Deval Patrick

Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician, author, businessman, and former civil rights lawyer who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015.

Patrick was born on July 31, 1956, in the South Side of Chicago, where his family resided in a two-bedroom apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes' housing projects.

Patrick is the son of Emily Mae (née Wintersmith) and Pat Patrick, a jazz musician associated with Sun Ra.

In 1959, Patrick's father abandoned their family in order to play music in New York City, and because he had fathered a daughter, La'Shon Anthony, by another woman.

Deval reportedly had a strained relationship with his father, who opposed his choice of high school, but they eventually reconciled.

Patrick was raised by his mother, who traces her roots to American slaves in Kentucky.

While Patrick was in middle school, one of his teachers referred him to A Better Chance, a national non-profit organization for identifying, recruiting and developing leaders among academically gifted minority students, which enabled him to attend Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts.

Patrick graduated from Milton Academy in 1974 and went on to attend college, the first in his family.

He graduated from Harvard College, where he was a member of the Fly Club, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in English and American literature, in 1978.

At Harvard, Patrick won "Best Oralist" in the Ames Moot Court Competition, in 1981.

Among the competition's judges was Judge Henry Friendly.

Patrick graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D., cum laude, in 1982.

He proceeded to fail the State Bar of California exam twice, before passing on his third try.

Patrick then served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for one year.

In 1983, he joined the staff of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), where he worked on death penalty and voting rights cases.

While at LDF, he met Bill Clinton, the then Governor of Arkansas, when he sued Clinton in a voting case.

In 1986, he joined the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow and was named partner in 1990, at the age of 34.

While at Hill & Barlow, he managed high-profile engagements such as acting as Desiree Washington's attorney in her civil lawsuit against Mike Tyson.

He was the first African-American Governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic Governor of the state since Michael Dukakis left office in 1991.

Patrick served from 1994 to 1997 as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Bill Clinton.

In 1994, Bill Clinton appointed him as the United States assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice, where he worked on issues including racial profiling and police misconduct.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton nominated Patrick as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, and he was subsequently confirmed by the United States Senate.

Federal affirmative action policy was under judicial and political review, and Patrick defended Clinton's policy.

Patrick also worked on issues including racial profiling, police misconduct, and the treatment of incarcerated criminals."

Between 1995 and 1997, Patrick coordinated an investigation into a series of arsons of predominantly black churches across the South.

The investigation brought together a number of state and federal agencies, and was the largest federal investigation in history until the time of 9/11.

In the end, more than 100 arrests were made, but no evidence of national or regional conspiracy was found.

He was first elected governor in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney, who chose not to run for reelection, and was reelected in 2010.

During his governorship, Patrick oversaw the implementation of the state's 2006 health care reform program which had been enacted under Mitt Romney, increased funding to education and life sciences, won a federal Race to the Top education grant, passed an overhaul of governance of the state transportation function, signing a law to create the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, increased the state sales tax from 5% to 6.25%, raised the state's minimum wage from $8 per hour to $11 by 2017, and planned the introduction of casinos to the state.

Under Patrick, Massachusetts joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Shortly after Patrick's second term began on January 6, 2011, he declared he would not seek re-election in 2014.

After his governorship, Patrick served as managing director at Bain Capital.

He also served as the chairman of the board for Our Generation Speaks, a fellowship program and startup incubator whose mission is to bring together young Israeli and Palestinian leaders through entrepreneurship.

He also holds a board of directors position at telehealth company American Well.

He entered the race on November 14, 2019, but ended his campaign only three months later following a poor showing in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

He was briefly a candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Patrick earned a scholarship to Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, in the eighth grade.

He went on to attend Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

After graduating, he practiced law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later joined a Boston law firm, where he was later named a partner.

Members of his own inner circle and Barack Obama's inner circle encouraged Patrick to run for president in 2020, but Patrick ruled out a 2020 presidential bid in December 2018.