Born and raised in the northern California district where
both the free speech movement and the Black Panthers
were founded in the 1960s, Ronald V. Dellums embraced
the activist spirit of the region, taking his seat in Congress
in 1971 as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.
Throughout his nearly three-decade career in the U.S.
House of Representatives, Dellums remained true to his
antiwar principles, consistently working to reduce the
military budget. Initially a politician who believed more
could be accomplished outside the establishment, the
California Representative eventually chaired two standing
committees and became adept at building congressional
coalitions to achieve his legislative agenda. “It was never
about personal battles,” Dellums recalled upon his
retirement from the House. “It has always been about
ideas. Individuals come and go, but ideas must ultimately
transcend, and ideas must ultimately prevail.”1
Ronald Vernie Dellums was born on November 24,
1935, in Oakland, California, to Verney Dellums, a Pullman
porter and a longshoreman, and Willa Dellums, a beautician
and government clerk. His uncle, C.L. Dellums—a leader
in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union—served
as a role model and as a political influence. Ron Dellums attended McClymonds High School before graduating
from Oakland Technical High School in 1953. After a
short stint at San Francisco City College in California,
he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1954. Dellums faced
racial discrimination from senior officers and was denied
admission into Officer Candidate School despite having
the highest test scores in his training battalion. While in the
service, Dellums married Arthurine Bethea, and they had
two children: Michael and Pam. He and Arthurine later
divorced. In 1956, at the end of his two-year enlistment in
the Marines, he enrolled at Oakland City College where
he earned an associate’s degree in 1958. He continued his
education at San Francisco State College, graduating with a
bachelor’s degree in 1960. Two years later, he was awarded
a master’s degree in social work from the University of
California at Berkeley. In 1962, he married Leola “Roscoe”
Higgs, an attorney; the couple had a daughter, Piper, and
two sons, Erik and Brandy. They divorced in 1999, and
Dellums married Cynthia Lewis in 2000.2
After earning his master’s degree, Dellums worked in a
series of social work jobs that promoted his involvement
with community affairs and local politics in the Bay Area.
He began his career as a psychiatric social worker for the California department of mental hygiene from 1962 to
1964. Between 1964 and 1968, Dellums directed several
area programs, including the Bayview Community Center
in San Francisco, Hunter’s Point Youth Opportunity
Council, and the San Francisco Economic Opportunity
Council. He later found employment at San Francisco State
College and the University of California at Berkeley as a
lecturer and worked as a consultant for programs across the
country funded by federal War on Poverty legislation passed
in the mid-1960s. At the urging of friends and members of
the community, Dellums made his first foray into politics
when he sought and won a seat on the Berkeley city council
in 1967. Asked to describe his approach to politics, he
responded, “I’d listen and try to understand what people
had to say, but then I’d act on my own beliefs. That’s the
only way anyone should run for office.”3
While serving on the council, Dellums mounted a
campaign in 1970 for the congressional seat encompassing
Berkeley, a university town, and nearby Oakland, one of
the most populated and impoverished cities in California.
The district was majority White, about 40 percent Black,
and home to Asian and Hispanic communities. In the
Democratic primary, Dellums squared off against the
six-term incumbent Jeffery Cohelan. Running on an
antiwar platform, he criticized Cohelan’s late opposition
to America’s involvement in Vietnam. As a 34-year-old,
African-American candidate, Dellums connected with the
anti-establishment current that was prevalent in Berkeley
and Oakland. He also made a concerted effort to appeal to
voters across the diverse district. “[I] entered the campaign
for Congress with a fervent belief that beyond ethnicity, it
would be possible to bring women, labor, seniors, youths,
and the poor into a coalition of the ‘powerless,’” he later
recollected. Dellums’s grassroots campaigning ultimately
helped him upset Cohelan. After garnering 55 percent of
the vote, Dellums remarked that the race “brought up the
new versus the old generation issue, war versus peace, open
versus closed politics.”4
The November general election attracted national
attention even though Dellums was virtually assured of
winning the heavily Democratic district. Vice President
Spiro T. Agnew campaigned against Dellums, a vocal
critic of the Richard M. Nixon administration’s policy
in Vietnam, calling him an “out-and-out radical” and
an “enthusiastic backer of the Black Panthers.” The Vice
President’s visit to the district did little to slow Dellums’s momentum and, in fact, seemed to generate more publicity
for his campaign. “One person I forgot to thank,” Dellums
quipped in his victory speech, “my public relations agent,
Spiro T. Agnew.” Dellums defeated Republican candidate
John Healy, a 25-year-old accountant, and third-party
candidate Sarah Scahill with 57 percent of the vote to
become one of the first African Americans to represent
a majority-White congressional district.5
Dellums served on four standing committees during his
House career. He served on the Committee on the District
of Columbia from his first term in the 92nd Congress
(1971–1973) until the 103rd Congress (1993–1995),
after which the panel was terminated and folded into
the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.
