--- title: John Dingell Dies: The Congressman's Most Important Vote description: Rep. John Dingell Jr., American history's longest-serving Congressman, identified a 1964 vote as his most important. canonical: https://time.com/5524222/john-dingell-most-important-vote/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-08T03:01:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:43:03.067Z article:section: History og:title: John Dingell Dies: The Congressman's Most Important Vote og:description: It was in 1964 og:url: https://time.com/5524222/john-dingell-most-important-vote/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d8c97e8a56ddca8/698944c2457a52610fd60760/dingell.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: John D. Dingell Jr. Showing Name Plate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Dingell Dies: The Congressman's Most Important Vote twitter:description: It was in 1964 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d8c97e8a56ddca8/698944c2457a52610fd60760/dingell.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Inside the 'Single Most Important Vote' of John Dingell's Record-Breaking Career  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Feb 8, 2019 3:01 AM UTC  Rep. John D. Dingell Jr., (D) Michigan, elected to succeed his late father and to become the youngest member of the House of Representatives, is shown as he took over the senior Dingell's quarters in the House Office building, name plate and all, on Jan. 5, 1956. Rep. John D. Dingell Jr., (D) Michigan, elected to succeed his late father and to become the youngest member of the House of Representatives, is shown as he took over the senior Dingell's quarters in the House Office building, name plate and all, on Jan. 5, 1956.Bettmann/Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Feb 8, 2019 3:01 AM UTC The career of the longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history, John David Dingell Jr., who [died Thursday in his home state of Michigan at 92](http://time.com/5524802/michigan-democrat-john-dingell-dies-92/), was one of many votes. But out of all the votes that the Detroit-area Congressman cast during his nearly 60 years in the House of Representatives, one stood out. His [“the single most important vote”](https://history.house.gov/OralHistory/Detail?id=15032404818) of all, he said as part of an oral-history recorded in 2012, was his _yea_ vote for the [Civil Rights Act](http://time.com/2891282/civil-rights-act-1964-50th-anniversary/) in 1964. Dingell had arrived at Congress at the height of segregation, having been elected to replace his Michigan-Congressman father, who had died in 1955, just two weeks after [Rosa Parks](http://time.com/4125377/rosa-parks-60-years-video/) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus. Nearly a decade into Dingell’s Congressional career, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s [Civil Rights Act](http://time.com/3911037/civil-rights-act-1964/) came before Congress. After Dingell helped get the 1964 bill passed, he faced a difficult primary. Redistricting meant that he was up against another incumbent Congressman, John Lesinski, with whom he had much in common, including a Polish family background and fathers who had also served in Congress. The big difference between them — and likely the topic that would drive voters in one way or the other — was on the issue of race, as TIME [described](http://time.com/vault/issue/1964-09-11/page/45/) it back then: --- > “” --- Dingell’s victory, the magazine surmised, was a solid piece of evidence that the country had come further on civil rights than some had feared. To Dingell, however, the fear of possible backlash was less influential than another motivating factor: doing what he felt was right. “I very nearly lost an election over it. But it was the right thing to do. It was the single vote that did the most to see to it that our country remained one and to finally begin the solution of the problems that triggered the Civil War,” he once [told](https://www.washingtonian.com/2013/06/18/john-dingell-reflects-on-more-than-5-decades-in-congress/) an interviewer, “I was challenged in an election in which the _Wall Street Journal_ gave me a 1 in 15 chance of winning. It was a hard-fought campaign in which I asked people: Why is it that a white man or woman should be able to vote and an African-American should not?” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5524222/john-dingell-most-important-vote/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5524222/john-dingell-most-important-vote/"},"headline":"Inside the 'Single Most Important Vote' of John Dingell's Record-Breaking Career","datePublished":"2019-02-08T03:01:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:43:03.067Z","description":"It was in 1964","url":"https://time.com/5524222/john-dingell-most-important-vote/","keywords":["remembrance","politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d8c97e8a56ddca8/698944c2457a52610fd60760/dingell.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Olivia B. 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