Today, we dive into the life and legacy of Charles C. Diggs, Jr., a groundbreaking figure in American politics whose story has often been overlooked. Our guest, Professor Marion Orr, unveils the extraordinary contributions of Diggs, who was instrumental in shaping civil rights legislation and advocating for African relations during the tumultuous 20th century. As Michigan's first black congressman, Diggs was a tireless advocate for black Americans, standing courageously at the forefront of pivotal moments in history, such as the Emmett Till trial and the Montgomery bus boycott. We explore not only his remarkable achievements but also the challenges he faced, including his eventual fall from grace due to scandal, which raises important questions about the pressures on black political leaders. Join us as we reflect on Diggs's enduring impact and the lessons his legacy holds for today’s political landscape.

Takeaways:

• The podcast highlights the life and political contributions of Charles C. Diggs, Jr., emphasizing his role in shaping civil rights legislation and African American political power.
• Professor Marion Orr discusses his journey of writing a biography on Diggs, revealing how he uncovered the Congress member's significant yet often overlooked impact on American politics.
• Diggs was a pioneering figure in the Congressional Black Caucus, advocating for unity among black members of Congress during a tumultuous era in U.S. history.
• The episode emphasizes the importance of persistence and courage in political leadership, drawing lessons from Diggs's life that resonate with current challenges in American society.
• Listeners learn about Diggs's courageous actions during the civil rights movement, including his presence at the trial of Emmett Till's murderers and his support for Martin Luther King Jr.
• The conversation reflects on the pressures faced by black political leaders like Diggs, showcasing how their legacies can be overshadowed by scandals or the prominence of their contemporaries.

Links referenced in this episode:

• marionor.com
• uncpress
• amazon.com

Welcome to Becoming Bridge Builders, the podcast where we explore the stories, ideas and leaders who work to bring people together in meaningful and transformative ways.

I am your host, Reverend Dr. Keith Haney.

Each week we sit down with thinkers, builders and change makers who challenge divisions and inspire connection.

Today, I'm honored to welcome an extraordinary guest, Professor Marion Orr, inaugural Frederick Lippitt professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Brown University.

His scholarship has shaped the way we understand urban politics, race and ethical politics, and African American political history.

He is the author, editor of eight books.

And today we focus on his newest and perhaps most consequential work, the House of Diggs.

The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs, Jr.

This groundbreaking biography chronicles the life of Michigan's first black member of the House U.S. house of Representatives, a man whose influence helped shape civil rights legislation, US African relations, and the trajectory of black political power in the 20th century.

Professor Orr, welcome to the podcast.

Okay, well, thank you for inviting me.

I'm really excited about talking to you about my new book.

Thank you.

I'm so glad to have you on.

This should be a fun conversation.

I love history and especially stuff like that I didn't know about.

So I'm really looking forward to digging into Charles Diggs his life and kind of highlighting that for all of us to really kind of dig into and learn more about.

But I'm going to ask you my favorite question.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Well, wow, that's an interesting question.

And off the top of my head and given limited time, I would say, I would say likely my mom and dad, especially my mom, emphasizing get your education, go to school.

That's something I heard growing up in a household where my mom and dad did not go to college, did not, you know, my dad didn't call, did not graduate from high school.

And so that's what I would say, the encouragement for me to continue my education.

I love that.

That's great.

So let's get into the story behind your work.

You devoted your life to and your first inspired you passion of political science.

What got you into the love of political, black political leadership?

Well, it really goes back to my undergrad days, Reverend Haney.

I did my undergraduate work in political science at Savannah State College.

That's my in my hometown of Savannah, Georgia.

I was born and raised in in Savannah and I commuted and went to school during the day and worked at night and got through college, took Me, five years to do it.

And it was at Savannah State where I learned about political science.

I'd already had an interest in history and civics and government in high school.

And going to Savannah State, I met a professor of political science.

His name was Haynes Walton.

Haynes Walton Jr. Haynes, like the T shirt maker, Haynes Walton.

Professor Walton was perhaps one of his.

One of the best political scientists of his generation.

And he moved on from Savannah State to become a full professor in political science at the University of Michigan.

And that's a major academic move to move from a small HBCU to one of the top universities and departments in the country.

