George W. Crockett
Encyclopedia
George William Crockett Jr. (August 10, 1909 – September 7, 1997) was an African American
attorney, jurist, and congressman from the U.S. state
of Michigan
. He also served as a national vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild
and co-founded what is believed to be the first racially-integrated law firm in the United States. He was associated with the history of the infamous murder of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
to George William Crockett, Sr. (1883–1975) and Minnie Amelia Jenkins (1884–1983), who had two other children: Alzeda Crockett and John Frazier Crockett. George Sr. pastored the Harmony Baptist Church in Jacksonville for more than 30 years and mastered the carpentry trade. George Sr. became a railroad carpenter for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
. His son, George Jr., would later build room additions and continue practicing carpentry for pleasure in adulthood. Minnie, a gentle woman, Sunday School teacher and poet, said in a November 23, 1969 Times-Union Journal (Jacksonville) article, "My philosophy is that children should be ahead of their parents, should climb a step higher and make a contribution to the family and to society." George Jr. took his mother's philosophy to heart.
degree from Morehouse College
, Atlanta, Georgia
, a prestigious, historically-black university that awarded its first degrees in 1897. He was later given an Honorary LL.D. from Morehouse in 1972, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and served as a Trustee of the College for many years. During his Morehouse tenure, Crockett pledged Kappa Alpha Psi
.
Crockett received a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School
in 1934 and returned to Jacksonville to practice law that year as one of very few African American attorneys in the state of Florida.
in 1937, and later served that organization as its national vice-president.
As the first African American lawyer in the U.S. Department of Labor, 1939–1943, Crockett worked as a senior attorney on employment cases brought under the National Labor Relations Act
, a legislative program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal
. Crockett also worked as a hearing officer in the Federal Fair Employment Practices Commission during 1943.
That same year the United Auto Workers
retained Crockett to run the union’s Fair Practices Committee, which tried to oppose so-called “hate strikes” by white workers, who protested the migration North by Black workers.
In 1946, Crockett along with partners Ernest Goodman, Morton Eden, and Dean A. Robb, co-founded the corporation believed to be the first racially-integrated law firm in the U.S., Goodman, Crockett, Eden, and Robb, in Detroit, Michigan. The firm, eventually called Goodman, Eden, Millender and Bedrosian, closed in 1998.
In 1948, Crockett became a member of the legal team that went to New York to defend 11 Communist Party leaders accused of teaching the overthrow of the Federal government, a violation of the Smith Act
. Among the 11 were Communist Party leaders: Gil Green
, Eugene Dennis
, Henry Winston, John Gates
, Gus Hall
, Robert G. Thompson and fellow Morehouse alumnus and first black New York City Councilman Benjamin J. Davis
. In 1949, while defending the Smith Act prosecution, Crockett and four other defense attorneys were sentenced by Judge Harold Medina
to Federal prison for contempt of court. Crockett served four months in an Ashland, Kentucky Federal prison in 1952. A portion of Crockett's jury summation at the trial was published in "Freedom is Everybody's Job!: The Crime of the Government Against the Negro People, Summation in the trial of the 11 Communist leaders."
Crockett’s criticism of McCarthyism
and the House Un-American Activities Committee
grew after that case, and in 1952 he represented future Detroit mayor Coleman Young
and the Rev. Charles A. Hill before the Committee.
As large numbers of young civil rights volunteers traveled to the U.S. South in the spring of 1964, Crockett recruited lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild to follow them. He founded the National Lawyers Guild’s office in Jackson, Mississippi
, and managed the Mississippi Project (a coalition of the NLG and other leading civil rights legal organizations) during the 1964 Freedom Summer
.
The infamous murders of the civil rights workers James Chaney
, Andrew Goodman
, and Michael Schwerner
occurred in June of that year. The three had been arrested by local police while investigating the arson of a Black church near Philadelphia, Mississippi
. Collaborating with local white supremacist vigilantes, the Neshoba County
sheriff released the three men from jail late at night, and other civil rights workers reported their disappearance.
From the NLG office in Jackson, Crockett dispatched Guild lawyers to search for the missing men. The effort was in vain, and, years later, Crockett described his growing despair in the 1995 PBS documentary Mississippi America, narrated by Ossie Davis
and Ruby Dee
.
