Melvin Herbert Evans

Congressman Melvin Evans, the first Black delegate to represent the U.S. Virgin Islands, was elected to Congress in 1978 and served through the 96th Congress (1979-1981). Before Congress, Evans held various medical and public health posts at hospitals and institutions in the United States and the Virgin Islands, including commissioner of health for the Virgin Islands and chairman of the Governor’s Commission on Human Resources. President Richard M. Nixon appointed Evans governor of the Virgin Islands in 1969 and he became the first person popularly elected to the office in 1970. As a physician, Evans used his congressional tenure to promote health care, education, and other areas of concern to his constituents. He served on the Armed Services, Interior and Insular Affairs, and Merchant Marine and Fisheries committees. Evans was attentive to the needs of his unique constituency, securing federal funds to provide the territory’s public education system with additional programs and introducing legislation to alleviate the critical shortage of doctors at local health facilities by permitting foreign physicians to practice in the Virgin Islands. In 1981, President Ronald W. Reagan nominated Evans as United States Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. Evans served in that office until his death in 1984. Evans received a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and an M.D. from the Howard University College of Medicine. He also earned a master’s degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley.