Post by : T Cole

“This country cannot afford either overt or subtle appeals to prejudice and hostility. We cannot risk the coming of a day when the United States turns to the world a face distorted by injustice condoned. Nor can we delude ourselves and our allies (for we will not delude our enemies) by insisting that there are easy solutions to international problems. We have a duty to continue the programs, domestic and international, which will result in justice, prosperity and peace.”

Patricia Roberts Harris in her address for the nomination of Lyndon B. Johnson for President- Democratic National Convention  August 26, 1984.

Patricia Roberts Harris was born in Mattoon, IL on May 31, 1924.  She attended school in Chicago, and went on to get her Bachelor of Arts from Howard graduating summa cum laude.  She then served as Assistant Director of the American Council of Human Rights in Washington.  She later received her doctorate in Jurisprudence from George Washington University Law School in 1950, immediately entered the D.C. bar and was admitted to practice before the U.S. State Supreme Court.  She also served as a trial attorney at he US Dept of Justice, associate dean of students and lecturer of law at Howard University, co-chairman of the National Women’s Committee on Civil Rights (under JFK), and many other accomplishments listed below. 

1964, Harris became the first black woman ambassador when President Lyndon Johnson named her ambassador to Luxembourg. In 1972, she was elected permanent chairman of the Democratic National Convention. In 1977, she was appointed to President Jimmy Carter’s cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). During her tenure at HUD, she created and enacted the first National Urban Policy. In 1980, she became professor of law at the George Washington National Law Center.

She received many honors and degrees included being named Woman of the Year by the Ladies Home Journal and receiving the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award. She achieved many firsts, among them: the first black female cabinet member, first black female ambassador, first black to serve in the United Nations, first black female on major corporate boards, first black female to chair a national political party committee, first black female to participate in a presidential nomination, first female to serve as dean of a law school, and first black, and only woman to serve in three cabinet level positions.

Harris achieved so much in her lifetime faced with barriers and crossing hurdles unimagineable in our generation.  She worked feverishly in the fight for civil rights and justice in the U.S.  She died of cancer on March 23, 1985, but her legacy still lives on.

Source: Suite101.com

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