Do You Know Robert Weaver, the Nation’s First Black Cabinet Secretary?

Every February, the United States celebrates both Presidents Day and Black History Month. At first glance, the juxtaposition of these two observances might seem counterproductive. Most of the early presidents owned enslaved people and many presidents advocated outright racist policies long into the 20th century. In many ways, the presidency was built on the forced subjugation of Black Americans — from the wealth that powered political careers and campaigns to the literal construction of the president’s residence. But as these examples demonstrate, Black history and the history of the presidency are intimately intertwined.

Robert Weaver exemplifies this complicated story and is a name that should be studied this February. Weaver was born on Dec. 29, 1907, to a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. He received multiple degrees from Harvard University, including the first Ph.D. in economics conferred on a person of color. Weaver’s expertise focused on housing, and he used his elite economic credentials to demonstrate how discrimination statistically affected the Black community.

In 1934, at just 27 years old, he joined the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, originally serving as an aide to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. As a member of President Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet, Weaver pushed the administration to include Black communities in the New Deal relief programs. He was instrumental in creating the U.S. Housing Administration, where he funneled $50 million into federal housing projects and ensured that all building contracts included a fair employment clause. Not only did he ensure more federal housing was available to Black Americans, but that they would receive equal employment building those sites.

After the outbreak of the war, Weaver joined the National Defense Advisory Commission and the War Manpower Commission and later became the director of the Negro Manpower Service. He held a series of important local and state government positions in both Chicago and New York before returning to the federal government under President John F. Kennedy, whom he had met at Harvard. Weaver served as the administrator of the U.S. Housing Agency while Kennedy worked to obtain congressional approval for a new executive department called the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

(Associated Press)

In 1965, Congress finally created HUD, but the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was initially reluctant to appoint Weaver as Kennedy had promised. LBJ worried that congressmen from the South, where Black voters were still largely disenfranchised, would…