(CNN) – Herbert “Bertie” Bowman, the longest-serving African-American congressional staffer in history who worked on Capitol Hill for more than 60 years, died Wednesday, according to a spokesperson for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He was 92.
According to his autobiography “Step by Step,” at 13, Bowman imagined Washington, DC could offer him a different path than his South Carolina family farm. He “fantasized” about a life “up the road,” where he could be lost in a bustling city. After a chance meeting with the late Democratic Sen. Burnet Maybank of South Carolina, his “fantasy became an obsession,” he wrote.
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