Ron Dellums

Ron Dellums
48th Mayor of Oakland
In office
January 8, 2007 – January 3, 2011
Preceded byJerry Brown
Succeeded byJean Quan
Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee
In office
January 3, 1995 – February 6, 1998
Preceded byFloyd Spence
Succeeded byIke Skelton
Chair of the House Armed Services Committee
In office
January 20, 1993 – January 3, 1995
Preceded byLes Aspin
Succeeded byFloyd Spence
Chair of the House District of Columbia Committee
In office
January 3, 1979 – January 20, 1993
Preceded byCharles Diggs
Succeeded byPete Stark
Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from California
In office
January 3, 1971 – February 6, 1998
Preceded byJeffery Cohelan
Succeeded byBarbara Lee
Constituency7th district (1971–1975)
8th district (1975–1993)
9th district (1993–1998)
Personal details
Born
Ronald Vernie Dellums

(1935-11-24)November 24, 1935
Oakland, California, U.S.
DiedJuly 30, 2018(2018-07-30) (aged 82)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting placeArlington National Cemetery
Political partyDemocratic
Other political
affiliations
Democratic Socialists of America
Spouses
Athurine Dellums
(m. 1955; div. 1959)
Roscoe Higgs
(m. 1961; div. 1998)
Cynthia Lewis
(m. 2000)
Children6, including Erik and Piper
RelativesC. L. Dellums (uncle)
EducationMerritt College
San Francisco State University (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (MSW)
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/service United States Marine Corps
Years of service1954–1956
Rank Private first class[1]

Ronald Vernie Dellums (November 24, 1935 – July 30, 2018) was an American politician who served as Mayor of Oakland from 2007 to 2011. He had previously served thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 9th congressional district, in office from 1971 to 1998, after which he worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.

Dellums was born into a family of labor organizers, and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps before serving on the Berkeley, California, City Council. He was the first African American elected to Congress from Northern California and the first successful openly socialist non-incumbent Congressional candidate after World War II.[2] His politics earned him a place on President Nixon's enemies list.

During his career in Congress, he fought the MX Missile project and opposed expansion of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber program. When President Ronald Reagan vetoed Dellums's Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate overrode Reagan's veto, the first override of a presidential foreign-policy veto in the 20th century.[3]

  1. ^ "Ronald V. Dellums, Representative from California". Black Americans in Congress. Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Archived from the original on March 8, 2012. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  2. ^ Maurice Isserman. "A Brief History of the American Left". Democratic Socialists of America. Archived from the original on August 2, 2006.
  3. ^ Lynn Norment (August 1994). "How African-Americans helped free South Africa". Ebony. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009.

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