John James Conyers Jr. (May 16, 1929 – October 27, 2019) was an American politician from the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. He was one of the six longest-serving members of Congress and the longest-serving African American member of Congress in history.

After serving in the Korean War, Conyers became involved in the civil rights movement. He worked with Congressman John Dingell before being elected to the House in 1964. He helped start the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 and was known as one of the most progressive members of Congress. Conyers joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus when it was created in 1991. He supported the idea of a healthcare system paid for by the government and introduced the United States National Health Care Act. He also introduced a bill to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday and was the first member of Congress to propose legislation for reparations for the descendants of enslaved African Americans.

Conyers ran for mayor of Detroit in 1989 and 1993 but lost in the primary both times. He was the top-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on the Judiciary from 1995 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2017. He led that committee from 2007 to 2011 and chaired the House Oversight Committee from 1989 to 1995. As the longest-serving member of Congress at the time, he was called the "dean" of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017. By November 2017, he was the only member of Congress who had served during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Conyers resigned from Congress on December 5, 2017, after allegations that he had sexually harassed female staff members and used taxpayer money to settle a harassment claim.

Early life, education, and early career

Conyers was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. His parents were Lucille Janice (Simpson) and John James Conyers, a worker leader. He had a younger brother named William Conyers. After graduating from Northwestern High School, Conyers served in the Michigan National Guard from 1948 to 1950. He then joined the U.S. Army from 1950 to 1954 and the U.S. Army Reserves from 1954 to 1957. During the Korean War, he spent one year in Korea as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and received awards for bravery and good work.

After leaving the military, Conyers went to college. He earned a bachelor’s degree (BA) in 1957 and a law degree (LL.B.) in 1958 from Wayne State University. After becoming a licensed lawyer, he worked for Congressman John Dingell. He also provided legal help to several local labor unions in Detroit. From 1961 to 1963, he worked as a referee for Michigan’s workers’ compensation department.

Conyers became an important leader in the civil rights movement. He was in Selma, Alabama, on October 7, 1963, during a voter registration event called Freedom Day.

U.S. House of Representatives

In 1964, Conyers ran for an open seat in what was then the 1st District and defeated Republican Robert Blackwell with 84% of the vote. He was re-elected 13 times with even larger vote margins. After the 1990 U.S. census, Michigan lost a congressional district, and redistricting occurred. Conyers’s district was renumbered as the 14th district.

In 1992, Conyers won re-election to his 15th term in his new district, which included western suburbs of Detroit, with 82% of the vote against Republican nominee John Gordon. He won re-election another nine times after that. His worst re-election performance was in 2010, when he received 77% of the vote against Republican nominee Don Ukrainec. In 2013, his district was renamed as the 13th district.

In total, Conyers won re-election twenty-five times and was serving in his twenty-sixth term. He was the dean of the House, the longest-serving current member, the third-longest-serving member of the House in history, and the sixth-longest-serving member of Congress in history. He was the second-longest-serving member of either house of Congress in Michigan’s history, trailing only his former boss, Dingell. He was also the last member of the large Democratic freshman class of 1964 who was still serving in the House.

In May 2014, Wayne County clerk Cathy Garrett determined that Conyers had not submitted enough valid nominating petition signatures to appear on the August 2014 primary election ballot. Two of his workers circulating petitions were not registered voters at the time, which was required under Michigan law. However, on May 23, federal district judge Matthew Leitman issued an injunction placing Conyers back on the ballot, ruling that the requirement that circulators be registered voters was similar to an Ohio law found unconstitutional in 2008. The Michigan secretary of state’s office announced it would not appeal the ruling.

Conyers was one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and was considered the Dean of that group. Formed in 1969, the CBC was created to strengthen African American lawmakers’ ability to address the legislative concerns of Black and minority citizens. He served longer in Congress than any other African American. In 1971, he was one of the original members of Nixon’s enemies list.