In the film, Crockett recounts his drive from Jackson
to Meridian
in a personal search for the missing men. He survived an effort of the sheriff to arrange his ambush by loudly offering driving directions, while white supremacists loitered nearby. Crockett returned safely to Jackson. He offered a full report to the Justice Department and the FBI, who refused to take the information. The murdered bodies of the 3 young men, one Black, two white, were found days later.
In 1966, Crockett was elected Judge of Recorder's Court
, Wayne County, Michigan
. The court handled criminal cases. From that bench, Judge Crockett incurred the wrath of the white corporate media and endured death threats for his role in a highly-publicized police shooting, raid, and mass arrest.
On March 29, 1969, following an officer-involved shooting outside New Bethel Baptist Church in which a Detroit police officer died, police officers fired into and stormed the church. A secessionist organization, the Republic of New Afrika
, had rented the church for a meeting. Witnesses in the majority African-American neighborhood later stated that the responding officers had all been white. More than one-hundred fifty persons, including juveniles, were arrested inside the church and taken to police headquarters. The church pastor called Judge Crockett before dawn.
Crockett opened temporary court at police headquarters. In refusing to find probable cause to hold the people from what he termed a “collective punishment” mass arrest
, Judge Crockett released 130 of the arrested persons and questioning. In the controversy that followed, Detroit saw the appearance of bumper stickers that read, “Sock It to Crockett” and "Impeach Judge Crockett". The police association organized a picket line at the courthouse. The black community and interracial civic organizations supported Crockett.
In 1974, Crockett was elected Chief Judge of the Detroit's Recorder's Court. He served there until retiring in 1978.
from Michigan's 13th congressional district
, Crockett was elected in a special election to the 96th Congress
to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Charles C. Diggs, Jr. from the U.S. House of Representatives. Dennis W. Archer ran Crockett's successful election http://archive.lib.msu.edu/MMM/JA/02/a/JA02a014.html campaign].
Crockett was simultaneously elected to a full term in the 97th Congress
and was subsequently re-elected to the next four Congresses, serving from November 4, 1980, to January 3, 1991. Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O'Neill
swore in 71-year old Crockett in the presence of Crockett's wife Dr. Harriette Clark Crockett, son, and 96-year old mother, Mrs. Minnie Crockett. She recited a poem she composed many years earlier titled, Our Children Three.
During his tenure, Crockett was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus
, the Democratic Study Group, the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, and the Congressional Arts Caucus. He also served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Select Committee on Aging
, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. As a member of the Africa Subcommittee, Crocket authored the Mandela Freedom Resolution, HB.430, which called upon the South Africa government to release Nelson Mandela
and his wife Winnie Mandela from imprisonment and banning. The resolution was passed by both houses of Congress in 1984. Later, Crockett continued to denounce apartheid in South Africa
and was jailed with Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young
and others for demonstrating in Washington, DC against apartheid.
Crockett filed suit against the Reagan administration claiming violation of the War Powers Act in providing El Salvador with military aid (Crockett v. Reagan, 720 F.2d 1355 (C.A.D.C., 1983)).
Crockett chaired the Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs from 1987 until his retirement.
On Wednesday, March 28, 1990 Crockett, who was affectionately called "Judge" by his House colleagues, announced on the House Floor: "Mr. Speaker, a few days ago the press carried the story on the death of the Honorable Harold Medina, who was the judge who presided over the famous communist trials in New York back in 1949 and 1950. In the course of that trial, Judge Medina sentenced the five defense lawyers to prison. I'm the only living survivor of those five defense lawyers.
"During the four months that I served in a federal prison, it never occurred to me that one day I would also serve in the United States Congress and be a member of the committee having oversight jurisdiction over all federal judges and all federal prisons.
"Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to inform my colleagues that I have decided to retire from the House at the conclusion of the 101st Congress. After 68 years of working, championing unpopular causes, I'm hoping to enjoy a little time off.... I've been privileged to serve the people of Michigan's 13th District in this body, and it has been a challenge and an honor I will always cherish."
Representative John Conyers
, also from Detroit, described Crockett's announcement by saying "When he finished, all the members stood and clapped." Source: Detroit Free Press, March 29, 1990, p. 15A.
