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Sunday July 6th 2008 |
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Sunday July 6th 2008 |
a non-profit education organization | |
August 31
His father was from England and was a pharmacist following several African Expeditions. Augustus Freeman “Gus” Hawkins attended high school in Los Angeles and received his undergraduate degree from UCLA in 1931. He began a twenty-eight year career as a member of the California assembly in 1935, introducing a fair housing act, a fair employment practices act, low-cost housing and disability insurance legislation, and workmen’s compensation provisions for domestic workers. Hawkins’ election to Congress in 1962 made him the first black representative from any western state. He sat on the Committee on Education and Labor and continued to sponsor legislation designed to create jobs and insure civil rights. One of his most notable accomplishments in his early years in the House was the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was perhaps best known for authoring the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978, also known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. Gus Hawkins also succeeded in restoring an honorable discharge for the 167 black Twenty-fifth Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army after being falsely accused of public disturbance in Brownsville, Texas in 1906. Augustus Hawkins died on November 10, 2007 in Maryland. Reference: Black Americans In Congress 1870-1989. Bruce A. Ragsdale & Joel D. Treese U.S. Government Printing Office Raymond W. Smock, historian and director 1990 E185.96.R25
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The African American Registry®, The African American Registry® Copyright 2005, 2006
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