Congressman John Conyers to Receive 92nd Spingarn Award

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2007 by Howell, Arnesa A

Leaning forward in his office chair. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), in his easygoing manner, speaks of ages. Not his own, mind you, but of the times and the people folded into those moments who have influenced this congressman from Detroit to become a champion of causes - from civil rights to universal health care - for African Americans across the nation.

"All of his struggle and philosophy - I'm so honored that I would be getting an award that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got earlier because he's someone I've been very proud of," says Conyers, whose dedication to voter and civil rights helped earn him the honor of being the NAACP's 92nd recipient of the Spingarn Medal. It's an accomplishment that comes as no surprise to those who know him.

"He's been a stalwart. He's known across this country for his fighting for justice, testifying before the United States Supreme Court on issues of access, quality, and justice and discrimination," says Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

Conyers has been dubbed the dean of the CBC, the organization he helped found in 1969.

"We're proud of John Conyers. For what he stands for, he stands up. He's fighting now for immigration, for access, and for fairness to all Americans," adds Kilpatrick.

Conyers' dedication to civil and voter rights, education and health reform, and political and economic justice can be traced back to his childhood growing up in Detroit. Born in 1929, Conyers from an early age saw his father, John Conyers Sr., actively fighting for labor rights in the Motor City. The elder Conyers - a self-educated man with a passion for books, including the works of Shakespeare, and the law - took on the battles of the labor movement as a union official and eventually an international representative for the United Auto Workers (UAW).

"My dad influenced me greatly because I was the oldest of four boys and he used to take me to all the union meetings," recalls Conyers, who as a congressman would later take on the struggles of Michigan's working families as a supporter of the UAW. "He always liked the law and protest speaking, and so I kind of came by that pretty easily."

Conyers' mother, Lucille Simpson, in turn would be among his biggest supporters. "She was very determined to help me," he remembers.

So when Conyers decided to run for Congress in 1964, she stood behind his decision. Although armed with a Juris Doctor from Wayne State University in 1958 (where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree a year earlier), Conyers says his critics weren't so confident he could be elected to public office. "They said, 'It's not going to work because you have to go through and work your way up." They said, 'No, an African American can't win because Congressman Charles Diggs was in Congress, so how are there going to be two congressmen from Detroit?' We said it could happen," Conyers explains.

Of the dozen or so candidates who were running for the Democratic nomination, Conyers was the only one who could say he had congressionalexperience. As a senior in high school, he'd worked for the late-Rep. John D. Dingell Sr. (D-Mich.). But he credits support from Black community leaders, as well as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks for his win.

"I'd gotten involved with Dr. King right after law school and had been working with the Civil Rights Movement in the '60s," recalls Conyers, who would later be endorsed by the civil rights leader after a visit to Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. "Boy, diat really zoomed me right [up]."

The momentum continued with the quiet support of civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

"I had met Rosa Parks earlier as a lawyer going South, so she knew me. When she was finally driven out of Alabama - she couldn't get a job in Montgomery - she came to Detroit because her husband had relatives there. Rosa Parks would just come and sit and people were shocked, you know, that I had Rosa Parks," he says. Parks served on his staff from 1965 until her retirement in 1988.

After joining the congressional ranks, Conyers then set out on his mission to bring the issues he was passionate about to the forefront of the legislative agenda. For him, mat meant getting a historic appointment as the first African American to serve on the House Judiciary Committee during a time when civil rights concerns catapulted to the front of the American conscience.

On the heels of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Conyers pushed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "That was my first major bill that I had my first year there," he shares. "I was working with all the civil rights groups and the lawyers, the subcommittees, and the NAACP and the Urban League."

With more man 20 terms in Congress, Conyers continues to tackle issues benefiting the African-American community. A product of Detroit's public school system, Conyers plans to take a "hard look" at a public school system plagued by high dropout rates and a higher education system whose costs are out of reach for many working class families.