Ex-congressman probed killings of JFK, MLK
CLEVELAND — Former U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes, a 15-term congressman from Ohio who took on tough assignments looking into assassinations and scandals, has died at the age of 90, his family said Wednesday.
He died peacefully at home Tuesday with his wife, Jay, at his side, a month after he announced he had brain and lung cancer.
Stokes was elected to the House in 1968, becoming Ohio’s first black member of Congress and one of its most influential. Just a year earlier, his brother, Carl, had been elected mayor of Cleveland — the first black mayor of a major U.S. city.
The White House issued a statement from President Barack Obama that noted how Stokes overcame hardships while growing up in Cleveland and praised him for his belief that everyone should have a chance to succeed.
“Lou leaves behind an indelible legacy in the countless generations of young leaders that he inspired, and he will be sorely missed,” Obama said.
Stokes headed the House’s Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated the slayings of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the late 1970s. Later, he served on the Iran-Contra investigative committee, where he drew attention for his unflinching interrogation of Lt. Col. Oliver North.
He was just as unflinching with his probe of fellow Democrats when he led the ethics committee investigation of a corruption scandal known as ABSCAM.
Stokes was one of only nine blacks in the 435-member House when he first took office in 1969 and never forgot his roots as the child of poverty and great-grandson of a slave.