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BlackFacts Minute: January 3

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Black Facts for January 3rd

1981 - Savage, Augustus Alexander, “Gus” (1925 - )

Augustus Alexander Savage, later better known as “Gus”, was born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 30 1925. Savage attended public schools in Chicago and graduated from Wendell Phillips High School in 1943 before joining the United States Army. He served until 1946 before earning a B.A. degree in philosophy from Roosevelt University in 1951 and attending Chicago-Kent college of Law from 1952 to 1953. In the 1940s, Savage was a fulltime organizer for the Progressive Party of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace and also a promoter of programs for Paul Robeson, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Hon. Elijah Muhammad.  Savage began a career as a journalist in 1954 and became the editor of The America Negro Magazine, the assistant editor of the Illinois Beverage Booster, and finally in 1965 he began to edit and publish the Chicago Weekend and Citizen Newspapers.

During his long career as a journalist, Savage was also politically active in the local community. He served as a member and officer in the Chicago League of Negro Voters (1958-59), the Southend Voters Conference (1965-67), and the Organization of the Southwest Communities (1968-69). Savage first ran for Congress in 1968, where he lost to incumbent Representative William T. Murphy in the primary and lost again in 1970. In December of 1979, Second District Representative Morgan F. Murphy announced his retirement and Savage entered the race to succeed him. Savage became a member of Ninety-seventh Congress on January 3, 1981 as Democrat of Illinois.

In Congress, Savage was elected chairman of the powerful Economic Development sub-committee of the House. The committee authorized and oversaw programs and funding for the Economic Development Administration and Appalachian Regional Commission. As chairman of the Economic Development subcommittee, Savage established an unprecedented federal commitment to minority set-asides when the House passed a $38 billion Department of Defense procurement goal for minority businesses and historically black colleges and universities

1867 - (1867) Thaddeus Stevens, “Reconstruction”

In 1867 Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner led the campaign for full voting rights for African Americans across the nation.  In the speech below which Stevens gave in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 3, 1867 supporting the Reconstruction bill then being debated, he issued a response to those who said his call was radical and incendiary with a now famous quotation: I am for negro suffrage in every rebel State. If it be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted; if it be a punishment to traitors, they deserve it.   The entire speech appears below.

Mr. Speaker, I am very anxious that this bill should be proceeded with until finally acted upon.  I desire that as early as possible, without curtailing debate, this House shall come to some conclusion as to what shall be done with the rebel States.  This becomes more and more necessary every day; and the late decision of the Supreme Court of the United States has rendered immediate action by Congress upon the question of the establishment of governments in the rebel States absolutely indispensable.  

That decision, although in terms perhaps not as infamous as the Dred Scott decision, is yet far more dangerous in its operation upon the lives and liberties of the loyal men of this country. That decision has taken away every protection in everyone of these rebel States from every loyal man, black or white, who resides there. That decision has unsheathed the dagger of the assassin and places the knife of the rebel at the throat of every man who dares proclaim himself to be now, or to have been heretofore, a loyal Union man. If the doctrine enunciated in that decision be true, never were the people of any country anywhere, or at any time, in such terrible peril as are our loyal brethren at the South, whether they be black or white, whether they go there from the North or are natives of the rebel States.

Now, Mr. Speaker, unless Congress proceeds at once to do something to protect

1969 - Stokes, Louis (1925-2015)

Ohio’s first African American Congressman, Louis Stokes was born to Charles and Louis Stokes on February 23, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended its public schools before joining the United States Army in 1943. Stokes served in the army for three years and then attended Western Reserve University from 1946 to 1948 where he earned a B.A.  In 1953 he received a Doctor of Law degree from Cleveland Marshall Law School of the Cleveland State University. Stokes was admitted to the Ohio bar the same year and began practicing law in Cleveland.

Louis Stokes became active in the civil rights movement and political affairs in the 1960s. He became a member of the executive committee of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party and was also a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.  Stokes served as vice president of the Cleveland branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1965-66, and as chairman of its Legal Redress Committee for five years.