In 1965, Conyers won a seat as a freshman on the influential Judiciary Committee, which was then chaired by Democratic Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York. The assignment was considered an elite one, as Judiciary ranked behind only Ways and Means and Appropriations in terms of the number of members who sought assignment there.

According to the National Journal, Conyers has been considered, along with Pete Stark, John Lewis, Jim McDermott, and Barbara Lee, one of the most liberal members of Congress for many years. Rosa Parks, known for her role in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, moved to Detroit and served on Conyers’s staff between 1965 and 1988.

Conyers opposed regulation of online gambling and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Conyers introduced the first bill in Congress to make King’s birthday a federal holiday. He continued to propose legislation to establish the federal holiday in every session of Congress from 1968 to 1983, when Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

In 1983, Conyers joined with 7 other congressional representatives to sponsor a resolution to impeach Ronald Reagan over his sudden invasion of Grenada. According to The New Republic, Conyers was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in 1983.

Conyers introduced the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act” (H.R. 3745) in January 1989. He re-introduced this bill each congressional term. It calls for establishing a commission to research the history of slavery in the United States and its effects on current society, which would recommend ways to remedy this injustice against African Americans. The current version was introduced and referred to committee on January 3, 2013. Conyers first introduced the proposed resolution in 1989 and has stated his intention to annually propose this act until it is approved and passed. Since 1997, the bill has been designated “H.R. 40,” alluding to the promise of “forty acres and a mule.” If passed, the commission would explore the longstanding effects of slavery on today’s society, politics, and economy.

Conyers served as the ranking Democratic member on the House Committee on the Judiciary from 1995 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2017. He served as chairman of that committee from 2007 to 2011 and as chairman of the House Oversight Committee from 1989 to 1995. As the longest-serving current member of Congress, Conyers was the dean of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017.

In March 2016, Rep. Conyers and Representative Hank Johnson introduced legislation to protect consumers’ access to civil courts. The bill was entitled the “Restoring Statutory Rights Act.”

Conyers served more than 50 years in Congress, becoming the sixth-longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history; he was the longest-serving African American member of Congress. By November 2017, Conyers was the last remaining member of Congress who had served since the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

Conyers was critical of President Richard Nixon during his tenure. He was listed as number 13 on President Nixon’s enemies list during the president’s 1969–74 presidential tenure. The president’s chief counsel described him as “coming on fast” and said

Detroit mayoral campaigns

While working in the U.S. House of Representatives, John Conyers tried twice to become mayor of Detroit but did not win. His first attempt was in 1989, when he ran against the current mayor, Coleman Young. His second attempt was in 1993.

In 1989, Coleman Young, the current mayor, decided to run for a fifth term even though many people in Detroit were unhappy with his leadership and the city’s struggling economy. In the September primary election, Young won with 51% of the votes. Accountant Tom Barrow got 24% of the votes and qualified for the November runoff election. Conyers received 18% of the votes. In the runoff election, Young won again with 56% of the votes.

In June 1993, Coleman Young decided not to run for a sixth term. He said he would retire because of his age and health. Many people believed Young was retiring to avoid facing more criticism. A poll in February 1993 showed that 81% of people in Detroit thought Young should retire. Conyers was one of 23 people who qualified to be on the ballot for the mayoral election.

In the 1993 mayoral race, Dennis Archer was the leading candidate from the start. Archer, a 51-year-old former state Supreme Court justice, raised over $1.6 million to support his campaign. He won the September primary election with 54% of the votes. Conyers finished in fourth place. In the November election, Archer won the mayoral race.

Controversies

In April 2006, the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office sent separate letters to the House Ethics Committee. The letters stated that two former assistants to Representative John Conyers claimed he had used his staff to help with local and state political campaigns, including those of his wife, who was elected to the Detroit City Council in 2005. The staff members were also reportedly asked to take care of his children and drive them.

