Political Quotes

“our Nation mourns the loss of one of California's greatest civil rights leaders, whose nearly three decades in Congress and many more years in public service helped to shape the lives of countless individuals both at home and abroad. Ron Dellums was born the son of a longshoreman and raised in Oakland, CA, a community he would later come to represent both as a Member of Congress and as mayor. A 1953 graduate of Oakland Technical High School, Ron enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1954, where he served for 2 years, before graduating from San Francisco State College in 1960 with a degree in psychology. Two years later, Ron received a master's degree in social work from the University of California, Berkeley. Immediately following graduate school, Ron immersed himself in public service, first through a series of social work jobs at the California Department of Mental Hygiene, and, eventually, as an elected member of the Berkeley City Council in 1967. As councilman, Ron became an outspoken advocate for historically underrepresented and underserved communities in Berkeley and Oakland, in addition to becoming an anti- war advocate. The convergence of the free speech and anti-war movements in the Bay Area in the 1960s drove Ron to launch a campaign for Congress on a platform for civil and human rights. He was elected to Congress in 1971 as the first African American from northern California.…”