(1935–2003) was a U.S. Navy officer, who became the first Naval Flight Officer to achieve Flag rank.
Following the death of Dr. Ethelene Crockett, George Crockett Jr. married Dr. Harriette Clark Chambliss, a pediatrician in Washington, D.C.
Crockett is buried in Laurel, Delaware in the New Zion United Methodist Church cemetery, with his parents and other generations of Crocketts and within walking distance from Crockett Street, named in honor of the Crockett family.
in 1972.
In 1972, the Cotillion Club of Detroit, co-founded in 1949 by Dr. William Emmett Lawson, presented an award to Crockett, attorney Kenneth Cockrel, and Judge Damon Keith.
In 1986, awarded annual the Kappa Alpha Psi
Laural Wreath Commission for extra meritorious achievement.
In 1998, the George Crockett Academy opened in Detroit. Nearly 400 students attend the K-8 charter school.
The George Crockett Consortium High School, also in Detroit, is open to grades 9–12.
The George W. Crockett, Jr. Community Law School is a public education program sponsored by the NAACP Detroit Branch.
George's wife of 45 years, Ethelene, was also celebrated with a Detroit school in her honor, the Ethelene Jones Crockett Technical High School.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
attorney, jurist, and congressman from the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. He also served as a national vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
and co-founded what is believed to be the first racially-integrated law firm in the United States. He was associated with the history of the infamous murder of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
Early life
George Crockett was born in Jacksonville, FloridaJacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
to George William Crockett, Sr. (1883–1975) and Minnie Amelia Jenkins (1884–1983), who had two other children: Alzeda Crockett and John Frazier Crockett. George Sr. pastored the Harmony Baptist Church in Jacksonville for more than 30 years and mastered the carpentry trade. George Sr. became a railroad carpenter for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was an American railroad that existed between 1900 and 1967, when it merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, its long-time rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad...
. His son, George Jr., would later build room additions and continue practicing carpentry for pleasure in adulthood. Minnie, a gentle woman, Sunday School teacher and poet, said in a November 23, 1969 Times-Union Journal (Jacksonville) article, "My philosophy is that children should be ahead of their parents, should climb a step higher and make a contribution to the family and to society." George Jr. took his mother's philosophy to heart.
Education
Crockett graduated from Stanton High School in Jacksonville. In 1931, he received a Bachelor of ArtsBachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree from Morehouse College
Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....
, Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, a prestigious, historically-black university that awarded its first degrees in 1897. He was later given an Honorary LL.D. from Morehouse in 1972, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and served as a Trustee of the College for many years. During his Morehouse tenure, Crockett pledged Kappa Alpha Psi
Kappa Alpha Psi
Kappa Alpha Psi is a collegiate Greek-letter fraternity with a predominantly African American membership. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never limited membership based on color, creed or national origin...
.
Crockett received a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School
University of Michigan Law School
The University of Michigan Law School is the law school of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Founded in 1859, the school has an enrollment of about 1,200 students, most of whom are seeking Juris Doctor or Master of Laws degrees, although the school also offers a Doctor of Juridical...
in 1934 and returned to Jacksonville to practice law that year as one of very few African American attorneys in the state of Florida.
As a Lawyer
Crockett participated in the founding convention of the nation's first racially integrated bar association, the National Lawyers GuildNational Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
in 1937, and later served that organization as its national vice-president.
As the first African American lawyer in the U.S. Department of Labor, 1939–1943, Crockett worked as a senior attorney on employment cases brought under the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
, a legislative program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
. Crockett also worked as a hearing officer in the Federal Fair Employment Practices Commission during 1943.
That same year the United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
retained Crockett to run the union’s Fair Practices Committee, which tried to oppose so-called “hate strikes” by white workers, who protested the migration North by Black workers.
In 1946, Crockett along with partners Ernest Goodman, Morton Eden, and Dean A. Robb, co-founded the corporation believed to be the first racially-integrated law firm in the U.S., Goodman, Crockett, Eden, and Robb, in Detroit, Michigan. The firm, eventually called Goodman, Eden, Millender and Bedrosian, closed in 1998.
In 1948, Crockett became a member of the legal team that went to New York to defend 11 Communist Party leaders accused of teaching the overthrow of the Federal government, a violation of the Smith Act
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act or Smith Act of 1940 is a United States federal statute that set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S...
