African American to serve as the chairman of a regular congressional committee beginning in 1949, leading the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments in the Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses. He chaired its successor, the Committee on Government Operations, in the Eighty-fourth through Ninety-first Congresses. For years he and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. from Harlem, New York, were the only two African-American representatives in Congress. Dawson was also leader of the African-American "submachine" within the Cook County Democratic Organization. In the predominantly African-American wards, Dawson acted as his own political boss, handing out patronage and punishing rivals just as leaders of the larger machine did, such as Richard J. Daley. However, Dawson's machine had to continually support the regular machine in order to retain its own clout. He chose to work on city politics from this stance, rather than to conduct open civil rights challenges, and did not support the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago in the 1960s. Dawson undercut the nascent efforts of the Chicago Housing Authority in the early 1950s to integrate Black residents into white neighborhoods because those neighborhoods were outside Dawson's district and, hence, not votes he could deliver to the machine. Dawson advised 1960 presidential candidate John F. Kennedy not to "use the phrase 'civil rights' in his speeches, because it might hurt the feelings of Dawson's Southern friends in Congress -- friends who had given Dawson control over many jobs in federal agencies." President Kennedy offered Dawson the position of United States Postmaster General as a reward for his work on Kennedy's 1960 election campaign. Dawson declined, as he believed that he could accomplish more in the House. Dawson died of pneumonia in Chicago on November 9, 1970. He was cremated, and his ashes were placed in the columbarium in the Griffin Funeral Home in Chicago. Electoral history See also List of African-American United States representatives List of African American activists List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99) Notes References African American Registry: William L. Dawson, "Windy City" congressman". Note: This source contains some minor factual discrepancies with the Congressional Bioguide; the Bioguide has been treated as authoritative when in conflict. Further reading Manning, Christopher. William L. Dawson and the Limits of Black Electoral Leadership. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009 "William Levi Dawson", in Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007, Office of History & Preservation,