Politics / Business & brands / Civil rights & activism
Charles Diggs Sr.
1894–1967 · funeral director, state senator
Mississippi-born Detroit funeral-home owner and Garveyite who became the first African American Democrat in the Michigan Senate (1937–1944) and wrote the state's civil rights law.
- Born
Tallula, Mississippi- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 73- Birth name
- Charles Coles Diggs
- Also known as
- Charles C. Diggs Sr.
- Detroit years
- 1913–1967
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Charles Diggs Sr. was born in Tallula, Mississippi, in 1894 and moved to Detroit in 1913, where he built the House of Diggs on the lower east side into what was said to be Michigan's largest funeral home. A follower of Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, he began in politics as a Republican but switched to the Democrats in 1932 and helped organize Black Democratic clubs across Detroit. Elected to the Michigan Senate in 1936, he served from 1937 to 1944 as its first African American Democrat and earned a reputation as a friend of labor. When he arrived in Lansing in 1938, the Olds Hotel across from the Capitol refused him a room, and he answered with bills to strengthen Michigan's civil rights law, including the Diggs Act banning discrimination in public accommodations. His son, Charles Diggs Jr., later took his old Senate seat and became Michigan's first Black congressman. He died in Detroit in 1967 and is buried at Detroit Memorial Park in Warren.
Highlights
- First African American Democrat in the Michigan Senate, 1937–1944
- Sponsored the Diggs Act against discrimination in public accommodations
- Founder of the House of Diggs funeral home
- Organizer of Detroit's Black Democratic clubs in the 1930s
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Buried here · 1967
Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery
Cemetery in Warren founded by Black Detroiters, where he is interred.