Democratic representative Katie Hall was elected to the United States Congress in 1983. Born in Mound Bayou, Bolivar County, Mississippi in 1938, she attended Mississippi Valley State University and Indiana University before teaching in the public schools of Gary Indiana. Hall was elected to the … Read MoreKatie Beatrice Hall (1938-2012)
Cardiss Robertson Collins was born September 24, 1931 in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Findley Robertson and Rosa Mae Robertson. At the age of 10 her family relocated to Detroit and she spent the rest of her childhood there, eventually graduating from the Detroit … Read MoreCardiss Collins (1931- )
Parren James Mitchell was a civil rights activist, the first African American elected to Congress from the South since 1898, and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Born in 1922, Mitchell grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended public schools there. His father … Read MoreParren James Mitchell (1922-2007)
Born in Washington, D.C. on August 8, 1934, Julian Dixon represented part of Los Angeles in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty-two years. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1960, Dixon attended California State University, Los Angeles. He earned a bachelor’s … Read MoreJulian Dixon (1934-2000)
First elected to the Congress in 1870, Josiah T. Walls became Florida’s first elected African American congressman. Walls was born a slave in Winchester, Virginia on December 30, 1842. He was conscripted by the Confederate Army and captured in Yorktown by Union forces in 1862. … Read MoreJosiah Thomas Walls (1842-1905)
Danny K. Davis was born in Parkdale, Arkansas on September 6, 1941, the son of a sharecropper. He received a B.A. in history from Arkansas A.M. & N. College in 1961 and then moved to Chicago. In 1968 he earned an M.A. from Chicago State … Read MoreDanny K. Davis (1941- )
In 1934, Arthur Wergs Mitchell became the first African American Democrat elected to Congress from any state. Mitchell served four terms as a Representative in Congress for the state of Illinois (1935-1943). Mitchell was born near Lafayette Alabama on December 22, 1883 and was educated … Read MoreArthur Wergs Mitchell (1883-1968)
Washington State politician George Fleming was born February 22, 1937, in Dallas, Texas, to parents A.R. and Lilla N. Fleming. He started post secondary education at the University of Washington, Seattle. While attending the University, Fleming was running back and kicker for the Washington Huskies … Read MoreGeorge Fleming (1937-2021)
When Gary Franks was elected to Congress in 1990, he was the first black representative from Connecticut and the first black Republican in Congress in nearly 50 years. Son of a brass factory worker and a dietary specialist, education was a high priority in Franks’s … Read MoreGary Franks (1953- )
Jesse Jackson, Jr., an African American Congressman, represented Illinois’ Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from December 12, 1995 to November 21, 2012. On March 11, 1965, in Greenville, South Carolina, in the middle of the voting rights campaign, Jesse L. Jackson, … Read MoreJesse Louis Jackson, Jr. (1965- )