. Among the 11 were Communist Party leaders: Gil Green
Gil Green (politician)
Gil Green was a leading figure in the Communist Party of the United States of America until 1991. He is best remembered as the leader of the party's youth section, the Young Communist League, during the tumultuous decade of the 1930s....
, Eugene Dennis
Eugene Dennis
Francis Xavier Waldron , best known by the pseudonym Eugene Dennis was an American communist politician and union organizer, best remembered as the long-time leader of the Communist Party USA and as named party in Dennis v...
, Henry Winston, John Gates
John Gates
John "Johnny" Gates, born Solomon Regenstreif was a prominent American Communist journalist, best remembered as one of the individuals spearheading a failed attempt at liberalization of the Communist Party USA in 1957.-Early years:...
, Gus Hall
Gus Hall
Gus Hall, born Arvo Kustaa Hallberg , was a leader and Chairman of the Communist Party USA and its four-time U.S. presidential candidate. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated with the so-called "Little Steel" Strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel...
, Robert G. Thompson and fellow Morehouse alumnus and first black New York City Councilman Benjamin J. Davis
Benjamin J. Davis
Benjamin J. "Ben" Davis , was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected to the city council of New York City, representing Harlem, in 1943...
. In 1949, while defending the Smith Act prosecution, Crockett and four other defense attorneys were sentenced by Judge Harold Medina
Harold Medina
Harold Raymond Medina, Sr. was an American lawyer, teacher and judge who is most noted for hearing landmark cases of conspiracy and treason.Medina died in 1990 at the age of 102.- Early life :...
to Federal prison for contempt of court. Crockett served four months in an Ashland, Kentucky Federal prison in 1952. A portion of Crockett's jury summation at the trial was published in "Freedom is Everybody's Job!: The Crime of the Government Against the Negro People, Summation in the trial of the 11 Communist leaders."
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
and the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
grew after that case, and in 1952 he represented future Detroit mayor Coleman Young
Coleman Young
Coleman Alexander Young served as mayor of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan from 1974 to 1993. Young became the first African-American mayor of Detroit in the same week that Maynard Jackson became the first African-American mayor of Atlanta.-Pre-Mayoral career:Young was born in Tuscaloosa,...
and the Rev. Charles A. Hill before the Committee.
As large numbers of young civil rights volunteers traveled to the U.S. South in the spring of 1964, Crockett recruited lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild to follow them. He founded the National Lawyers Guild’s office in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, and managed the Mississippi Project (a coalition of the NLG and other leading civil rights legal organizations) during the 1964 Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...
.
The infamous murders of the civil rights workers James Chaney
James Chaney
James Earl "J.E." Chaney , from Meridian, Mississippi, was one of three American civil rights workers who were murdered during Freedom Summer by members of the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia...
, Andrew Goodman
Andrew Goodman
Andrew Goodman was one of three American civil rights activists murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.-Early life and education:...
, and Michael Schwerner
Michael Schwerner
Michael Henry Schwerner , was one of three Congress of Racial Equality field workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by the Ku Klux Klan in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among Mississippi African Americans...
occurred in June of that year. The three had been arrested by local police while investigating the arson of a Black church near Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia is a city in and the county seat of Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,303 at the 2000 census.- History :...
. Collaborating with local white supremacist vigilantes, the Neshoba County
Neshoba County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 28,684 people, 10,694 households, and 7,742 families residing in the county. The population density was 50 people per square mile . There were 11,980 housing units at an average density of 21 per square mile...
sheriff released the three men from jail late at night, and other civil rights workers reported their disappearance.
From the NLG office in Jackson, Crockett dispatched Guild lawyers to search for the missing men. The effort was in vain, and, years later, Crockett described his growing despair in the 1995 PBS documentary Mississippi America, narrated by Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
and Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist, perhaps best known for co-starring in the film A Raisin in the Sun and the film American Gangster for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Early years:Dee was born Ruby...
.
