today in black history

March 28, 2024

Poet Countee Cullen wins Phi Beta Kappa honors at New York University on this date in 1925.

Rep. John Conyers Jr.

POSTED: September 07, 2008, 7:27 am

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Hon. John Conyers Jr.
Michigan, 14th District
U.S. House of Representatives
2426 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Ph: 202-225-5126
Fx: 202-225-0072
www.house.gov/conyers

2615 W. Jefferson Street
Trenton, MI 48183
Ph: 734-675-4084
Fx: 734-675-4218





669 Federal Building
231 W. Lafayette Street
Detroit, MI 48226
Ph: 313-961-5670
Fx: 313-226-5670

Chief of Staff

Cynthia Martin
cynthia.martin@mail.house.gov
   



Representative John Conyers, Jr., a Detroit Democrat, was re-elected to the 14th Congressional District in November 2006, to his 21 term in the U.S. House of Representatives.





















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The district covers all of Highland Park and Hamtramck, as well as large portions of Detroit and Dearborn. Due to the Congressional redistricting of 2000 Representative Conyers also now represents the Down River communities of Melvindale, Allen Park, Southgate, Riverview, Trenton,Gibraltar, and Grosse Ile.

Having entered the House of Representatives in 1964, Mr. Conyers is the second most senior member in the House of Representatives. After serving as Chairman of the House Committee on Government Operations (now renamed Government Reform) from 1989 until 1994, Congressman Conyers was elected by his congressional colleagues to lead, as Chairman, the pivotal House Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to its oversight of the Department of Justice (including the FBI) and the Federal Courts, the Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over copyright, constitutional, consumer protection, and civil rights issues. Congressman Conyers was also a member of the Judiciary Committee in its 1974 hearings on the Watergate impeachment scandal and played a prominent role in the recent impeachment process, giving him the distinction as the only Judiciary Committee Member to have served on both panels.

Congressman Conyers is also one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and is considered the Dean of that group. Formed in 1969, the CBC was founded to strengthen African-American law makers ability to address the legislative concerns of Black and minority citizens.

In Mr. Conyers' 40 plus years in Congress, some of his major accomplishments include: the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, the Motor Voter Bill of 1993, the Martin Luther King Holiday Act of 1983, the Alcohol Warning Label Act of 1988, the Jazz Preservation Act of 1987, and was the driving force behind the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Born (1929) and raised in Detroit, Rep. Conyers was educated in city's public school system. After serving in the National Guard and the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the Korean War, he returned to Michigan where the earned both his Bachelor of Arts (1957) and Juris Doctor (1958) degrees at Wayne State University.

He is the recipient of many awards for leadership, including a Southern Christian Leadership Conference Award, which was presented to him by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He has also been awarded a number of honorary degrees from colleges and universities throughout the nation. He is married to the former Monica Esters. Mr. and Mrs. Conyers have two sons, John III and Carl Edward.

Source: U.S. House of Representatives

The 14th Congressional District covers almost half of the city of Detroit, including the areas where auto plants once stood, and the suburbs of Highland Park and Dearborn; the latter now boasting the nation’s largest Arab-American population in the nation. The district is 61 percent Black and 32.1 percent white, with a poverty rate of 19.7 percent and median income of $36,000.

 

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