Charles Diggs

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Charles Coles Diggs, Jr. (December 2, 1922—August 24, 1998) was an American politician.

Born in Detroit, he attended University of Michigan and Fisk University. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1945. After his discharge, Diggs worked as a funeral director. He was elected as a member of the Michigan State Senate in 1951, then to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1955.

From the beginning, Diggs took an interest in civil rights issues. In April 1955, he gave a well received speech to a crowd of about ten thousand in Mound Bayou, Mississippi at the annual conference of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), probably the largest civil rights group in the state. His host was the RCNL's leader, Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a wealthy black surgeon and entrepreneur.

Diggs was Howard's guest again in September 1955 to attend the trial of the accused killers of Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago who was murdered during a trip to the state. The outrage generated by the case gave a tremendous momentum to the emerging civil rights movement. Diggs' decision to attend the trial received high praise from the black press. Although he was a member of Congress, the sheriff did not exempt him from Jim Crow treatment. Diggs had to sit at a small table along with black reporters.

He was first chairman of Congressional Black Caucus (1969–71), which landed him on the Master list of Nixon political opponents.

Diggs resigned from Congress June 3, 1980, after earlier conviction for mail fraud and salary kickback.

Diggs was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.

[edit] References

• Charles Coles Diggs, Jr. via biographical directory of the United States Congress
• David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, T.R.M. Howard: Pragmatism over Strict Integrationist Ideology in the Mississippi Delta, 1942-1954 in Glenn Feldman, ed., Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South (2004 book), 68-95.
• David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito. T.R.M. Howard M.D.: A Mississippi Doctor in Chicago Civil Rights, A.M.E. Church Review (July-September 2001), 50-59.