PARREN J. MITCHELL

United States Representative
Democrat of Maryland
Ninety-second – Ninety-ninth Congresses

Parren J. Mitchell, the first black representative from Maryland, was born in Baltimore on April 29, 1922. After graduating from Douglas High School in Baltimore in 1940, he entered the United States Army. In 1942, serving as a commissioned officer and company commander with the Ninety-second Infantry Division, he received a purple heart during the Italian Campaign. Following his discharge in 1946, Mitchell received an A.B. from Morgan State College in 1950 and an M.A. from the University of Maryland in 1952.

He was an instructor of sociology at Morgan State during 1953-1954 and supervisor of probation work for the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City from 1954 to 1957. From 1963 to 1965 he was executive secretary of the Maryland Human Relations Commission overseeing implementation of the state’s public accommodations law. Mitchell was director of the Baltimore Community Action Agency, an anti-poverty program, from 1965 to 1968, when he returned to Morgan State as a professor of sociology and assistant director of its Urban Affairs Institute

In 1969 he became President of the Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc. Mitchell unsuccessfully challenged Seventh District Representative Samuel N. Friedel in the September 1968 Democratic primary, but defeated Friedel in their 1970 rematch and won the general election over Republican Peter Parker. He was sworn in as a member of the Ninety-second Congress on January 3, 1971

A member of the Committee on the Budget and the Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Committee, Mitchell became chairman of the Committee on Small Business at the beginning of the Ninety-seventh Congress in 1981. Throughout his congressional career he directed many of his legislative efforts toward promoting minority-owned businesses.

He sought passage of legislation requiring a fixed percentage of the contracts for federal projects to be set aside for minority firms. In order to provide small business with more opportunity to procure contracts awarded by the Defense Department, he successfully fought to remove department limits on the number of companies permitted to bid for spare parts contracts.

Mitchell was a strong supporter of the Small Business Administration and opposed efforts to increase the interest rates for loans to small businesses and to reduce S.B.A. disaster loans. He opposed the establishment of a sub-minimum wage for people aged eighteen and younger, and called for strong sanctions banning all new investment by United States firms in South Africa. Representative Mitchell retired from Congress in 1986.

In 1980 he founded The Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. (MBEFDEF) and presently services as Chairman of the Board.