Politics / Civil rights & activism / Business & brands
Charles Diggs
1922–1998 · funeral director, state senator, congressman
Detroit funeral director who in 1954 became Michigan's first Black member of Congress, attended the Emmett Till murder trial and was the founding chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Washington, D.C.
aged 75- Birth name
- Charles Coles Diggs Jr.
- Also known as
- Charles C. Diggs Jr.
- Detroit years
- 1922–1980
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Charles Diggs Jr. was born in Detroit in 1922, the only child of Charles Diggs Sr., a state senator and owner of the House of Diggs, once said to be Michigan's largest funeral home. After studies at the University of Michigan and Fisk and Army service in World War II, he joined the family business, attended the Detroit College of Law and in 1951 took his father's old seat in the Michigan Senate. In 1954 he unseated Congressman George O'Brien in the Democratic primary for a Detroit district, becoming the first African American elected to Congress from Michigan. In 1955 he was the only member of Congress to attend the Mississippi trial of Emmett Till's killers, and he escorted witness Willie Reed to safety in Detroit. He was the first chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 and a leading congressional critic of apartheid. Convicted of mail fraud over staff payroll, he resigned in 1980. He is buried at Detroit Memorial Park in Warren.
Highlights
- First African American elected to Congress from Michigan (1954)
- U.S. representative for Detroit, 1955–1980
- Founding chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (1971)
- Only congressman to attend the 1955 Emmett Till murder trial
- Michigan state senator, 1951–1954
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Buried here · 1998
Detroit Memorial Park East
Black-owned cemetery founded in the 1920s by Detroit's African American business leaders; his grave is here.