In late December 2006, Conyers said he accepted responsibility for breaking House rules. A statement from the House Ethics Committee chairman, Doc Hastings, and the ranking minority member, Howard Berman, said Conyers admitted he had not clearly explained his staff’s official duties and responsibilities. He also accepted responsibility for his actions.

Hastings and Berman decided to drop the matter, stating that Conyers had acknowledged his mistakes and taken responsibility.

In 2015, a former employee of Conyers claimed he had sexually harassed her and then fired her. She submitted a formal written statement to the Congressional Office of Compliance. Conyers had signed an agreement to keep the matter private and paid her $27,000 from his publicly funded office budget in 2015. In 2017, BuzzFeed reported on the allegations and the settlement. The report also mentioned claims that Conyers had made sexual advances to female staff members and touched them inappropriately in public.

On November 21, 2017, Conyers released a statement saying he denied the allegations and did not accept responsibility for them. He stated that his office resolved the matter by denying any wrongdoing to avoid lengthy legal battles.

On the same day, the House Ethics Committee began an investigation into multiple sexual harassment claims against Conyers.

On November 22, 2017, The Washington Post reported that Melanie Sloan, founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), accused Conyers of harassing and verbally abusing her while she worked for the House Judiciary Committee. She claimed that during one meeting, she found Conyers sitting in his underwear in his office and quickly left.

Later in November 2017, another woman accused Conyers of sexual harassment. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who had previously praised Conyers, said the allegations were "very credible" and called on him to resign.

On December 5, 2017, Conyers, who was 88 years old, resigned from his position in the U.S. House of Representatives due to the growing number of sexual harassment allegations. This decision came after another former staff member submitted a formal written statement accusing Conyers of sexual harassment. On the same day, The Washington Post published reports that Courtney Morse claimed Conyers had threatened her with consequences similar to those faced by Chandra Levy, a former staffer who was found murdered in Washington, D.C. Morse said Conyers told her he had insider information about the case, which she interpreted as a threat.

At a time when the #MeToo movement was encouraging action against men who harassed women, some media outlets and supporters in Detroit believed Conyers had been treated unfairly. He was described as the first sitting politician to be removed from office as a result of the #MeToo movement.

Beginning in 2014, Michigan political commentators noted that Conyers seemed to be experiencing a decline in mental ability, describing him as unfit for office. Politico reported that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus believed his declining health and mental condition worsened the sexual harassment controversies. After his death, the Detroit News editorial page stated that Conyers had suffered from declining health and memory issues, which reduced his influence in Congress compared to his earlier years.

Personal life

John Conyers married Monica Esters, a teacher in Detroit, in 1990. At the time, Monica was 25 and John was 61. They had two sons together, John James III and Carl Edward Conyers. Monica Conyers worked as vice administrator of Detroit's public schools and was elected to the Detroit City Council in 2005. In 2009, Monica Conyers admitted to taking bribes and was sentenced to prison. She served over 27 months and was released on May 16, 2013. In September 2015, Monica Conyers filed for divorce, stating that the marriage had ended. However, the couple reunited in late 2016.

John Conyers's grandnephew, Ian Conyers, was elected to the Michigan Senate in 2016. He caused controversy by speaking about his great-uncle's plans to retire before the congressman announced it publicly and by claiming his great-uncle supported him. After the congressman resigned, Ian Conyers said he would run in the special election for the congressman's seat. Instead, the congressman supported his son, John Conyers III, as his successor. John Conyers III decided not to run. Ian Conyers lost the Democratic primary election to Rashida Tlaib.

Death

Conyers passed away at his home in Detroit on October 27, 2019, at the age of 90. He was honored in a public ceremony at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History on November 2 and November 3. His funeral took place on November 4 at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple. Michael Eric Dyson and former U.S. president Bill Clinton gave eulogies alongside his family. Rev. Jesse Jackson, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and members of the U.S. Congress also spoke at the funeral.