Anyway, Reverend Haney, I learned about Charles Diggs in Professor Walton's class courses at Savannah State when Professor Walton taught courses in political science, and he taught many of the courses there.

Congressman Diggs came up quite often.

And so as an undergrad, I learned about his contributions.

I went on to get my PhD in political science, and I learned still more about Congressman Diggs.

I also learned that there was no scholarly biography of Congressman Diggs.

I learned this in graduate school.

And so about 11 years ago, I decided to write what is the first biography of.

Of a remarkable American leader.

We always have our.

Our black history heroes and everything, and they're pretty much the same five or six black history heroes, and he's not one of them.

I'm just curious.

Tell us how much.

Tell us about Congressman Diggs.

Who was he?

What made him the most consequential figure?

We don't talk about.

Yeah, well, Diggs was a Congress member from Detroit.

He was a black Democrat.

He was born and raised in Detroit.

Charles Diggs was their only child.

The parents built a very prosperous funeral home.

The funeral home was called the House of Diggs Funeral Home, hence the title of my.

Of my book.

It was a very prosperous funeral home in Detroit.

In fact, it dominated.

It dominated the black funeral market there for about 30, 40 years.

If you were black and you died in Detroit, you were likely to be buried by the House of Diggs, Congressman Diggs and his.

And his parents would be the person who buried you.

His father, Charles Diggs senior, will parlay the success of the funeral home into electoral politics and win office in the state senate.

And his son would soon follow him.

He's only one of three Congress members, Black Congress members at the time.

And so he's consequential because he goes there and he works, works very hard in trying to address civil rights and issues related to Africa.

He was a phenomenal leader.

And what I learned in my research is all of these wonderful things that he accomplished that many people don't attribute to him because they don't know about this guy.

So I looked him up and I ran across the fact that he was.

They say he was one of the founders of the Black Caucus, but I think you argue that he probably was not.

Not one of the founders, but he was the founder.

You want to tell us more about.

About that?

Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that question, Reverend.

Reverend Haney, because oftentimes when you read our history books or reading political science and people write about the Congressional Black Caucus, they make reference to 13 founding members.

And that's often how it's left.

And Diggs is included in that 13.

However, my research made clear that you have to distinguish Diggs from the other 12 members.

Diggs had this sense that it was important for black members of Congress.

Let me just add, when he arrived, there were only two other there were three with Diggs.

And so Diggs always believed that the black members of Congress should work together in solidarity.

At the time, I believe there were seven black members in a group that Diggs called the Democratic Select Committee, the dsl.

And they would meet informally and talk about issues that confronted the black community.

And they selected Diggs to be the first chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Today, Reverend Haney, the Congressional Black Caucus is perhaps the most powerful caucus in Congress, representing some 62 black members in the House and Senate.

No, I'm glad you pulled that out, because I think we sometimes history doesn't always give us the depth of what really happened.

We kind of, like I say, we've got to gloss over some of the.

The realities of history.

You know, he was also very consequential in the civil rights legislation back in the 50s and 60s.

What role did he play in that monumental piece of legislation?

Well, when Diggs got in, came to Congress in 19.

And what I learned is that Diggs almost immediately decided that he.

Although elected from Detroit, representing the 13th district of Michigan, Diggs decided early on that he planned to also be a Congress member for all of black America.

So that's how he came into Congress with this notion that he wanted to do all he could to represent black Americans.

Diggs was the only federal official to attend the trial of those two white men who were acquitted, but who later admitted to having killed and lynched Emmett Till.

And so Diggs going down to the trial of those two white men who had murdered Emmett Till.

Emmett Till, by the way, was from Chicago.

He wasn't from Detroit.

Okay.

Diggs was sending a single signal, rather to America that he planned to represent all of black America.

And so early on in his career, Dr. Haney, he would go to.

Diggs would go to many of the hotspots, the civil rights hotspots of the time.

He would go down to Mississippi for this trial I just mentioned.

But soon afterwards, he would head down to a place called Montgomery, Alabama, where a young preacher was leading a bus boycott in that town in Alabama.

See, Diggs was the host of this program every Sunday that was sponsored by the House of Diggs Funeral Home.

And he would talk about black history and talk about current affairs.

And he used the radio program and he raised $10,000.

Diggs also.

Diggs also was there at the trial of Dr. King and the nearly 100 other black people who were being charged for leading the boycott.

