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Oil on canvas, Robert B. Williams, 1968, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
DAWSON, William Levi, a Representative from Illinois; born in Albany, Dougherty County,
Ga., April 26, 1886; attended the public schools and Kent College of Law,
Chicago, Ill.; was graduated from Albany (Ga.) Normal School in 1905, Fisk
University, Nashville, Tenn., in 1909, and Northwestern University Law School,
Evanston, Ill.; during the First World War served overseas as a first
lieutenant with the Three Hundred and Sixty-fifth Infantry 1917-1919; was
admitted to the bar in 1920 and commenced practice in Chicago, Ill.; State
central committeeman for the First Congressional District of Illinois
1930-1932; alderman for the second ward of Chicago 1933-1939 and Democratic
committeeman since 1939; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-eighth and to the
thirteen succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1943, until his death
November 9, 1970, in Chicago, Ill.; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in
Executive Departments (Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses), Committee on
Government Operations (Eighty-fourth through Ninety-first Congresses);
cremated; ashes placed in Columbarium in Griffin Funeral Home, Chicago, Ill.
BibliographyManning, Christopher.
William L. Dawson and the Limits of Black Electoral
Leadership. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009;
William Levi Dawson in
Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007. Prepared under the
direction of the Committee on House Administration by the Office of History
& Preservation, U. S. House of Representatives. Washington: Government
Printing Office, 2008.
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