House of Diggs

In 1955 a young congressman from Detroit sat in a Mississippi courtroom, the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till's killers. Charles C. Diggs Jr., Michigan's first Black member of Congress, went on to found the Congressional Black Caucus, work quietly alongside Martin Luther King Jr., shape the law that restored home rule to Washington, DC, and spark the American anti-apartheid movement.

Drawing on Diggs's rarely seen personal papers, FBI files and interviews with family and associates, political scientist Marion Orr argues that his strategic moderation achieved more than the militancy of Adam Clayton Powell or the machine politics of William Dawson. It is the first biography of Diggs, and it does not look away from the downfall that pushed his record out of sight. A rich, overdue portrait for anyone curious how civil rights were won inside the corridors of Congress.