1948 when he supported Henry Wallace, candidate of the Progressive Party, in the presidential election. The union regarded Wallace as an agent of the Communist Party and supported Harry Truman. Young managed a dry cleaning plant for a few years, then founded and directed the National Negro Labor Council in 1951. The council successfully prevailed on Sears Roe-buck & Co. and the San Francisco Transit System to hire African Americans. However, they also aroused the interest of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was in the midst of hunting for alleged communists. When brought before the committee, Young, who denied he was ever a communist, refused to name anyone. Though he emerged from the hearing with his self-respect intact, his council was placed on the attorney general’s subversive list. In 1956, the council was disbanded, and charges of Young’s communist involvement were used against him, albeit unsuccessfully, during his first mayoral campaign.

After working at a variety of jobs, Young won a seat on the Michigan Constitutional Convention in 1961. The following year he lost a race for state representative but became director of campaign organization for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Wayne County (Detroit). He sold life insurance until 1964, when, with union support, he was elected to the state senate. In the senate, he was a leader of the civil rights forces fighting for low-income housing for people dislocated by urban renewal and for bars to discrimination in the hiring practices of the Detroit police force.

Young declared his candidacy for mayor of Detroit in 1973, and mounted a vigorous campaign for the office. He won the office after a racially divisive campaign. Among his early successes in office were the integration of the Detroit police department and promotion of African American officers into administrative positions. The new mayor also created a coalition of business and labor to preserve the industries remaining in Detroit and attract new ones. Young’s outspoken and opinionated nature and his fondness for using expletives earned him both passionate supporters and bitter enemies. A Democrat and one of the first big-city mayors to support Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign in 1976, Young had a very close relationship with the Carter administration. He turned down a federal cabinet position offered to him by Carter, but his relationship with the president proved helpful in securing funds for Detroit.

In the 1980s, Young was intensely critical of the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush, with their cutbacks in federal aid to urban areas. The federal government seized several opportunities to scrutinize Young as well. Over the years, Young’s administration was investigated on more than six different charges including improprieties in the awarding of city contracts and illegal personal use of city funds by the police department; however, Young himself was never personally implicated in the scandals.

Young’s popularity was bolstered by a number of citywide improvements credited to him such as the expansion of riverfront attractions, which brought increased convention and tourist traffic to the city and favorable tax abatements that attracted new businesses, including two major automobile plants. Middle-class and white flight to the suburbs, which had begun at the end of the 1960s, continued to rob the city’s coffers of essential tax revenue. Some critics argued that Young’s attitude toward suburbanites contributed to the phenomenon. Near the end of his tenure, Young endured a barrage of disapproval for autocratic style and his emphasis on cosmetic improvements rather than focusing on true remedies for the decay of the city.

In 1989, Coleman Young won his fifth term as Motor City mayor. Despite a high unemployment rate, a shortage of cash, and a high crime rate, the voters returned the popular Young to office. During 1990, both Detroit and its mayor were targets of highly critical feature stories in the New York Times and on CBS. Commentary revolved around Detroit’s sagging economy, brutal crime statistics, racial stratification, and a supposed general air of despair. Young countered that under his administration, the city managed to balance its budget despite a dramatic cutback in federal and state aid. He also noted that many neighborhoods had undergone extensive renovation and a new automobile manufacturing plant had opened within the city limits.

In 1993, when Young felt that he no longer had the necessary vitality to run a big city, a major chapter in Detroit politics came to a close. Young turned his attentions towards writing, with Lonnie Wheeler, Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Coleman Young. After he left politics, Young was a professor of urban affairs at Detroit’s Wayne State University, where he continued to raise dialogue about race and class issues. Young was in poor health during his last years and suffered from heart trouble, chronic emphysema, and other respiratory problems. He died on November 29, 1997.