Julius Caesar Watts Jr. (18 November 1957-) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-OK 4) from 3 January 1995 to 3 January 2003, succeeding Dave McCurdy and preceding Tom Cole.
Biography[]
Julius Caesar Watts Jr. was born in Eufaula, Oklahoma on 18 November 1957, the son of a Baptist minister who served as the town's first black policeman and later served on the City Council. He grew up in a poor rural African-American neighborhood and he played football as a quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners from 1979 to 1981, the Ottawa Rough Riders from 1981 to 1986, and for the Toronto Argonauts in 1986. On his return to Oklahoma, he became a youth minister in Del City, and he was ordained a Baptist minister in 1993. Despite his family's strong affiliation with the Democratic Party, Watts chose to leave the Democrats and enter politics with the Republican Party in 1989, inspired by the US Senator Don Nickles. He served on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission from 1990 to 1995 and as its chairman from 1993 to 1995. In 1994, he ran for the US House of Representatives as a conservative Republican, supporting the death penalty, school prayer, a balanced budget amendment, and welfare reform, while opposing abortion, gay rights, and reduced defense spending. Watts won the election with 52% of the vote, helped by his football career and his social conservatism, and he served from 1995 to 2003, emphasizing moral absolutes and supporting Newt Gingrich's agenda. In 1995, he served as national co-chairman of Bob Dole's presidential campaign, and, from 1995 to 1997, he and Gary Franks were the only black Republicans serving in the US Congress. In 2000, he criticized the GOP for excluding single mothers from their "family values" platform, for their steadfast opposition to racial quotas, and their refusal to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House. He retired at the 2002 election, and he joined the boards of several companies and founded the "Black News Channel" in 2020.