Dellums was also a long-serving Member of the Armed
Services Committee, from the 93rd Congress through
the 105th Congress (1973–1999). Dellums chaired the
District of Columbia Committee for 14 years, from the
96th Congress to the 102nd Congress (1979–1993) and
led the Armed Services Committee in the 103rd Congress.
At various points in his career, he also held assignments on
the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Post Office and Civil
Service Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence,
and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
With his election to the 92nd Congress, Dellums quickly
made headlines in his district and around the country.
Unlike many first-term Members of Congress, who chose to
learn the ropes quietly, Dellums adopted an active and vocal
approach, introducing more than 200 pieces of legislation.
Groomed in the radical tradition of his district, he displayed
little patience for congressional customs and the inner
workings of the institution. After the House refused to
conduct an investigation on possible American war crimes
in Vietnam, he spearheaded a plan to hold his own ad hoc
hearings—an unusual and controversial move that provoked
scorn from some longtime politicians but drew considerable
media attention. “I am not going to back away from being
called a radical,” Dellums remarked defiantly during his first
term. “If being an advocate of peace, justice, and humanity
toward all human beings is radical, then I’m glad to be called
a radical.” Dellums was one of the 13 Members who founded
the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in 1971 and served
as chair during the 101st Congress (1989–1991). Through
the caucus, he convened informal hearings on racism in
the military, an issue of personal importance because of the
discrimination he encountered in the Marines.6
During the next 15 years, the California Representative
led the charge against apartheid by sponsoring numerous
bills to end U.S. support for the South African government
and participating in a series of peaceful demonstrations—which, on one occasion, led to his arrest at the South African
Embassy in Washington, DC. During the 92nd Congress,
he introduced a measure to prohibit American companies
from operating in South Africa. The first legislator to
propose such severe restrictions against the apartheid regime,
Dellums, alongside the CBC, waged a long, intense battle
to highlight the discriminatory practices of South Africa.
“We are serious in our determination that positive action
be taken soon to terminate U.S. business relationships with
apartheid and repression in Africa,” Dellums affirmed on
behalf of the CBC in 1972. On June 18, 1986, Dellums
achieved one of his most significant legislative triumphs.
During debate on a bill sponsored by William H. Gray III
of Pennsylvania to impose moderate sanctions on South
Africa, Dellums proposed a floor amendment to replace the
bill’s contents with a more stringent measure calling for a
near-total U.S. trade embargo and divestment by American
companies of their holdings in the African nation. In an
unusual turn of events, the opposition chose not to request
a recorded roll call vote after a voice vote passed Dellums’s
amendment. Dellums expressed shock at how easily the
bill had passed as well as profound satisfaction: “This is the
highest point of my political life, the most significant and
personally rewarding,” Dellums rejoiced. “It’s been a long
journey to this moment.” Although the Senate ultimately
passed a more moderate measure than the House, the two
chambers united to easily override a veto by President
Ronald Reagan. The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act
became law on October 2, 1986.7
One of Dellums’s long-standing goals as a Representative
was to slash the military budget. In the 93rd Congress
(1973–1975) he sought a seat on the powerful Armed
Services Committee. While this decision may have
seemed out of character for an antiwar politician, Dellums
explained that if he could become well versed in military
affairs, he would be better able to argue the merits of his
views on military oversight. “People sent me [to Congress] . . . to challenge the insanity of war and to raise my voice in
the name of peace,” he later reflected. The CBC drafted a
letter to House Democratic leadership on Dellums’s behalf,
but the chair of Armed Services, Felix Edward Hébert of
Louisiana, and the Committee on Committees opposed the appointment of an outspoken war critic. Refusing to yield,
the CBC, led by Louis Stokes of Ohio and William Lacy
“Bill” Clay Sr. of Missouri, won the backing of Speaker Carl
Albert of Oklahoma to place Dellums on the panel. He
became the first African-American lawmaker to serve on the
committee. Dellums was appointed to the committee at the
same time as Patricia Scott Schroeder of Colorado, another
critic of the Vietnam War. In retaliation, Hébert set aside
one seat for the two newcomers at the first Armed Services
meeting in 1973. Dellums and Schroeder decided to not
allow Hébert to see that his antics bothered them, so they
sat side by side on the one chair the entire first committee
meeting. “Let’s not give these guys the luxury of knowing
they can get under our skin,” Dellums urged Schroeder.
