Augustus F. Hawkins
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Augustus Freeman Hawkins (born August 31, 1907), a prominent U.S. figure in Civil Rights and Organized Labor history. He served as the first African American from California in the United States Congress where he sponsored the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act.
Hawkins was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He later moved to California, where he was a Democratic member of the State Assembly in 1935 to 1963; he was also a delegate to the National Conventions of 1940, 1944 and 1960 and a California Presidential Elector in the 1944 Election.
During 1963 to 1991, he represented California's 21st District (1963-75), and 29th District (1975-1991), in Congress. In 1978 he was the sponsor in the House of Representatives of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, alongside Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. The Bill gave the U.S. government the goal to provide full employment; it also ordered that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board must give a Congressional testimony on the economy.
Hawkins retired in 1991 to his Los Angeles home.