Augustus Hawkins

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Augustus F. Hawkins
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Augustus Hawkins
U.S. House of Representatives
from California
In office
January 3, 1963 – January 3, 1991
Preceded byEdgar W. Hiestand (redistricted)
Succeeded byMaxine Waters
Constituency21st district (1963–1975)
29th district (1975–1991)
Member of the California State Assembly
from the 62nd district
In office
January 7, 1935 – January 3, 1963
Preceded byFrederick Madison Roberts
Succeeded byTom Waite
Personal details
Born
Augustus Freeman Hawkins

(1907-08-31)August 31, 1907
Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedNovember 10, 2007(2007-11-10) (aged 100)
Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Pegga Smith (1945–1966)
Elsie Hawkins (1977–2007)
EducationUniversity of California, Los Angeles (BA)
Augustus Hawkins's voice
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 the

Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. He was known as the "silent warrior" for his commitment to education and ending unemployment.[1]

Early and personal life

Hawkins was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the youngest of five children, to Nyanza Hawkins and Hattie Freeman. In 1918, the family moved to Los Angeles.[2][3] Hawkins graduated from Jefferson High School in 1926, and received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1931.[4] After graduation, he planned to study civil engineering, but the financial constraints of the Great 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 the California 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]

An African 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 to pass as white.[7][2]

Political career

State Assembly

Hawkins in the Assembly

Augustus Hawkins succeeded Republican Frederick Madison Roberts who served in the California Assembly for16 years. 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."[8] Aside from Hawkins, "Los Angeles blacks had no other political representative in city, county, state, or federal government."[8]

Hawkins was part of a more general shift by African Americans away from the Republican and towards the Democratic Party.

1934 California gubernatorial election of Upton Sinclair, a socialist. Although Sinclair lost, Hawkins defeated Republican Frederick Madison Roberts, the great-grandson of Sally Hemings and President Thomas 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.

Hawkins's district was primarily Latino American and African American. During his time in the Assembly, he introduced legislation including "a fair 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.[9] 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 also a delegate to the National Conventions of 1940, 1944 and 1960, as well as an electoral college presidential elector from California in 1944. In 1958, Hawkins sought to be Speaker of the California State Assembly, which was the second-most powerful position in the state, after the Governor of California. Hawkins lost to Ralph 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 that Willie Brown would achieve in 1980. In 1962, Hawkins won a newly created majority-black congressional district encompassing central Los Angeles[12] With an endorsement from John 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]

U.S. Congress

Hawkins with President John F. Kennedy in 1962

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 the Mississippi River.[5]

Hawkins was a strong supporter of President

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hawkins was a strong supporter of civil rights, and he toured the South in 1964 to advocate for African-American voter registration.[14]

Five days after the

assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

On the

Con 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]

Portrait of Hawkins in the Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Hawkins was a founding member of the

white 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 1974

House Education and Labor Committee
in 1984.

Hawkins was frustrated from the relative lack of success that he achieved during the 1980s' presidencies of

Kennedy Civil Rights Act. It would have reversed six Supreme 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, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, after Hawkins's retirement.[5]

Later life

Hawkins retired in 1991 to his Los Angeles home, never having lost an election in 58 years as an elected official. He lived in Washington, D.C., for the remainder of his life. Until his 2007 death at the

Arthur Glenn Andrews
(1909–2008) as the oldest living former House member.

Legacy

The

Augustus 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.

See also

References

  1. ^ William L. Clay, Just Permanent Interests: Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1991 (New York: Amistad Press, Inc, 1992): 94.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Claudia Luther and Valerie J. Nelson (November 13, 2007). "A pioneer for black lawmakers in L.A." Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  3. ^ Sides, Josh (2003). L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 15.
  4. ^ Shirley Washington, Outstanding African Americans of Congress (Washington, DC: United States Capitol Historical Society, 1998): 39.
  5. ^
    Office of the Clerk. "Augustus Freeman (Gus) Hawkins". Black Americans in Congress. United States House of Representatives. Archived from the original
    on August 4, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  6. ^ Washington, Outstanding African Americans of Congress, 39–40; “Hawkins, Augustus,” Current Biography, 1983: 176–179.
  7. ^ a b May, Lee (September 28, 1989). "Mistaken Identities: And in America, Light-Skinned Blacks Are Acutely Aware That Race Still Matters to Many People". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 5, 2021. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  8. ^ a b Sides, Josh (2003). L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 154.
  9. ^ a b Sides, Josh (2003). L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 33.
  10. ^ Sides, Josh (2003). L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p. 107.
  11. ^ “Still Seeks Assembly Post, Hawkins Says,” November 14, 1958, Los Angeles Times: 6
  12. ^ Gladwin Hill, “16 Men Battling in California for Eight New Seats in House,” October 20, 1962, New York Times: 10
  13. ^ “Negro, Congress-Bound, Loath to Leave State,” November 8, 1962, Los Angeles Times: 16.
  14. ^ Drew Pearson, “Negro Congressman Tours South,” August 5, 1964, Los Angeles Times: A6.
  15. ^ Peter Bart, “Officials Divided in Placing Blame,” August 15, 1965, New York Times: 81.
  16. ^ Augustus Hawkins, Oral History Interview: 18.
  17. ^ Gloria Emerson, “Americans Find Brutality in South Vietnamese Jail,” July 7, 1970, New York Times: 3; George C. Wilson, “S. Viet Prison Found 'Shocking',” July 7, 1970, Washington Post: A1.
  18. ^ Felix Belair, Jr., “House Panel Urges U.S. to Investigate 'Tiger Cage' Cells,” July 14, 1970, New York Times: 1.
  19. ^ “Augustus F. Hawkins,” Politics in America, 1989 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1988): 181.
  20. ^ John Dreyfuss, “Waiting Pays Off,” April 19, 1973, Los Angeles Times: A3.
  21. ^ Augustus Hawkins, Oral History Interview: 20; “Hawkins, Augustus,” Current Biography, 1983: 177.
  22. ^ Jacqueline Trescott, “Caucus Critiques,” September 27, 1980, Washington Post: D1.
  23. ^ Congressional Record, House, 95th Cong., second sess. (18 July 1978): 21435.
  24. ^ Washington, Outstanding African Americans of Congress: 42–43.
  25. ^ Jacqueline Trescott, “The Long Haul of Rep. Gus Hawkins; At 83, the Steady Champion of Civil Rights Is Retiring From a Battle That Won't End,” October 24, 1990, Washington Post: D1
  26. ^ Edward Walsh, “Humphrey–Hawkins Measure Is Signed by the President,” October 28, 1978, Washington Post: A9
  27. ^ “President Signs Symbolic Humphrey–Hawkins Bill,” October 28, 1978, Los Angeles Times: 17.
  28. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  29. ^ "Proposition O Call for Projects, City of Los Angeles – Proposition O Citizens Oversight Advisory Committee, p. 3, 2005" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 26, 2011.
  30. ^ "Lamountains". Lamountains. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013.
  31. ^ "Augustus F. Hawkins Center of Excellence (Hawkins) Program". www2.ed.gov. August 3, 2022. Retrieved March 14, 2023.

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Augustus F. Hawkins
California Assembly
Preceded by Member of the California Assembly
from the 62nd district
1935–1963 		Succeeded by
Tom Waite
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from California's 21st congressional district

1963–1975 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from California's 29th congressional district

1975–1991 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chair of House Administration Committee
1981–1984 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chair of
House Education Committee

1984–1991 		Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Preceded by Oldest living United States representative
(Sitting or former)
2003–2007 		Succeeded by
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