“Let’s sit here and share this chair as if it’s the most normal
thing in the world.”8
In 1982, Dellums sponsored an alternative defense
authorization bill that slashed military spending by more
than $50 billion. The measure would become part of the
CBC’s alternative budget, which the caucus proposed
annually and that generally called for higher spending
on domestic social programs along with cuts to defense
spending. Though the resolution received little support
outside the CBC, Dellums considered it one of his most
meaningful legislative endeavors. “We will be back next
year and the year after that and the year after that until we
right the wrongs in this madness,” he asserted. Dellums
remained steady in his opposition to most U.S. military
operations, including the American invasion of Grenada in
1983 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but he did support
some peacekeeping efforts in Africa and the Caribbean. His
unswerving commitment to reduce military funding became
a hallmark of his House career.9
Throughout his tenure on Armed Services, Dellums
challenged the Cold War era arms race. On several
occasions, he worked with Republican John Richard Kasich
of Ohio to stop production of the B-2 bomber. Dellums
also opposed the development of the MX missile—a land-based
intercontinental ballistic missile that could deploy
multiple nuclear warheads midair, each of which could be
programmed to hit a different target. Beginning in 1977,
he regularly offered amendments to block funding for
the research, development, and procurement of nuclear
missiles generally. Dellums asserted that the MX program
would be too costly and divert funding from economically
depressed cities, while also increasing the likelihood of a deadly nuclear war. “The planet is in extraordinary danger
from the potential of a nuclear holocaust and . . . the
MX missile is one of the outward manifestations of that
potential danger,” he warned.10
Dellums rose through the ranks of Armed Services and
chaired several subcommittees before making history as the
panel’s first African-American chair in 1993. Initially, some
Members wondered how Dellums’s record of opposition
to defense spending would influence his decisions as chair.
But Dellums ultimately let the committee work its will. His
panel’s first defense authorization bill allowed a continued
ban on gays in the military, a pay increase for the armed
services, and a boost in anti-missile funding—all despite his
objections. “I’m not here to be dictatorial,” he said. “My job
as chair is to maintain the integrity of the process.”11
Dellums chaired the Armed Services Committee during
the early post-Cold War era and oversaw broad reductions to
the defense budget. The 1995 defense authorization reduced
federal defense spending to 18 percent of the total budget,
approaching levels not seen since before World War II.
“The Berlin Wall is down. The cold war is over,” Dellums
said on the House Floor. “We now have to think . . . in very
radically different ways.” In late 1993, after a battle between
U.S. servicemembers and a Somali militia in Mogadishu
left a dozen American troops dead, Dellums held a hearing
to examine the U.S. military’s role in the UN peacekeeping
mission in the African nation. Amid congressional criticism
of the Clinton administration for the casualties, Dellums
cosponsored a measure with Lee Herbert Hamilton of
Indiana, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, that would
have required the President to regularly consult with a
designated group of Members of Congress regarding military
activities abroad. Paradoxically, Dellums’s advocacy for peace
led him to support U.S. military intervention in Bosnia to
stop the genocide against the country’s Muslim population.
Dellums served as chair for one term before becoming
the ranking member in 1995 when the Republicans took
control of the House for the first time in 40 years.12
As longtime chair of the Committee on the District of
Columbia, Dellums examined a range of issues affecting the
nation’s capital, such as transportation, schools, housing, and
public safety. Envisioning himself as “an advocate, not an
overseer, of District affairs,” Dellums prioritized statehood
for Washington, DC. During his first term, he introduced a
bill to call for a referendum in which District residents could
vote on statehood. Under Dellums’s leadership, the District of Columbia Committee approved statehood legislation
twice—in 1987 and 1992. “There should be no colonies in
a democracy, and the District of Columbia continues to be
a colony,” Dellums said. A public transportation advocate,
Dellums sponsored legislation to fund the completion of
the capital city’s 103-mile Metrorail system. To improve
the city’s finances, Dellums oversaw passage of a bill that
increased the federal government’s annual payment to the
District government, which was provided to offset the
cost of the federal government’s presence in the city. The
legislation also set a formula for future federal payments,
avoiding the need for negotiations each year.13
Dellums rarely faced serious re-election challenges,
winning more than 60 percent of the vote throughout
most of his House career. His popularity among his
constituents, especially in the urban areas of Oakland
and Berkeley, allowed him to escape the fate of several
Members who lost their congressional seats after they were
linked to the House “bank” scandal in the 102nd Congress
(1991–1993). By some accounts Dellums had more than
800 overdrafts on what was an informal bank account
overseen by House officials. In addition to strong support
from his constituents, reapportionment in 1992 gave him a
safer district; with the elimination of the outlying suburbs,
Dellums captured more than 70 percent of the vote in his
three remaining contests.14
In February 1998, the 14-term Representative shocked
his colleagues when he resigned from the House, citing
personal reasons. In his farewell speech, Dellums reflected
on his long and successful career: “To get up every day and
put on your uniform and put on your tie and march to the
floor of Congress knowing that, in your hands, in that card,
in your very being, you have life and death in your hands, it
is an incredible thing.” After Congress, Dellums worked as a
lobbyist, starting his own firm in Washington, DC. In 2006,
he returned to the political spotlight when he was elected
mayor of Oakland at age 70. “You just asked an old guy to
come out of the comfort zone and play one more game,”
Dellums observed. Ronald Dellums died on July 30, 2018,
at his home in Washington, DC.15
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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