Congress’ longest-serving Black staffer, Herbert “Bertie” Bowman, who worked his way up from sweeping the steps of the Capitol as a teenager to coordinating one of the Senate’s most important committees, died this week. He was 92.
Bowman died on Wednesday, Oct. 25, at a rehabilitation facility in North Bethesda, Maryland, of complications related to recent heart surgeries, Bowman’s stepdaughter LaUanah King-Cassell told The Washington Post.
Born the fifth of 14 children to sharecroppers in South Carolina, Bowman wrote in his 2008 autobiography “Step by Step” that his life changed in 1944 when, during a visit to his hometown, South Carolina Sen. Burnet Maybank told residents: “If you all ever get up to Washington, D.C., drop by and see me!”
Bowman, 13 at the time, took the senator’s word for it and ran away from home. He paid a visit to Maybank, who helped him secure a job sweeping the Capitol steps for $2 a week, according to his autobiography.
During more than 60 years in D.C., Bowman garnered a reputation for doing it all — he worked as a janitor, a cook and a shoe-shiner. He also bore witness to some of the most consequential periods in U.S. history, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision ending legal segregation in schools, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, among others.
In the 1960s, Bowman became a clerk for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later a hearing coordinator, according to CBS News. In 1966, he joined the U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union as a volunteer on the credit committee and would go on to become a board member and chair.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., now the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, paid tribute to Bowman on Oct. 25.
“To remember the life of Bertie Bowman is to remember his integrity and his steadfast dedication to public service,” Cardin said in a statement. “He imprinted himself on the work and lives of every member that had the privilege to serve…
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