This began a friendship that I sketch out in the book.

So Diggs was a phenomenal civil rights leader.

He was on the ground in Montgomery.

He was on the Ground in Mississippi.

He was on the ground in Selma.

He was a phenomenal civil rights leader.

Combine that with his legislative work, it's really hard to say that he was not among the most consequential black leaders we ever had in this country.

Wow.

He also chaired the House Subcommittee on Africa, a role that kind of gets overlooked, but his leadership helped shape U.S. policy about African liberation movements.

Tell us about that role as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Dr. Haney, this is the fascinating part of the Diggs legacy and the Diggs story.

He was a part of the official US Delegation that was invited to witness the independent ceremony of the new African state of Ghana.

Ghana, as you know, will become the first sub Saharan African nation to gain its independence.

And Diggs went to this independent ceremony, Dr. Haney, and it changed his life.

It changed his policy position on Capitol Hill.

That young Congress member came back from Africa and he immediately, immediately asked the democratic leaders in the House to change his committee assignments so that he can become a member of the House Foreign affairs committee.

Diggs, moreover, Dr. Haney will become the first American legislator to take a real interest in Africa and US Africa policy.

It would be Diggs, Reverend Haney, who really would lead the American anti apartheid movement.

That gave Diggs oversight authority over US Policy in Africa.

And Diggs would use his chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Africa to awaken America to the system of apartheid that was in place in South Africa.

And Diggs would use that subcommittee to galvanize America to help bring down the apartheid regime.

It was perhaps Diggs most challenging policy issue and perhaps his most significant accomplishment.

It was challenging because Diggs was pushing against the grain of U.S. foreign policy.

Our country, Reverend Haney, was closely allied to that racist regime in South Africa.

We were closely allied to the apartheid regime because South Africa was large, was strongly anti communist, and we were in a cold war.

And so democratic presidents and Republican presidents pushed our country to be allied with South Africa to fight against communism.

So Diggs was trying to break the bond between our country and South Africa was while President Johnson, President Nixon and others were trying to keep the bond together.

He was known.

Congressman Diggs became known as Mr. Africa because of his policy interests, his knowledge if you wanted to know anything about Africa in the 60s and 70s, you came to Congressman Diggs.

Yes, he led.

He.

The.

The.

Listen, Reverend Haney.

The.

The.

The American anti apartheid movement literally started in Congressman Diggs congressional office.

Wow.

Impressive.

It is.

So we got to get into the subtitle of your book as well.

The rise and Fall of.

Of Charles Dix.

His career ended in scandal.

How should we understand that fall in the context of his larger legacy?

I think we have to look at it and take it in the context of the whole.

The whole person.

I spend a great deal of time outlining what happened to Congressman Diggs.

And let me just tell you and your audience quickly what happened to him.

Diggs would be.

Diggs was indicted and subsequently convicted on 29 counts of congressional payroll violations.

And he would eventually be censored by the Congress and will spend seven months in a federal prison.

He was convicted by the way, by a jury of 11 blacks and one white.

It was a.

It was a unanimous decision.

The evidence was just so overwhelming that he violated congressional payroll rules.

Let me just also say this.

I learned from the FBI files on Congressman Diggs.

I learned how the Justice Department discovered that Diggs had been involved in this payroll violation.

What he did was Diggs was having financial problems.

This is not an excuse.

I'm just explaining what happened.

He was having financial problems.

He gave his secretary a significant salary increase.

And the salary increase came back to Diggs to pay his bills.

It's called a kickback scheme.

Okay.

Diggs hired Randall Robinson to be his chief of staff.

Randall Robinson will later become the leading anti apartheid organizer in the country.

Many of your listeners and viewers may know the name.

Black lawyer trained at Harvard who Diggs hired, by the way, to form what became known as Trans Africa.

Trans Africa, which became the leading anti apartheid organization in the country was Diggs vision.

I laid this out in the book.

That black Americans should form a lobby organization to influence U.S. policy in Africa.

The same way Jews organize for our government to support Israel.

And he had this vision of an organization.

And that organization became Trans Africa.

Diggs hired Randall Robinson to come into his office as chief of staff.

But really he hired Robinson to build what they would come Trans Africa.

