Augustus Hawkins | |
|---|---|
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia | |
| In office January 3, 1963 – January 3, 1991 | |
| Preceded by | New district (redistricting) |
| Succeeded by | Maxine Waters |
| Constituency | 21st district (1963–1975) 29th district (1975–1991) |
| Member of theCalifornia State Assembly from the62nd district | |
| In office January 7, 1935 – January 3, 1963 | |
| Preceded by | Frederick Madison Roberts |
| Succeeded by | Tom Waite |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Augustus Freeman Hawkins (1907-08-31)August 31, 1907 Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | November 10, 2007(2007-11-10) (aged 100) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Pegga Smith (1945–1966) Elsie Hawkins (1977–2007) |
| Education | University of California, Los Angeles (BA) |
Hawkins introduces a comprehensive economic bill of rights Recorded July 1, 1987 | |
Augustus Freeman Hawkins (August 31, 1907 – November 10, 2007) was an American politician of theDemocratic Party who served in theCalifornia State Assembly from 1935 to 1963 and theU.S. House Of Representatives from 1963 to 1991. Over the course of his career, Hawkins authored more than 300 state and federal laws, the most famous of which areTitle VII of theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1978Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. He was known as the "silent warrior" for his commitment to education and ending unemployment.[1]
Hawkins was born inShreveport, Louisiana, the youngest of five children, to Nyanza Hawkins and Hattie Freeman. In 1918, the family moved to Los Angeles.[2][3] Hawkins graduated fromJefferson High School in 1926, and received a bachelor's degree in economics from theUniversity of California, Los Angeles in 1931.[4] After graduation, he planned to study civil engineering, but the financial constraints of theGreat Depression made this impossible. This contributed towards his interest in politics, and his lifelong devotion to education. After graduating, Hawkins operated a real-estate company with his brother and studied government.[5] While serving in theCalifornia State Assembly, Hawkins married Pegga Adeline Smith on August 28, 1945. Smith died in 1966, and Hawkins later married Elsie Taylor in 1977.[6] After retiring from Congress, he stayed in the Washington area because his wife preferred it, living there until his death, which came two months after hers.[2]
AnAfrican American of mixed-race ancestry, Hawkins was very light-skinned and reportedly resembled his English grandfather.[5] Throughout his life, he was often assumed to be of solely white ancestry, although he refused topass as white.[7][2]
Hawkins was part of a more general shift by African Americans away from the Republican and towards the Democratic Party.[8] Unlike the majority of African Americans, he supportedFranklin D. Roosevelt's campaign for president in1932. Hawkins favored measures such as theNew Deal, which was wildly popular in the United States at large and the African-American community in particular. Roosevelt would go on to be the first Democratic president to win the black vote, in1936. In the1934 California gubernatorial election, Hawkins supported the controversial candidacy ofUpton Sinclair, aSocialist-turned-Democrat. Although Sinclair lost, Hawkins defeated 16-year incumbentRepublicanFrederick Madison Roberts, the great-grandson ofSally Hemings and PresidentThomas Jefferson and the first African American in the California State Assembly. Hawkins would serve as a Democratic member of the Assembly from 1935 until 1963; by the time of his departure, Hawkins was the Assembly's most senior member, as Roberts was before him.
Black representation was so limited that "the black strategy for gaining political power was to exercise influence within the Democratic Party through voting for, and lobbying, white politicians."[9] Aside from Hawkins, "Los Angeles blacks had no other political representative in city, county, state, or federal government."[9]
Hawkins's district was a mixture of Latinos, African Americans, and working-classwhite migrants from the South and Midwest. During his time in the Assembly, he introduced legislation including "afair housing act, a fair employment practices act, low-cost housing and disability insurance legislation, and workers' compensation provisions for domestic workers."[2][5] Along with education, fair practices in employment and housing became Hawkins's major causes. He received little support at the time for these measures from the Democratic Party, however.[8] Nevertheless, he was able to get some measures passed, including his fair-housing law, which prohibited discrimination by any builders that received federal funds.[10]
Hawkins was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of1940,1944 and1960, as well as anpresidential elector from California in1944. In 1958, Hawkins sought to beSpeaker of the California State Assembly, which was the second-most powerful position in the state, after theGovernor of California. Hawkins lost toRalph M. Brown, but was made chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.[11][2] Had Hawkins succeeded, he would have become the first African-American Speaker in California history, a feat thatWillie Brown would achieve in 1980. In 1962, Hawkins won a newly created majority-black congressional district encompassing central Los Angeles[12] With an endorsement fromJohn F. Kennedy, Hawkins easily won the primary and the general election. After the election, Hawkins remarked, "It's like shifting gears—from the oldest man in the Assembly in years of service to a freshman in Congress."[13]
From 1963 to 1991, Hawkins represented California's 21st District (1963–1975), and the 29th District (1975–1991), covering southern Los Angeles County, in Congress. Hawkins was consistently elected with over 80% of the vote in his Democratic-friendly district. He was the first black representative to be elected from west of theMississippi River.[5]
Hawkins was a strong supporter of PresidentLyndon B. Johnson'sGreat Society. Early in his congressional career, he authored legislation includingTitle VII of theCivil Rights Act of 1964 that established theEqual Employment Opportunity Commission. Hawkins was a strong supporter of civil rights, and he toured the South in 1964 to advocate for African-Americanvoter registration.[14]
Five days after theVoting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, theWatts Riots occurred in Hawkins's district. It was the first ofmanyrace riots in the 1960s. Hawkins urged his colleagues in Congress to increase antipoverty funds, but he did not condone the violence.[15] Due to his light skin and heightened racial tensions, Hawkins had to be careful when he visited his district shortly after the riots.[7] The riots stalled the Great Society, particularly over the fair housing; blacks who benefited from Great Society laws were blamed as being harmful to the "law and order" of America, particularly if they were allowed to live next to whites. Fair housing was still an unpopular issue in America: Democratic Senate nomineePierre Salinger lost to RepublicanGeorge Murphy in California over the issue, marking the only Republican pickup amid Lyndon Johnson'scrushing presidential victory over anti-Civil Rights ActBarry Goldwater in 1964. Open housing reform seemed next on the Great Society list after the Voting Rights Act was signed, but the Watts Riot put it on hold. It was not passed until after the1968assassination ofMartin Luther King Jr.
