Rep. Hawkins Says He Won’t Run Again; Waters to Seek Seat : Politics: The 82-year-old senior black member of the House will retire at the end of this session.

Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), the senior black member of the House and the first black ever sent to Congress from a Western state, announced Friday that he will retire at the end of this session.

Hawkins, 82, who was elected to Congress in 1962, has been chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee for nearly five years and placed his stamp on such landmark legislation as the fair employment practice provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a series of major education measures.

In his typically quiet, self-effacing way, Hawkins made the announcement in a press release issued late Friday afternoon and was not available for questioning about his decision.

“It is after a great deal of soul-searching that I announce today that I shall retire from the Congress,” he said. “I intend to continue my public service but in a different way.

“While I believe I have accomplished much over the years, there is still a full agenda of issues that must be addressed,” the congressman added. “Equity and excellence in education, basic skills training, proper health and nutrition, full employment, adequate housing, civil rights and drug abuse remain monumental challenges in my community and elsewhere.”

Hawkins’ decision not to seek reelection set off a flurry of activity in Los Angeles’ black political community, which for years has been frustrated over a lack of upward mobility.

Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), among the most prominent black politicians in the country, announced late Friday that she would seek the seat. In political circles, she has long been considered Hawkins’ heir apparent.

“I’m definitely going to do it,” said Waters, whom Hawkins had called early Friday to privately inform of his decision.

While others are almost certain to enter the race, Waters was already being considered the front-runner Friday, given her popularity and the fund-raising abilities previously demonstrated by her and her ally, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). The district, which covers Watts, South Gate and part of Downey, is more than 80% Democratic and mostly black, with a growing Latino population.

Asked if she expected competition, Waters declared: “You never know. There are no obvious ones.”

Waters’ decision to run for the congressional seat will also loosen the political logjam at the state level, and her seat is expected to draw the attention of younger political leaders who have been waiting in the wings.

Mark Ridley-Thomas, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, hinted broadly Friday that other veteran black politicians should follow Hawkins’ lead.

“This is perhaps the beginning of what I expect to be rather significant change in the political leadership of the African-American community over the next three to five years,” he said. “Some of the other change may not be voluntary. . . . It might be useful to others to take note.”

Waters, in a brief interview, said she had not determined whether she would endorse a successor to the seat she has held since 1976.

During almost three decades in Congress, Hawkins remained extremely popular within his district. A former real estate salesman who was elected as the first black member of the California Assembly at the start of the New Deal in 1934, Hawkins served in the state Legislature until his 1962 election to Congress from a newly created black-majority district.

Increasingly frustrated by the cutbacks in education and social programs during President Ronald Reagan’s two terms, Hawkins saw the influence of his Education and Labor Committee wane in the late 1980s. When President Bush took office, however, Hawkins helped enact a pared-down increase in the federal minimum wage to $4.25 an hour. Though the Los Angeles lawmaker felt that was far too little, it was the first increase in the minimum wage since 1981.

Hawkins, who was so light-skinned that he was frequently thought to be white, always took a dispassionate approach to racial matters that sometimes irritated militants of both races.

“Racializing an issue defeats my purpose--which is to get people on my side,” Hawkins once said.

His name is attached to the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, a measure originally intended to guarantee full employment by 1983, with government as the employer of last resort. The bill was watered down considerably during the legislative process, however, and the federal jobs provision was eliminated and unemployment targets were offset by other goals for cutting inflation and the budget.

In an interview last fall, Hawkins seemed melancholy about the strides made by blacks in America, despite the inclusion of blacks in the political process.

“There’s been a lot of activity but I don’t think the activity has been focused; I don’t think it’s paid off,” he said. “The fact is that the housing situation is worse. Certainly, the schools in the low-income areas in particular are worse. . . . The slum conditions have, I think, accelerated if anything.”

But Hawkins was not embittered or resentful, even about his inability to rise higher on the political spectrum.

“I was in a sense trying to do the best I could,” he said last fall. “Politics is not my chosen field.”

However unassuming Hawkins is, his decision Friday to retire unleashed accolades from across Los Angeles.

“Gus Hawkins is synonymous with the poor, the unemployed, the unskilled and untrained black person or minority of any ethnic background in this country,” said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Urban League. “He was not the charismatic kind of speechmaker that some others may have been but he was a doer. He got the job done.”

Ridley-Thomas saluted Hawkins as a “stalwart” liberal who had maintained his integrity through 56 years of public life.

In his statement, Hawkins said he wanted to encourage those who followed in his footsteps with his personal view of public service, as follows:

“The leadership belongs not to the loudest, not to those who beat the drums or blow the trumpets, but to those who day in and day out, in all seasons, work for the practical realization of a better world--those who have the stamina to persist and to remain dedicated. To those belong the leadership.”

Eaton reported from Washington and Decker from Los Angeles.