Learned Dr. Haney in the FBI files that it was Randall Robinson, this anti apartheid organizer, a Diggs protege who was the person who called the FBI or rather the Justice Department and told them about Diggs payroll violation.

No one to this day knew how Big's downfall happened.

And what we now know, and my book lay this out, is because Randall Robinson discovered the violation.

And he anonymously called the Justice Department and told what Diggs was doing.

And as I said, Diggs would resign.

He would be censored from Congress, by Congress.

He would resign from Congress, and he would spend seven months in a federal prison in Montgomery, outside of Montgomery, Alabama.

Wow, that's unfortunate.

Your research reveals, I think, a lot about the pressures and expectations placed on black political pioneers in.

Tell us a little bit about what you discovered about kind of the cloud that they had to kind of operate under.

Yeah, well, you know, these are pioneering, as you said, black leaders.

Diggs, as I said, is only.

There's.

He was only the fifth.

The fifth black congressmember since Reconstruction.

And there was a lot of spotlight on.

On.

On.

On him, if you will.

And one of the things that, you know, Diggs was doing at the time, Dr. Haney was really pushing largely around civil rights issue.

In fact, you look at his FBI file, as I did, you discover that he received lots of death threats because of his advocacy for black Americans and for.

And for civil rights.

And so he was, in fact, a courageous, courageous black leader.

Let me just emphasize this again.

Because let me just say this.

It did not matter to white people in Mississippi that Diggs was a congressmember.

They would have lynched him and hung him up just like anybody else.

And Diggs wrote about his experience.

He was down there for five days at that trial in Mississippi, okay?

He wrote in a.

In.

In a series of.

Of essays in the Pittsburgh Courier about his.

His experience there.

And what's very clear, Dr. Haney, is this.

From reading the essays, Diggs was afraid.

He described it as five harrowing, frightening days.

But he went down there anyway, and he stayed down there.

And he stood by Emmett Till's mother, and he stood by the black witnesses who came forward.

Many of the black witnesses later on reported that they came forward and was able to testify because of the presence of the black Congress member in the courtroom.

What Diggs did in Mississippi was courageous because he knew that his life could be taken away.

But he went anyway.

And listen, he didn't have to do that.

He was a Congress member from Detroit, right.

Literally, he didn't have to, he didn't have to go down there.

But he really wanted to support the black men and women in Mississippi who were, who were under siege by white terrorism and white supremacists.

And he wanted to stand by the black witnesses.

It was a courageous thing to do.

It was a dangerous thing to do.

And around 2am A Mothercock cocktail, a bomb was thrown through the window in the home that Diggs was staying at.

The house caught a fire.

Wow.

And Diggs later reported to newspapers that it was frightening to be awakened in the middle of the night with a bomb coming into the home.

It was.

He was a courageous American leader who accomplished a lot.

And, and, and, and, and he, and he displayed this throughout his career.

He took, he took strong, firm positions on matters that confronted black America and black people, quite frankly, around the world.

That's why I'm so glad I got this book out, man, because this brother was really a remarkable American leader who's been overlooked.

Let me get this out real quickly.

Overlooked in part because of the downfall we just talked about, and overlooked because he was in many cases overshadowed by Adam Clayton Powell, who was the congressman from Harlem that many people remember during this, during this era.

Biggs was a quiet, unassuming, hard working, serious legislator.

Adam Clayton Powell, on the other hand, was flamboyant publicity seeker.

And if you were a reporter during this time, you know, you probably get more juice out of Adam Clayton Powell than you would from a quiet, unassuming, hard working Charles Diggs.

Wow, that's interesting.

I'm curious, as you reflect on Diggs's story, what does it teach us about black political power and representation today?

Well, what it really suggests today is that persistence really matter.

He was pushing against the grain, but he was persistent.

He seemingly never, ever gave up in terms of trying to galvanize the Congress, trying to connect with people in the community.

That's why he thought Trans Africa was so important.

Diggs understood that he couldn't do it alone in the Congress, that you had to have external pressure from people pushing Congress, pushing the President to change policy as it relates to south, to south, South Africa.

So Diggs, what we can Learn from Diggs is how important persistence is.

We're facing some serious challenges as we speak today.

But what it requires is not leaders who want to give up and turn away, but who's going to persist and, and push and try to use all the leverages possible to move the agenda, the agenda forward.