Following a lawsuit argued by Stokes on behalf of Republican leader Charles P. Lucas, the United States Supreme Court ruled in December 1967 that the Ohio legislature had to adopt a congressional redistricting plan that accurately reflected the presence of black voters. A new district, the Twenty-First, was subsequently created, and Stokes won the Democratic nomination over a field of twenty opponents in the May 1968 primary. He defeated Lucas in the general election and became the first black Congressman from Ohio, taking office on January 3, 1969.

Stokes served on the Education and Labor Committee and on the House Un-American Activities Committee (renamed the House Internal Security Committee in 1969). In 1971 Stokes was elected to the Appropriations Committee, becoming the first black member of Congress to join the panel. When the House Budget Committee was formed in 1974, Stokes was among those elected to membership. In 1972, he became chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and served two consecutive terms.

During his long

1979 - Evans, Melvin Herbert (1917–1984)

Melvin Herbert Evans was born on August 7, 1917, in Christiansted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands. He attended public schools until entering Howard University where he received his B.S. in 1940.  In 1944 he received his M.D. from Howard College of Medicine, whereupon he served in a variety of medical and public health posts at hospitals and institutions in the United States until 1959.  From 1959 to 1967 Evans served as a health commissioner in the Virgin Islands.  In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Evans, a Republican, as Governor of the Virgin Islands.  In 1970, after the Virgin Islands Elective Governor Act allowed for the election of a governor by the territory’s residents, Evans became the first popularly elected governor, serving for five years. Afterward, he was a Republican National Committeeman for the Virgin Islands from 1976 to 1980.

In 1978 Melvin Evans was elected as the Virgin Islands Non-Voting Delegate to the United States House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.  Evans was sworn into the Ninety-sixth Congress on January 3, 1979.  Despite his non-voting status, Evans served on various Congressional committees including Armed Services, Interior and Insular Affairs, and Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committees.

Evans was able to secure federal funds to help provide the Virgin Islands’ public school system with additional programs and services. He also eased the shortage of doctors at local health facilities in the Islands by initiating special legislation that permitted physicians who were not U.S. citizens to practice there.  Evans supported the designation of legal national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and opposed the elimination of court-ordered busing until alternatives were offered.

Evans served in Congress only one term, losing in 1980 to Democrat Rod de Lugo in his reelection bid. In 1981 he was appointed United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago and served in that office until his death in Christiansted on November 27, 1984.

University of Washington, Seattle

2015 - Edward Brooke

Edward Brooke , in full Edward William Brooke (born October 26, 1919, Washington, D.C.—died January 3, 2015, Coral Gables, Florida), American lawyer and politician who was the first African American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served two terms (1967–79).

Brooke earned his undergraduate degree at Howard University (Washington, D.C.) in 1941 and served as an infantry officer during World War II, achieving the rank of captain. After being discharged, he earned two law degrees at Boston University and was editor of the Boston University Law Review.

Brooke began practicing law in 1948 and became a successful Boston attorney. Entering politics, he was defeated in attempts to win a seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1950 and 1952. He also failed in his 1960 bid to become the Massachusetts secretary of state. From 1961 to 1962 he served as chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, seeking evidence of corruption in city politics.

In 1962 Brooke, a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, was elected attorney general of Massachusetts. A vigorous prosecutor of official corruption, he was reelected in 1964 by a large margin, despite the success of Democrats that year (Democratic Pres. Lyndon Johnson captured more than 75 percent of the vote in Massachusetts against Republican Barry Goldwater).

In 1966 Brooke ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate and won by nearly half a million votes. That year he also published The Challenge of Change: Crisis in Our Two-Party System, which focused on self-help as a way to address the social issues facing the United States during the 1960s. He established a reputation as a soft-spoken moderate on civil rights and a leader of the progressive wing of his party. In 1972 he was overwhelmingly reelected. In 1978, however, beset by personal problems including accusations of financial misdeeds and a divorce, Brooke lost his bid for a third term. In 2008 journalist Barbara Walters revealed that she and Brooke had engaged in an affair for several years prior to his