SAN FRANCISCO — Some men have a good week. Rep.-elect Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglass Haynes III is having a month.
On Nov. 3, voters in Texas’s 30th Congressional District sent him to the U.S. House. On Tuesday, Nov. 10, he turned 66. By Thursday he was standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with the rest of the incoming freshman class, in Washington for new member orientation.
“Orientation has been exciting,” Rep.-elect Haynes said.
He is sworn in Jan. 3.
What he says he will work on
Rep.-elect Haynes, Senior Pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas since 1983, has said the new Congress should take on affordability through health care and wages. He supports Medicare for All and a wage people can live on. He is one of six new Democrats in the Texas delegation.
San Francisco saw it coming
This city has a claim on him. He was raised at Third Baptist Church on McAllister Street, where his grandfather, the Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes Sr., was pastor for nearly four decades. The Sun-Reporter told that story the night he won.
Two months before the election, on Sept. 10, he was back in that pulpit as the special guest speaker at The Sun-Reporter’s Black Men: Celebrating Change Makers program. He was a candidate then. Anyone who was in the room knew what kind of congressman he would make.
Watch: Rev. Dr. Haynes at Third Baptist
That is his full speech. He talked about the campaign and about what a community can do when it comes together, and he honored The Sun-Reporter from the pulpit.
The whole celebration is on our site too, with the honorees and special appearances by Mayor Daniel Lurie and former Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. Watch the full program here.
One more thing this month
The 49ers play the Cowboys in his backyard on Sunday. Happy birthday, Congressman-elect. We hope it has been a good one, because we are not sending you a win.
Support 82 years of Black Bay Area journalism. Every story, editorial and Community Voice piece — $20 a year.