So persistence, persistence really, really matter.

And then let me just add, I have to say again, Diggs, life and leadership in Congress demonstrates what courage really is all about.

We need courageous leaders today who don't.

Who don't have any problem pushing against the grain of leadership, who's not concerned about whether or not they're going to get a PAC contribution, that they stand up for the issue or not.

Who's not concerned about whether or not they're going to get a primary election, that they stand up for what's right.

We need.

We need courageous, courageous leaders who are willing to stand up and dig's life as a political leader demonstrate what persistence and what courage is all about.

So I'm gonna ask you a couple of lightning round questions kind of as we wrap things up.

What is one figure that you think is also underrated, kind of like Diggs, that you'd like to write about next?

Well, I. I happen to think that someone like Marion Barry, the mayor of Washington D.C. deserves a very serious biography that's not won out on him yet.

There are some interesting early black leaders that have been overlooked for.

For example, in the Reconstruction era, there's a wonderful man named John Roy Lynch.

John Roy lynch was a Congress member from Mississippi, a black Reconstruction Congress member.

And at the time he was doing Reconstruction, during the era that he was there, he was a very prominent, very important black American leader.

And very few people know about John Roy Lynch.

He was from Mississippi.

There's a children's book out on him, which is a good signal that somebody recognized him as being important there.

Listen, Reverend Haney, there are so many.

I kid you not.

This is what I learned from Dr. Walton when I was at Savannah State.

There's so much in our political and historical life of black America that's understudied.

There's just so much out there to.

To.

To be, to be, to be done.

And so you're right.

Early on you mentioned that often we've got four or five black leaders that people talk about, right?

There's so many, so many that overlook whose contributions need to be.

Need to be lifted up.

I just named just a few of them.

Julian Bond, you know, the black civil rights leader.

I learned that there's no serious biography on Julian.

Julian Bond, who played a big and important role not only in Georgia, but indeed nationally.

Let me just say I love political biography and I'll likely write another one.

This is my first one.

Political scientists are not trained to do biographies, but there's so much we can learn from political biographies that they're done correctly.

For example, my biography of Diggs, you know, really takes us from the civil rights movement with Emmett Till, Dr. King and the boycott, all the way to the election of Jimmy Carter and the various things that, you know, changed during that period of time.

So if done correctly, there's so much we can learn about our nation's history when we zero in on some of our major political figures.

I love it.

I'm going to ask you my other favorite question.

What do you want your legacy to be?

Well, I consider myself to be a teacher and professor, so I really want my legacy to be aligned with having impacted the thousands of young people.

I've taught at Duke first and now at Brown University.

I enjoy so much working with the young people here, Reverend Haney at Brown and previously at Duke.

So I'm really trying to give young people a good sense of political science, a good sense of black politics.

And then the other legacy is really the work that I've tried to leave in my research and writing.

I've been long interested in black Americans and our politics, and I've tried over the years to, through my research and writing to analyze issues that I think are important to.

To American political science, but especially to black Americans.

Great.

Where can listeners find you and connect with you on social media and buy your book, House of Digs?

Well, listen, you can.

You can connect with me with marionor.com and website there.

You can go to the University of North Carolina Press to purchase the book.

That's the publisher.

The book is available on Amazon.com and in some local, local bookstores.

But check out my website, marionor.com and you could find the book online almost anywhere.

Unc press and Amazon.com the book is available.

Let me get that.

I'm getting really, really good feedback from the book.

Dr. Haney.

I'm just so excited.

The book was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, and when people read the book, they describe it as accessible and readable.

I wrote this book for anybody interested in American politics, American history, the civil rights movement and political biography.

And it's accessible.

And the feedback I'm getting has just been very, very good and I'm very happy about it.

Dr. Orr.

That's right.

Dr. Orr, thanks for joining us for this incredible work that you've done bringing the life of Charles C. Diggs Jr. To the forefront of American political memory for our listeners.

If you can find the House of Digs wherever you wherever books are sold, it's a powerful, nuanced, and essential read for those who want to learn more about his life and his legacy.

If today's conversation inspired you, share this episode, leave a review and join us next for a time as we continue to explore the stories that bring us all together.

Until next time, stay encouraged, stay hopeful, and keep building bridges.

Thank you so much, Dr. Orr.

Okay, man, thank you.