Ron Dellums, US lawmaker who led push for sanctions against South Africa, dead at 82

Former California congressman Ron Dellums, who first won election to Capitol Hill as an anti-Vietnam War candidate and later led a 15-year effort to enact U.S. sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid government, died on Monday at age 82.

Dellums’ death, at his home in Washington following a battle with cancer, was confirmed in statements from his family and his successor in the U.S. House of Representatives, fellow Democrat Barbara Lee, who got her start in Congress as an intern in his office.

Dellums, a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and one of Capitol Hill’s most unabashed and tenacious liberal voices, retired from the U.S. House of Representatives in early 1998 after 27 years.

Dellums’ death, at his home in Washington following a battle with cancer, was confirmed in statements from his family and his successor in the U.S. House of Representatives, fellow Democrat Barbara Lee, who got her start in Congress as an intern in his office.

Dellums, a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and one of Capitol Hill’s most unabashed and tenacious liberal voices, retired from the U.S. House of Representatives in early 1998 after 27 years.