Robert C. Weaver

Robert Clifton Weaver (December 29, 1907 – July 17, 1997) was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States secretary of housing and urban development (HUD) from 1966 to 1968, when the department was newly established by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Weaver was the first African American to be appointed to a US cabinet-level position.

Prior to his appointment as cabinet officer, Weaver had served in the administration of President John F. Kennedy.

In addition, he had served in New York State government, and in high-level positions in New York City.

During the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, he was one of 45 prominent African Americans appointed to positions and helped make up the Black Cabinet, an informal group of African-American public policy advisers.

Robert Clifton Weaver was born on December 29, 1907, into a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. His parents were Mortimer Grover Weaver, a postal worker, and Florence (Freeman) Weaver.

They encouraged him in his academic studies.

His maternal grandfather was Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, the first African American to graduate from Harvard in dentistry.

The young Weaver attended the M Street High School, now known as the Dunbar High School.

The high school for blacks at a time of racial segregation had a national reputation for academic excellence.

Weaver went on to Harvard University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degree.

Weaver directed federal programs during the administration of the New Deal, at the same time completing his doctorate in economics in 1934 at Harvard University.

He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics, completing his doctorate in 1934.

In 1934, Weaver was appointed as an aide to United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes.

With a reputation for knowledge about housing issues, in 1934 the young Weaver was invited to join President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Black Cabinet.

Roosevelt appointed a total of 45 prominent blacks to positions in executive agencies, and called on them as informal advisers on public policy issues related to African Americans, the Great Depression and the New Deal.

Weaver drafted the U.S. Housing Program under Roosevelt, which was established in 1937.

The program was intended to provide financial support to local housing departments, as a subsidy toward lowering the rent poor African Americans had to pay.

The program decreased the average rent from $19.47 per month to $16.80 per month.

Weaver claimed the scope of this program was insufficient, as there were still many African Americans who made less than the average income.

They could not afford to pay for both food and housing.

In addition, generally restricted to segregated housing, African Americans could not necessarily take advantage of other subsidized housing.

In 1938, he became special assistant to the US Housing Authority.

In 1942, he became administrative assistant to the National Defense Advisory Commission, the War Manpower Commission (1942), and director of Negro Manpower Service.

In 1944, Weaver became director of the Commission on Race Relations in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago.

In 1945, he became director of community services for the Chicago-based American Council on Race Relations through 1948.

In 1949, Weaver become director of fellowship opportunities for the John Hay Whitney Foundation.

In 1955, Weaver the first Black State Cabinet member in New York when he became New York State Rent Commissioner under Governor W. Averell Harriman.

In 1960, he became vice chairman of the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board.

In 1961, Weaver became administrator of the United States Housing and Home Financing Agency (HHFA).

After election, Kennedy tried to establish a new cabinet department to deal with urban issues.

It was to be called the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Postwar suburban development, following the construction of highways, and economic restructuring had drawn population and jobs from the cities.

The nation was faced with a stock of substandard, aged housing in many cities, and problems of unemployment.

In 1961, while trying to create HUD, Kennedy had done everything short of promising the new position to Weaver.

He appointed him Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), a group of agencies which Kennedy wanted to raise to cabinet status.

"When Dr. Weaver joined the Kennedy Administration, whose Harvard connections extended to the occupant of the Oval Office, he held more Harvard degrees – three, including a doctorate in economics – than anyone else in the administration's upper ranks."

Some Republicans and southern Democrats opposed the legislation to create the new department.

The following year, Kennedy unsuccessfully tried to use his reorganization authority to create the department.

As a result, Congress passed legislation prohibiting presidents from using that authority to create a new cabinet department, although the previous Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower administration had created the cabinet-level U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under that authority.