In the film, Crockett recounts his drive from Jackson
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
to Meridian
Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Mississippi. It is the sixth largest city in the state and the principal city of the Meridian, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area...
in a personal search for the missing men. He survived an effort of the sheriff to arrange his ambush by loudly offering driving directions, while white supremacists loitered nearby. Crockett returned safely to Jackson. He offered a full report to the Justice Department and the FBI, who refused to take the information. The murdered bodies of the 3 young men, one Black, two white, were found days later.
As a Judge
In 1965, Crockett became a candidate for the Detroit Common Council. Bob Millender guided his campaign. Crockett lost by a small margin "after he had been severely red-baited in the election," according to his former law partner Ernie Goodman (A Tribute to George W. Crockett, Jr, privately published, 1997.)In 1966, Crockett was elected Judge of Recorder's Court
Recorder's court
The Recorder's Court, in Detroit, Michigan was a state court of limited jurisdiction which had, for most of its history, exclusive jurisdiction over traffic and ordinance matters, and over all felony cases committed in the City of Detroit...
, Wayne County, Michigan
Wayne County, Michigan
-History:Wayne County was one of the first counties formed when the Northwest Territory was organized. It was named for the American general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. It originally encompassed the entire area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, as well as small sections that are now part of northern...
. The court handled criminal cases. From that bench, Judge Crockett incurred the wrath of the white corporate media and endured death threats for his role in a highly-publicized police shooting, raid, and mass arrest.
On March 29, 1969, following an officer-involved shooting outside New Bethel Baptist Church in which a Detroit police officer died, police officers fired into and stormed the church. A secessionist organization, the Republic of New Afrika
Republic of New Afrika
The Republic of New Afrika , was a social movement that proposed three objectives. First, the creation of an independent African-American-majority country situated in the southeastern United States. A similar claim is made for all the black-majority counties and cities throughout the United States...
, had rented the church for a meeting. Witnesses in the majority African-American neighborhood later stated that the responding officers had all been white. More than one-hundred fifty persons, including juveniles, were arrested inside the church and taken to police headquarters. The church pastor called Judge Crockett before dawn.
Crockett opened temporary court at police headquarters. In refusing to find probable cause to hold the people from what he termed a “collective punishment” mass arrest
Mass arrest
A mass arrest occurs when the police apprehend large numbers of suspects at once. This sometimes occurs at illegal protests. Some mass arrests are also used in an effort combat gang activity. This is sometimes controversial, and lawsuits sometimes result...
, Judge Crockett released 130 of the arrested persons and questioning. In the controversy that followed, Detroit saw the appearance of bumper stickers that read, “Sock It to Crockett” and "Impeach Judge Crockett". The police association organized a picket line at the courthouse. The black community and interracial civic organizations supported Crockett.
In 1974, Crockett was elected Chief Judge of the Detroit's Recorder's Court. He served there until retiring in 1978.
As a Congressman
In November 1980, as the candidate of the Democratic PartyDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
from Michigan's 13th congressional district
Michigan's 13th congressional district
Michigan's 13th congressional district is a United States congressional district in Wayne County, Michigan. It includes the east side of Detroit, portions of the city's near west side, the inner suburbs of River Rouge, Harper Woods, Ecorse, the downriver communities of Lincoln Park, and Wyandotte,...
, Crockett was elected in a special election to the 96th Congress
96th United States Congress
The Ninety-sixth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1979 to January 3, 1981, during the last two years...
to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Charles C. Diggs, Jr. from the U.S. House of Representatives. Dennis W. Archer ran Crockett's successful election http://archive.lib.msu.edu/MMM/JA/02/a/JA02a014.html campaign].
Crockett was simultaneously elected to a full term in the 97th Congress
97th United States Congress
The Ninety-seventh United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1981 to January 3, 1983, during the final weeks of...
and was subsequently re-elected to the next four Congresses, serving from November 4, 1980, to January 3, 1991. Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O'Neill
Tip O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...
swore in 71-year old Crockett in the presence of Crockett's wife Dr. Harriette Clark Crockett, son, and 96-year old mother, Mrs. Minnie Crockett. She recited a poem she composed many years earlier titled, Our Children Three.
During his tenure, Crockett was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus
Congressional Black Caucus
The Congressional Black Caucus is an organization representing the black members of the United States Congress. Membership is exclusive to blacks, and its chair in the 112th Congress is Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.-Aims:...
