Gus Savage, a civil rights activist and journalist who represented a district on the South Side of Chicago in Congress for 12 years, died on Saturday at his home in Chicago, a day after celebrating his 90th birthday.
His son, Thomas, confirmed his death.
During Mr. Savage’s time in Washington, Congress passed a measure requiring the Defense Department to set aside military procurement contracts for minority-owned businesses, according to the House of Representatives website.
“He never wavered in the fight for fairness and justice, no matter the foe or the arena,” his son said.
Mr. Savage’s record was marred by an ethics investigation in 1989. He was rebuked by the House Ethics Committee on accusations that he sexually harassed a Peace Corps volunteer while he was on an official visit to Zaire.
Mr. Savage lost the Democratic primary in 1992 to Mel Reynolds and stepped down from Congress the next year.
Augustus Savage was born on Oct. 30, 1925, in Detroit. He moved to Chicago with his family when he was 5. He served in a segregated unit of the Army during World War II.
He founded Citizen Newspapers, which became the largest black-owned chain of weekly community newspapers in the Midwest.
He sold the chain in 1980 and was elected that year to represent Illinois’s Second Congressional District.
Besides his son, he is survived by a daughter, Emma Savage-Davis, and three grandchildren.
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Augustus Alexander "Gus" Savage (October 30, 1925 – October 31, 2015) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois.[1]
Life and career[edit]
Savage was born in Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946 and then worked as a journalist from 1954 to 1979, owning a chain of weekly community newspapers in the Chicago area.
Savage was unsuccessful in his candidacy for the House of Representatives in 1968 and 1970, losing the Democratic primary both times, but won election to the House in1980, representing the 2nd District on Chicago's South Side for 6 terms, from January 1981 to January 1993.[2]
Savage was criticised for racist and anti-Semitic statements against both white and Jewish people. Savage once gave a speech in which he listed the names of all of the Jewish donors living outside of the Chicago area who donated money to his opponent. This led to a backlash, to which Savage responded that only white people could be racist.
In 1989, Savage was accused of trying to force himself on a female Peace Corps worker in Zaire.[3] He denied the allegations and blamed them on the "racist press." TheHouse Ethics Committee decided that the events did indeed occur,[4] but it did not take disciplinary action only because Savage wrote a letter of apology.
Savage had long been controversial even in his own district, never winning a primary election with more than 52% of the vote, and usually facing multiple challengers. For the 1992 election, his district had been extended further into Chicago's south suburbs by redistricting, and Savage faced Mel Reynolds, who had challenged him in the 1988 and 1990[2] primaries. Savage claimed that "racist Jews" were donating to Reynolds, while Reynolds claimed that Savage was involved in a drive-by shooting that injured him. Although Savage accused Reynolds of staging the shooting,[5] he lost the 1992 election to Reynolds by a margin of 63%-37%.
In one of his final acts as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, excavation and construction at the site of the African Burial Ground inNew York City was temporarily halted in 1992, pending further evaluation by the General Services Administration, after Savage was able to leverage his reputation as a national political figure to bring attention to the more controversial aspects of the project.[6]
Savage died on October 31, 2015, one day after his 90th birthday.[7]
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Augustus Alexander "Gus" Savage (October 30, 1925 – October 31, 2015) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois.
Savage was born in Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946 and then worked as a journalist from 1954 to 1979, owning a chain of weekly community newspapers in the Chicago area.
Savage founded Citizen Newspapers, which became the largest black-owned chain of weekly community newspapers in the Midwest. He sold the chain in 1980 and was elected that year to represent Illinois’s Second Congressional District.
Savage founded Citizen Newspapers, which became the largest black-owned chain of weekly community newspapers in the Midwest. He sold the chain in 1980 and was elected that year to represent Illinois’s Second Congressional District.
Savage was unsuccessful in his candidacy for the House of Representatives in 1968 and 1970, losing the Democratic primary both times, but won election to the House in 1980, representing the 2nd District on Chicago's South Side for 6 terms, from January 1981 to January 1993.
Savage was criticized for racist and anti-Semitic statements against both white and Jewish people. Savage once gave a speech in which he listed the names of all of the Jewish donors living outside of the Chicago area who donated money to his opponent. This led to a backlash, to which Savage responded that only white people could be racist.
In 1989, Savage was accused of trying to force himself on a female Peace Corps worker in Zaire. He denied the allegations and blamed them on the "racist press." The House Ethics Committee decided that the events did indeed occur, but it did not take disciplinary action only because Savage wrote a letter of apology.
Savage had long been controversial even in his own district, never winning a primary election with more than 52% of the vote, and usually facing multiple challengers. For the 1992 election, his district had been extended further into Chicago's south suburbs by redistricting and Savage faced Mel Reynolds, who had challenged him in the 1988 and 1990 primaries. Savage claimed that "racist Jews" were donating to Reynolds, while Reynolds claimed that Savage was involved in a drive-by shooting that injured him. Although Savage accused Reynolds of staging the shooting, he lost the 1992 election to Reynolds by a margin of 63%-37%.
In one of his final acts as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, excavation and construction at the site of the African Burial Ground in New York City was temporarily halted in 1992, pending further evaluation by the General Services Administration, after Savage was able to leverage his reputation as a national political figure to bring attention to the more controversial aspects of the project.
Savage died on October 31, 2015, one day after his 90th birthday.
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