CROCKETT, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR.

CROCKETT, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR.

George William Crockett Jr.’s political career spanned almost six decades. He was an attorney, a judge, and a leading CIVIL RIGHTS and LABOR UNION activist. At the age of 71, he was tapped to represent Michigan’s 13th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. His ten-year stint in Congress was marked by many milestones and much controversy.

Crockett was born August 10, 1909, in Jacksonville, Florida. He grew up in the South when racial SEGREGATION was a fact of everyday life, an experience that fueled his commitment to correct injustices. He attended public schools and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1931. He studied law at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1934. He was admitted to the Florida bar in the same year and began his legal career in Jacksonville.

In 1939, Crockett became the first African
American lawyer in the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
LABOR. He was one of the first hearing examiners
in the Fair Employment Practices Commission.
Crockett’s early involvement in LABOR LAW
led to his founding and directing the Fair
Employment Practices Department of the International
United Auto Workers (UAW) Union in
1944. He also served as treasurer and associate
general counsel to the UAW and as assistant to
the union’s secretary-treasurer.

After leaving the UAW, Crockett returned to
private practice with the law firm of Goodman,
Crockett, Eden, and Rob, where he was a partner
from 1946 to 1966. He remained active in the
civil rights and labor movements throughout his
career. In the 1949 Foley Square trial, he
defended several members of the U.S. Communist
Party against charges of un-American activities.
(United States v. Foster, 9 F.R.D. 367
[S.D.N.Y.]). Crockett’s clients, along with many
codefendants, were charged with conspiracy to
advocate the overthrow or destruction of the
government by force or violence and conspiracy
to organize the Communist Party as a society
advocating such overthrow or destruction. During
the trial, he railed against what he thought
were the judge’s abuses of his clients’ rights. His
refusal to back down earned him a CONTEMPT
citation (United States v. Sacher, 9 F.R.D. 394
[S.D.N.Y.]). His conviction and sentence for
contempt were upheld on appeal, 182 F.2d 416
(2nd Cir.), and he spent four months in the penitentiary
at Ashland, Kentucky, in 1952.

While serving his prison term, Crockett wrote to his son that prison is a good place to learn patience because the relentless passage of time teaches the value of persistence. Crockett’s patience was severely tested after his return from prison when he was ostracized and forced to fight a move to disbar him. Because of his involvement in the Foley Square trial, the labor movement, and the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, he was labeled a communist sympathizer. However, in 1963, when President JOHN F. KENNEDY planned a meeting of civil rights lawyers at the White House, Crockett’s name was on the list of those the president wanted to attend. To be allowed into the White House, Crockett had to be investigated by the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, which finally granted him a security clearance.

Crockett served as a judge of the Detroit
Recorder’s (Criminal) Court from 1966 to 1978.
His years on the bench included a term as presiding
judge in 1974. He retired from the
recorder’s court in 1978, but soon returned to
public service. In 1980, Representative Charles C.
Diggs Jr. (D-Mich.), one of the few people who had befriended Crockett upon his return from prison in 1952, was himself sentenced to three years in prison, for accepting kickbacks from his congressional staff. Diggs endorsed Crockett to replace him, and, in a special election to fill the vacancy, Crockett was elected to the post.

At the age of 71, Crockett launched into his new career in Congress. He continued to take
controversial positions on issues ranging from African Americans in the foreign service to
decriminalization of drugs. He was arrested in 1984 at a demonstration protesting South
Africa’s policy of apartheid. In 1985, when tensions between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East were high and the United States officially supported
Israel, Crockett invited a representative
of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
to brief members of Congress on the PLO’s
views about conditions in the Middle East. The invitation was denounced by some members of the House, and, after intervention by the SECRETARY OF STATE, the visit was canceled.

In 1986, Crockett criticized President Ronald Reagan’s administration for not appointing more African American ambassadors. He noted that the number of African Americans in the foreign service had declined during the years Reagan had been president. He used his position as chair of
the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere
Activities to initiate a hearing on racism
in appointments to the foreign service. The result was a promise from the secretary of state that the STATE DEPARTMENT would pursue a goal of appointing more members of minority groups to foreign service positions. In 1987, President Reagan appointed Crockett to the position of public delegate to the UNITED NATIONS. In addition to chairing the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Activities,

Crockett served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Select Committee on Aging. His final controversial act as a representative came in 1989 when he became the first member of Congress to recommend publicly the decriminalization of drug possession. Stating, “Our courts are burdened down with these drug cases and there is nothing they can do about it,” Crockett called for
decriminalization as “the only solution.” He was
sharply criticized by many members of the
administration, including William J. Bennett,
who was the director of federal drug policy.
Crockett retired from public life at the end
of his fifth term in the House, which ended Januar
3, 1991, but remained one of Detroit’s bestknown
civil rights leaders. In 1992, he surprised
many when he openly backed Dennis Archer in
the Detroit mayoral race, and encouraged longtime
friend Coleman Young to step down. In
1995, Crockett’s story was recounted in a chapter
of Black Judges on Justice. Crockett died on September
7, 1997, in Washington, D.C, after suffering
a stroke. He had been battling bone cancer.

FURTHER READINGS
Gordon Press. 1991. Black Americans in Congress, 1870–1989.
Bowling Green Station, N.Y.: Gordon Press.
McGraw, Bill. 1997. “George Crockett is Dead at 88: Activist
and Judge Stood for the Underdog.” Detroit Free Press
(September 8). Available online at news/obituaries/qcrock8.htm> (accessed June 29,
2003).
U.S. Government Printing Office. 1988. Biographical Directory
of the U.S. Congress, 1774–1989. Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office.
Washington, Linn. 1995. Black Judges on Justice: Perspectives
from the Bench. New York: New Press.