Former U.S. Rep. Katie Hall, the first Black representative from Indiana and a key architect in the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, died Feb. 20. She was 73.
Hall’s husband, John Henry Hall, told the Associated Press that his wife passed away at Methodist Hospitals’ Northlake campus in Gary, Ind. from an undisclosed illness.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of which Hall was a member, issued statements of condolences to their former colleague’s family.
“On behalf of the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, I want to express my deepest condolences to the friends and family of Congresswoman Katie Hall,” said current CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). “I am grateful to now chair the organization Congresswoman Katie Hall contributed much to during her public service in the United States Congress.”
Hall best known for her role in securing the 1983 legislation that created MLK Day. Though a freshman legislator at the time, Hall used her role as chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Subcommittee to boost the bill, which had been mired in the House for 14 years.
John Henry Hall said this bill was the greatest legacy of his wife, who succeeded despite her modest upbringing on her grandfather’s cotton farm in Mound Bayou, Miss.
“She was there with President Reagan as well as Coretta Scott King and others when the president signed it. It was one of the highlights of her career, tremendously so,” he told the AP.
Cleaver added, “Even though her long career in public service has now ended, her legacy lives on every third Monday in January and beyond.”
A former school teacher, Hall dove into politics in 1962 after moving to Gary, Ind. She worked on the campaign for Richard Hatcher when he first ran for City Council and later helped him become one of the first Black mayors of a large U.S. city when he won the seat of mayor of Gary.
She served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1974 to 1976 and in the Indiana Senate from 1976 to 1982. In 1982, she joined the U.S. House of Representatives, but was defeated in the 1984 Democratic primary.
Hall’s public service was marred by scandal in 2003 when, holding the position at the time of Gary’s city clerk, pleaded guilty to mail fraud as part of a deal with federal prosecutors on 20 felony public corruption charges.
Hall’s husband said, however, that his wife should be remembered for her greater contributions to the nation.
“She left a great legacy of love and concern for city, state and country as well as humanity, and her great work rising from the cotton fields of Mississippi to serve in the Congress of the United States of America,” he said.