Politician Carried On A Civil Rights Legacy

Activist Was Md.'s 1st Black Congressman

Parren J. Mitchell, 85, a Baltimore civil rights activist who became Maryland's first black member of Congress in 1970, died May 28 of complications from pneumonia at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He had been living in a nursing home since a series of strokes several years ago.

A founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Mitchell (D) worked for years to ensure minority participation in contracts let under federal public works programs. He was an original sponsor of legislation approved in 1977 guaranteeing minority contractors a share in public works spending. He also sponsored an amendment to the 1982 Surface Transportation Assistance Act requiring that at least 10 percent of the funds provided under the law go to small businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged people.

He considered these and related economic measures the second phase of the civil rights movement.

A trim 5-foot-5, he was known as "the Little General" during his tenure as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, a tribute to his ability to organize his forces quickly.

During the Carter administration, he urged the government to oppose South Africa's apartheid regime. In 1985, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it was Mitchell's impassioned plea for sanctions against South Africa that persuaded him to accept a tougher measure than the Senate originally backed.

He also served on the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee, considered in those days to be the legislative guardian of minority business.

Those who worked with Mitchell said he was basically a shy person and invariably courteous in one-on-one settings, but he could be fiery and outspoken when he encountered what he considered injustice. In 1968, when Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew (R) called together a group of black leaders in response to rioting in Maryland cities, Mitchell stormed out as the governor began berating them.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Mitchell called Ronald Reagan a "clear and present danger to black Americans." Two years later, he blamed the president for rising unemployment.

After two nights of watching "Roots," the 1977 television miniseries tracing author Alex Haley's family from slavery to freedom, he angrily turned off the TV. "If I had met any of my white friends, I would have lashed out at them from a vortex of primeval emotion," he said.

"Parren's emotion is the emotion of a Patrick Henry. He didn't say give me liberty later," his sister-in-law, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, told The Washington Post in 1977. "Parren is just one of God's angry men."

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) described Mitchell as "a true servant leader, never concerning himself about fame or fortune but, rather, devoting himself entirely to uplifting the people he represented." Cummings, who occupies the 7th District seat once held by Mitchell, sponsored legislation last year that named a Baltimore post office in the veteran congressman's honor.

Parren James Mitchell was born in Baltimore. In a 1985 interview with The Post, he recalled being about 12 when his older brother, Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., burst into the house at dinnertime, violently ill. Working as a reporter for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, he had just seen the body of a black man who had been lynched in Somerset County.