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This book publicity case study outlines Coriolis Company’s work for Marion Orr’s House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs, Jr., from The University of California Press on September 16, 2025. In the first biography of Congressman Charles C. Diggs Jr., political scientist Marion Orr reveals the “politics of strategic moderation” that made Michigan’s first Black congressman one of the civil rights era’s most consequential yet overlooked federal legislators. Orr argues that Diggs’s quiet approach, exemplified by his founding of the Congressional Black Caucus and his work to ignite the American anti-apartheid movement, proved more effective than the militant or conservative styles of his better-known Black contemporaries, restoring a legislative lion to his deserved place in American political history.
Events
August 27, 2025, Banning Books is Banning History, moderated by Charles Coleman, Jr., hosted by Union Chapel, Oak Bluffs, MA
September 19, 2025, House of Diggs: A Conversation on Power, Race, and Redemption in Black Political Life, in conversation with Ben Talton, hosted by Sankofa Video Books & Cafe, Washington, DC
September 29, 2025, House of Diggs, a Book Talk with Dr. Marion Orr, Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Room: Joukwosky Forum (155), hosted by Brown University, RI
October 4, 2025, Meet the Author – Dr. Marion Orr with Professor Wendy Schiller, hosted by Books on the Square, Providence, RI
October 8, 2025, House of Diggs, in conversation with Pastor Carl Balark, hosted by Ebenezer Baptist Church, Providence, RI
October 11, 2025, House of Diggs, in conversation with G.K. Butterfield, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC
October 25, 2025, Book Event hosted by Barnes & Noble, Dallas, TX
November 4, 2025, Book Event hosted by Eight Cousins – Falmouth Public Library, Falmouth, MA
November 6, 2025, House of Diggs: A Conversation on Power, Race, and Redemption in Black Political Life, in conversation with Honorable Edward C. Clifton, hosted by William Hall Library – Auditorium, RI
November 11, 2025, Book Event hosted by Flyleaf, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI
November 12, 2025, Book Event hosted by Bookbug, Kalamazoo, MI
November 13, 2025, Book Event hosted by 2 Dandelions Bookshop, Brighton, MI
November 18, 2025, Book Event with Hon. Edward C. Clifton, hosted by Possible Futures, New Haven, CT
December 5, 2025, Book Event hosted by Stanford Books, Stanford, CA
December 6, 2025, Book Event hosted by Multicultural Bookstore, Richmond, CA
December 6, 2025, Peninsula Book Collaborative, Daly City, CA
February 10, 2026, Book Event hosted by Montclair Public Library with Domingo Morel, Montclair, NJ
Interviews
September 24, 2025, “House of Diggs with Professor Marion Orr,” In Black America
September 25, 2025, “Dr. Michael Lomax and Marion Orr join Tavis Smiley,” The Tavis Smiley Show
October 1, 2025, “Policy & Progress,” The Conversation with Al McFarlane
October 6, 2025, “House of Diggs,” The Bronx Social Justice and Anti-Violence Forums
October 6, 2025, “House of Diggs,” New Books Network
October 7, 2025, “House of Diggs,” WWJ Newsradio 950
October 7, 2025, “The House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s most consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr., Talking with author Professor Marion Orr,” The San Francisco Experience
— Curiosity Invited, recorded
— This Week in Black History, Society, and Culture, recorded
— The Academic Life, recorded
— Unsolicited Perspectives, scheduled
— The Mitchell Center Podcast, scheduled
— Publisher’s Studio, scheduled
— This Day, scheduled
Reviews and Features
September 7, 2025, “#REVIEW: House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr., by Marion Orr,” by Luther M. Siler, infinitefreetime.com
September 20, 2025, “Day in My Life as a PhD Candidate at Brown University,” Scholastic Babe
September 26, 2025, “Spotlight: House of Diggs by Marion Orr,” What Is That Book About
September 29, 2025, “House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr.,” Book Club of One
October 5, 2025, “First Biography of Consequential Congressman Rewrites History of Black Political Leadership,” The Buffalo Criterion
“In this highly readable biography, Marion Orr has done a great service to the history of the civil rights movement and to the memory of an overlooked leader of that movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr.” —Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University
— California Review of Books, forthcoming
— Authority, forthcoming
— The Wall Street Journal, forthcoming
— Thy Black Man, forthcoming
— Shepherd, forthcoming
— Deborah Kalb, forthcoming
— The Page 99 Test, forthcoming
Book Publicity Assets
Coriolis also provided 464 visual book marketing assets for use on Ericka’s website and social media. These consisted of 384 graphics and 80 video assets.
*This post was last updated on May 16, 2025.
