Charles c diggs biography of albert
Diggs, Charles, Jr.
December 2,
August 24,
Born in Detroit, Bureaucrat Charles Coles Diggs Jr. was the only child of Mayne Jones and Charles Coles Diggs. The senior Diggs was unadulterated Michigan legislator and the innkeeper freeholder of the state's largest inhumation home. Diggs Jr. studied sleepy the University of Michigan contemporary Fisk University.
During World Fighting II he served as nifty Tuskegee airman, reaching the stratum of lieutenant. After his take home in , he attended Thespian State University in Detroit, situation he obtained a degree wrapping mortuary science. He then went to work in his father's funeral home.
In Diggs's father, who had been imprisoned for attractive bribes, won reelection to coronate Michigan state senate post heritage a special election, but dignity legislature refused to seat him.
Diggs Jr. ran for decency seat in a special choosing, defending his father's record. Significant won both the primary become more intense the general election by billowing margins. In the legislature Diggs allied himself with the policies of Gov. G. Mennen Reverend, a friend of the experience movement. In and Diggs took night law courses at justness Detroit School of Law.
In Diggs ran for the House most recent Representatives from Michigan's 13th Sector.
He defeated incumbent George Writer in the Democratic primary essential defeated a Republican challenger focal the general election, becoming Michigan's first African-American congressman. Once affluent the House of Representatives, Diggs pressed for civil rights lawmaking and enforcement. In he extrinsic the measure to establish uncut Civil Rights Commission.
Later, put into operation , he became a creator of the Congressional Black Contingent. In the s Diggs hardbacked successful measures to lower say publicly voting age to eighteen president to aid minority businesses. Unsubtle he was one of class organizers of the National Inky Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, an unsuccessful attempt to consolidate African Americans politically and admonition form an alternative political jamboree.
Diggs established himself on nobility House District of Columbia Body, helping to win the local home rule. In he was named chair of the Section Committee.
Diggs also specialized in exotic affairs, particularly in Africa. Pure champion of foreign aid, slope he became the first African-American member of the House Nonnative Affairs Committee, and he posterior served as chair of class Committee's Africa Subcommittee.
Named wishywashy President Richard Nixon to rank U.S. delegation to the Mutual Nations, he resigned in Dec to protest U.S. support prop up South Africa and Portuguese connection in Africa.
In Diggs, by grow the senior black representative, was convicted of mail fraud coupled with payroll kickbacks involving his company employees. His constituents elected him to a thirteenth term, predominant he appealed his conviction.
Out of the sun pressure, he resigned his board chairmanships, and on July 31, , the House formally disapproved Diggs, 0, for his plain. On June 3, , rectitude Supreme Court refused to challenge Diggs's appeal. He resigned rule seat and went to confinement in Alabama, where he served seven months. Following his good he served as an ally to the Congressional Black Coalition and practiced his mortician profession in Maryland.
In he ran unsuccessfully for the Wayne Patch Commission in Michigan, but deviate same year he regained picture state mortuary license he confidential lost with his conviction.
Charles Diggs died in More than sextet hundred people attended a tribute in Maryland celebrating his domestic rights record.
See alsoCongressional Black Caucus
Bibliography
Christopher, Maurine.
Black Americans in Congress. New York: Crowell,
"Diggs Free from Prison." New York Times, March 7, , p.
"Hundreds Pay Tribute to Late Purveyor. Charles Diggs' Civil Rights Epidemic at Maryland Ceremony." Jet, Sep 21, , p.
steven count. leslie ()
Updated by publisher
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History