Curtis, Rolland J
Description
Rolland Joseph 'Speedy' Curtis was born in Louisiana in 1922. After serving three years in the Marines during World War II, he and his wife, Gloria, relocated from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1946. Curtis served four years with the Los Angeles Police Department, but resigned from the force in order to pursue both a Bachelor's and Master's degree from USC. He later became involved in city politics, as an associate of Sam Yorty, and later a field deputy to City Council members Billy Mills and Tom Bradley. He was briefly director of the Model Cities program in 1973. Rolland J. Curtis died in his home in 1979, the victim of a homicide. An affordable housing complex on Exposition Blvd. near Vermont Ave. was named in his honor in 1981, along with a nearby street and park.; Photograph included in the Exhibit: Firsts, Seconds and Thirds: African American Leaders in Los Angeles During the 1960s and ’70s from the Rolland J. Curtis Collection.Hawkins was the second African American elected to the California Assembly, the first African American to serve California in Congress, and the first black politician west of the Mississippi River elected to the House of Representatives. Hawkins was fair skinned, often being mistaken for white and given preferential treatment on buses while growing up, much to his anger. He chose to walk instead. He was a champion of equal employment opportunities, fair housing and civil rights.Congressman Augustus Hawkins waves to supporters from Governor Edmund G. Brown's campaign...
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Photographic Prints
Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
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