, the Democratic Study Group, the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, and the Congressional Arts Caucus. He also served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Select Committee on Aging
United States House Permanent Select Committee on Aging
The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Aging was a permanent select committee of the United States House of Representatives between 1974 and 1992....
, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. As a member of the Africa Subcommittee, Crocket authored the Mandela Freedom Resolution, HB.430, which called upon the South Africa government to release Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
and his wife Winnie Mandela from imprisonment and banning. The resolution was passed by both houses of Congress in 1984. Later, Crockett continued to denounce apartheid in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and was jailed with Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young
Coleman Young
Coleman Alexander Young served as mayor of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan from 1974 to 1993. Young became the first African-American mayor of Detroit in the same week that Maynard Jackson became the first African-American mayor of Atlanta.-Pre-Mayoral career:Young was born in Tuscaloosa,...
and others for demonstrating in Washington, DC against apartheid.
Crockett filed suit against the Reagan administration claiming violation of the War Powers Act in providing El Salvador with military aid (Crockett v. Reagan, 720 F.2d 1355 (C.A.D.C., 1983)).
Crockett chaired the Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs from 1987 until his retirement.
On Wednesday, March 28, 1990 Crockett, who was affectionately called "Judge" by his House colleagues, announced on the House Floor: "Mr. Speaker, a few days ago the press carried the story on the death of the Honorable Harold Medina, who was the judge who presided over the famous communist trials in New York back in 1949 and 1950. In the course of that trial, Judge Medina sentenced the five defense lawyers to prison. I'm the only living survivor of those five defense lawyers.
"During the four months that I served in a federal prison, it never occurred to me that one day I would also serve in the United States Congress and be a member of the committee having oversight jurisdiction over all federal judges and all federal prisons.
"Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to inform my colleagues that I have decided to retire from the House at the conclusion of the 101st Congress. After 68 years of working, championing unpopular causes, I'm hoping to enjoy a little time off.... I've been privileged to serve the people of Michigan's 13th District in this body, and it has been a challenge and an honor I will always cherish."
Representative John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
, also from Detroit, described Crockett's announcement by saying "When he finished, all the members stood and clapped." Source: Detroit Free Press, March 29, 1990, p. 15A.
Family life
George and Ethelene Crockett had three children: Elizabeth Crockett Hicks, George W. Crockett III, and Dr. Ethelene Crockett Jones. George III also served on the Recorders Court. George Jr. had eight grandchildren: Wayne, Charles, Kyra, Kimberly, Kelly, LeBeau and Enrique, and eight great-grandchildren. One nephew, Rear Admiral Benjamin Thurman HackerBenjamin Thurman Hacker
Rear Admiral Benjamin Thurman Hacker was a U.S. Navy officer, who became the first Naval Flight Officer to achieve Flag rank.-Early life:...
(1935–2003) was a U.S. Navy officer, who became the first Naval Flight Officer to achieve Flag rank.
Following the death of Dr. Ethelene Crockett, George Crockett Jr. married Dr. Harriette Clark Chambliss, a pediatrician in Washington, D.C.
Crockett is buried in Laurel, Delaware in the New Zion United Methodist Church cemetery, with his parents and other generations of Crocketts and within walking distance from Crockett Street, named in honor of the Crockett family.
Honors
Crockett received an Honorary L.L.D. from Morehouse CollegeMorehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....
in 1972.
In 1972, the Cotillion Club of Detroit, co-founded in 1949 by Dr. William Emmett Lawson, presented an award to Crockett, attorney Kenneth Cockrel, and Judge Damon Keith.
In 1986, awarded annual the Kappa Alpha Psi
Kappa Alpha Psi
Kappa Alpha Psi is a collegiate Greek-letter fraternity with a predominantly African American membership. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never limited membership based on color, creed or national origin...
Laural Wreath Commission for extra meritorious achievement.
In 1998, the George Crockett Academy opened in Detroit. Nearly 400 students attend the K-8 charter school.
The George Crockett Consortium High School, also in Detroit, is open to grades 9–12.
The George W. Crockett, Jr. Community Law School is a public education program sponsored by the NAACP Detroit Branch.
George's wife of 45 years, Ethelene, was also celebrated with a Detroit school in her honor, the Ethelene Jones Crockett Technical High School.