On theVietnam War, Hawkins initially agreed with President Johnson. In 1964, both insisted that the war undermined the Great Society and that the United States could not "impose our way of life on other people."[16] When it became clear that South Vietnam was not stable enough to survive without American backing, Hawkins increased his criticism of the war. After touring South Vietnam June 1970, Hawkins and fellow Democratic RepresentativeWilliam Anderson drafted a House Resolution urging Congress to "condemn the cruel and inhumane treatment" of prisoners in South Vietnam.[5] Anderson and Hawkins had visited South Vietnam with nine other congressmen, but they were the only two to visit a civilian South Vietnamese prison onCon Son Island, which they described as being akin to "tiger cages."[17] The two Representatives also pressured President Nixon to send an independent task force to investigate the prison and "prevent further degradation and death."[18]
Hawkins was a founding member of theCongressional Black Caucus, and served as vice chairman during its first term (1971–1973).[5][2] Hawkins did not play a significant role in the CBC, as he preferred to focus on legislation rather than use Congress as abully pulpit like other African Americans such asAdam Clayton Powell Jr.,Bill Clay, andRon Dellums; Hawkins argued that there needed to be "clearer thinking and fewer exhibitionists in the civil rights movement."[19] During this time, Hawkins succeeded in restoring honorable discharges to the 170 black soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment who had been falsely accused of a public disturbance inBrownsville, Texas, in 1906, and removed from the Army.[20] Unlike other CBC members, he sought cooperation fromorganized labor andwhite ethnics in order to make his agenda more likely to pass into law.[21] In 1980, Hawkins criticized the CBC as "85 percent social and 15 percent business."[22]
Aside from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, laws that Hawkins was instrumental in passing include: the 1974Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, a law that provided certain protections to young criminal offenders; the 1978Comprehensive Employment and Training Act; and the 1978 Pregnancy Disability Act, which aimed to prevent discrimination against women on the basis of pregnancy and of which Hawkins said, "we have the opportunity to ensure that genuine equality in the American labor force is more than an illusion and that pregnancy will no longer be the basis of unfavorable treatment of working women."[23][24] Hawkins is known best of all for the 1978Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which Hawkins sponsored in 1977 alongside SenatorHubert Humphrey ofMinnesota. The bill gave the U.S. government the goal of providing full employment; it also ordered that the Chairman of theFederal Reserve Board must provide Congress with testimony on the state of the economy. However, by the time that the bill made it to PresidentJimmy Carter's desk, "the legislation was clearly symbolic."[25][26][27] Hawkins later authored landmark legislation such as theJob Training Partnership Act and the 1988 School Improvement Act. He became chair of theHouse Education and Labor Committee in 1984.
Hawkins was frustrated from the relative lack of success that he achieved during the 1980s' presidencies ofRonald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. They were the most conservative presidents since the 1920s, and members of his own party were moving to the right and viewed Hawkins's old-school New Dealer stance as outdated.[5] His greatest setback wasGeorge H. W. Bush's veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1990, sometimes called the Hawkins-Kennedy Civil Rights Act. It would have reversed sixSupreme Court decisions made in the previous year that had shifted the burden of proof of discriminating hiring practices of minorities or women from the employer to the employee. It remains the only successful veto of a civil rights act in United States history. Hawkins retired in January 1991. Bush would sign a less expansive bill, theCivil Rights Act of 1991, after Hawkins's retirement.[5]
Hawkins retired from Congress in 1991, having never lost an election in his 58-year career. He died atSuburban Hospital inBethesda, Maryland, on November 10, 2007;[2] aged 100, he was the oldest living person to have served in Congress at the time of his death, and the eighth member of Congress to have become acentenarian. Hawkins's death left the formerAlabamaRepublican RepresentativeArthur Glenn Andrews (1909–2008) as the oldest living former House member.
TheAugustus F. Hawkins Nature Park was built in 2000 in a highly urbanized area of southern Los Angeles.[28][29] The cost was $4.5 million and was financed largely by city, county, and state bond measures.[28] The park encompasses 8.5 acres and features the Evan Frankel Discovery Center, which includes natural history and environmental interpretive displays.[30]The Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence Program is a federal grants program supporting diversification of the U.S. teaching force.[31]
Augustus F. Hawkins High School in Los Angeles, which opened in 2012, is named in his honor.
| California Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of theCalifornia Assembly from the62nd district 1935–1963 | Succeeded by Tom Waite |
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia's 21st congressional district 1963–1975 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia's 29th congressional district 1975–1991 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair ofHouse Administration Committee 1981–1984 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair ofHouse Education Committee 1984–1991 | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Oldest member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1989–1991 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Oldest living United States representative (Sitting or former) 2003–2007 | Succeeded by |
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| Education and Labor (1867–1883) | | |
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| Education (1883–1947) | ||
| Labor (1883–1947) | ||
| Education and Labor* (1947–) | ||
| Note | * Alternately namedEconomic and Educational Opportunities in 104th Congress andEducation and the Workforce in 105th through 109th and 112th through 115th Congresses. | |
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
