House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr.
Marion Orr
University of North Carolina Press
At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922–1998) was the consummate power broker.
Drawing on extensive archival research, including Diggs’s rarely seen personal papers, FBI documents, and original interviews with family members and political associates, political scientist Marion Orr reveals Diggs' political practice of strategic moderation.
Orr argues that this quiet approach was more effective than the militant race politics practiced by Adam Clayton Powell and more appealing than the conservative Chicago-style approach of William Dawson—two of Diggs’s better-known Black contemporaries.
House of Diggs is the first biography of Congressman Charles C. Diggs Jr., one of the most consequential Black federal legislators in US history, a legislative lion whose unfortunate downfall punctuated his distinguished career and pushed him and his historic accomplishments out of sight.