Black Facts = 1907- Dr.Robert Clifton Weaver, the first black person to serve in the Cabinet of a U.S. President, was born.
The grandson of Robert Tanner Freeman, the first African American, Harvard-educated dentist, Weaver followed his grandfather’s footsteps and enrolled at Harvard after graduation from Dunbar High School. At Harvard he majored in economics and graduated cum laude in 1929. Two years later he received a master’s from Harvard. After teaching economics one year at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, Weaver returned to Harvard in 1932 on a scholarship and pursued a Ph.D. in economics conferred in 1934.
Deeply concerned that African Americans receive their fair share from the New Deal, Weaver joined Clark Foreman as an adviser on African American affairs for Harold Ickes’ Department of the Interior. Under Weaver’s prodding, the DOI’s Public Works Administration (PWA) achieved a fine record for its treatment of African Americans. The Harvard economist particularly made sure that they received adequate consideration in PWA-sponsored public housing. Weaver remained in the federal government until 1944, serving in a number of advisory roles with the United States Housing Authority, the National Defense Advisory Commission, the Office of Production Management, the War Production Board, and the War Manpower Commission.
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