Patricia Roberts Harris

• Born: May 31, 1924
• Birthplace: Mattoon, Illinois
• Died: March 23, 1985
• Place of death: Washington, D.C

Cabinet member, diplomat, and lawyer

A pioneer for social justice, Harris achieved a number of historical firsts: She was the first African American woman to be appointed a U.S. ambassador, to become dean of a law school, and to serve in three presidential cabinets, including as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1979-1981).

Early Life

Patricia Roberts Harris was born May 31, 1924, in Mattoon, Illinois. She was the first of two children and only daughter of Hildren C. and “Bert” Fitzgerald Roberts. Bert worked as a railroad porter. When Harris was six years old, her parents separated; she and her younger brother went to live with a great-aunt while Hildren labored to keep the family off of welfare. At age fourteen, Harris and her brother moved to Chicago with their mother. Hildren taught her children to value education and pushed Harris to excel academically.

Harris graduated from Chicago’s Englewood High School in 1941 with multiple scholarship offers. She chose Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she also began her civil rights activism as a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and as vice chair of the campus chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Harris participated in desegregation sit-ins. In 1945, Harris became a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and graduated summa cum laude. She returned to Illinois to pursue graduate work in industrial relations at the University of Chicago. Two years later, she returned to Washington to continue her graduate studies at American University.

In 1953, while assistant director of the American Council on Human Rights, Harris met William Beasley Harris, an attorney and law professor at Howard. They were married on September 1, 1955. William was a devoted supporter and encouraged Harris to pursue a law degree. She graduated from George Washington Law School in 1960, ranked first in her class. Before joining her husband’s law practice, Harris worked as a trial attorney in the Justice Department, where she became friends with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Within a year, Harris joined Howard’s law faculty and quickly rose to full professor.

Life’s Work

Harris served in many Democratic Party leadership positions. She had a reputation for being sharp and strong. As a campaign worker for President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, she was the District of Columbia’s first electoral college delegate for a presidential election. Harris rose to national prominence during the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when she seconded Johnson’s nomination. Johnson had recently signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. Following the election, Johnson appointed Harris as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, a post Johnson held from 1965 to 1967. Her husband closed his law practice to accompany her. After leaving Luxembourg, Harris returned to Howard University, where she became the first black dean of a law school in 1969.

Harris’s most prominent government position came when President Jimmy Carter appointed her secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1976. At HUD, Harris created the first coherent national public housing policy. She helped transform the agency and championed housing for the poor. However, she also weathered criticism from black activists who accused her of not being involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s.

In 1978, Carter nominated Harris for a second cabinet position: secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Upon her appointment, she led the government’s largest agency, which had approximately 160,000 employees and a $182 million budget. Harris directed the department’s Social Security expenditures and administered a thirty-billion-dollar Medicare program in 1979. She also dealt with controversial school desegregation issues. After the Department of Education was established in 1980, Harris continued to serve as secretary of the renamed Department of Health and Human Services until 1981. In 1982, she ran for mayor of Washington but lost to incumbent Marion Barry. Harris taught law at George Washington University until her death from breast cancer in 1985. The Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Program, which honors her achievements, is housed in the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University. The U.S. Postal Service also recognized her many achievements with a black heritage stamp in her honor in January, 2000.

Significance

Harris broke through the glass ceiling many times, taking on roles that no African American woman had held before: United States ambassador, law school dean, and cabinet member. By her life’s end, Harris had become a role model for generations of young African Americans.

Bibliography

Booker, Simeon. “Patricia Harris: Can She Bring the Democrats Together?” Ebony 27, no. 8 (June, 1972): 104-112. Profile offers a detailed account of Harris’s youth, early career, civil rights activism, and stature in the national Democratic Party. Includes more than a dozen photos of Harris preparing for the 1972 Democratic National Convention.

Giddings, Paula. In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. 1988. Reprint. New York: Morrow, 2006. This history of Delta Sigma Theta explores the development and significance of black sororities as support systems for African American female students at universities where they often faced discrimination and segregation. Harris is one of the many high-profile Deltas discussed.

Lynn, Lawrence E., Jr., and David F. Whitman. The President as Policymaker: Jimmy Carter and Welfare Reform. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981. Describes the challenges Harris faced and what she achieved in the Carter administration.

Williams, Elizabeth G. “Patricia Roberts Harris: A Pioneer Champion of Civil Rights and Social Justice.” In Outstanding Women in Public Administration: Leaders, Mentors, and Pioneers, edited by Claire L. Felbinger and Wendy A. Haynes. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2004. Provides a detailed biography and in-depth discussion of Harris’s political career. Illustrated.