Sheila Jackson Lee: “Louis Stokes rose from the local housing projects to serve 30 years in the U.S. House, becoming a potent symbol for his…”

“Louis Stokes rose from the local housing projects to serve 30 years in the U.S. House, becoming a potent symbol for his Cleveland-based majority-black district. Reluctant to enter the political arena, Stokes was persuaded to run for office by his prominent brother and by community members he had served for decades as a civil rights lawyer. His accomplishments were substantive and of historic proportions. The first Black to represent Ohio, Stokes chaired several congressional committees (including the Permanent Select Intelligence Committee) and was the first African American to win a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. He used his success to try to increase opportunities for millions of African Americans, saying, ``I'm going to keep on denouncing the inequities of this system, but I'm going to work within it. To go outside the system would be to deny myself--to deny my own existence. I've beaten the system. I've proved it can be done--so have a lot of others.'' Stokes continued, ``But the problem is that a black man has to be extra special to win in this system. Why should you have to be a super black to get someplace? That's what's wrong in the society. The ordinary black man doesn't have the same chance as the ordinary white man does.'' Louis Stokes was born on February 23, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Charles and Louise Cinthy (Stone) Stokes. His father worked in a laundromat and died when Louis was young.…”