[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7874-S7875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ROBERT C. WEAVER

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Dr. Robert C. Weaver, adviser to 
three Presidents, director of the NAACP, and the first African-American 
Cabinet Secretary, passed away last week at his home in New York City. 
Dr. Weaver spent his entire life broadening opportunities for 
minorities in America. I rise today to pay tribute to this great man.
  Dr. Weaver began his career in government service as part of 
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's ``Black Cabinet,'' an informal 
advisory group promoting job and educational opportunities for blacks. 
The Washington Post called this work his greatest legacy, the 
dismantling of a deeply entrenched system of racial segregation in 
America.
  In 1960 he became the president of the NAACP, and would become a key 
adviser to President Kennedy on civil rights. Dr. Weaver was appointed 
in 1961 to the Housing and Home Finance Agency, an organization that 
later became the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1966, 
when President Johnson elevated the agency to Cabinet rank, Dr. Weaver 
was, in Johnson's phrase, ``the man for the

[[Page S7875]]

job.'' He thus became its first Secretary, and the first African-
American to head a Cabinet agency.
  Following his government service, Weaver was, among various other 
academic pursuits, a professor at Hunter College, a member of the 
School of Urban and Public Affairs at Carnegie-Mellon, and the 
president of Baruch College in Manhattan. Dr. Weaver earned 
undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees in economics from Harvard, 
wrote four books on urban affairs, and was one of the original 
directors of the Municipal Assistance Corp. designed to rescue 
financially strapped New York City in the 1970's.
  America, and Washington in particular, has lost one of its 
innovators, one of its creators and one of its true leaders--for Robert 
Weaver, like so few of leaders today, led not only with his words but 
more importantly with his deeds.
  I ask that an editorial in Monday's Washington Post and an obituary 
from Saturday's New York Times be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

               [From the Washington Post, July 21, 1997]

                            Robert C. Weaver

       Native Washingtonian Robert C. Weaver, who died on Thursday 
     in New York City at age 89, had a life of many firsts. Dr. 
     Weaver served as a college president, Cabinet secretary, 
     presidential adviser, chairman of the National Association 
     for the Advancement of Colored People and as a director of 
     the Municipal Assistance Corp., which helped save New York 
     City from financial catastrophe. But his greatest legacy may 
     be the work he did, largely out of public view, to dismantle 
     a deeply entrenched system of racial segregation in America.
       Before the landmark decade of civil rights advances in the 
     1960s, Dr. Weaver was one of a small group of African 
     American officials in the New Deal era who, as part of the 
     ``Black Cabinet'' pressured President Franklin D. Roosevelt 
     to strike down racial barriers in government employment, 
     housing and education. It was a long way to come for the 
     Dunbar High School graduate who ran into racial 
     discrimination in the 1920s when he tried to join a union 
     fresh out of high school. Embittered by that experience, Bob 
     Weaver went on to Harvard (in the footsteps of his 
     grandfather, the first African American Harvard graduate in 
     dentistry) to earn his bachelor's, master's and doctorate in 
     economics. At another time in America, his university degrees 
     might have led to another career path. For Bob Weaver in 
     1932, however, those credentials--and his earlier job as a 
     college professor--made him an ``associate advisor on Negro 
     affairs'' in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
       Subsequent work as an educator, economist and national 
     housing expert--and behind-the-scenes recruitment of scores 
     of African Americans for public service--led to his 
     appointment as New York State rent administrator, making him 
     the first African American with state cabinet rank. President 
     John F. Kennedy appointed him to the highest federal post 
     ever occupied by an African American--the Housing and Home 
     Finance Agency. Despite the president's support, however, the 
     HHFA never made it to Cabinet status, because Dr. Weaver was 
     its administrator and southern legislators rebelled at the 
     thought of a black secretary. Years later President Lyndon 
     Johnson pushed through the Department of Housing and Urban 
     Development and named Robert Weaver to the presidential 
     Cabinet.
       For the nation, and Robert Weaver, the appointment was 
     another important first. For many other African Americans who 
     found lower barriers and increased opportunity in the last 
     third of the 20th century, Robert Weaver's legacy is lasting.

                [From the New York Times, July 19, 1997]

         Robert C. Weaver, 90, First Black Cabinet Member, Dies

                           (By James Barron)

       Dr. Robert C. Weaver, the first Secretary of Housing and 
     Urban Development and the first black person appointed to the 
     Cabinet, died on Thursday at his home in Manhattan. He was 
     90.
       Dr. Weaver was also one of the original directors of the 
     Municipal Assistance Corporation, which was formed to rescue 
     New York City from financial crisis in the 1970's.
       ``He was a catalyst with the Kennedys and then with 
     Johnson, forging new initiatives in housing and education,'' 
     said Walter E. Washington, the first elected Mayor of the 
     nation's capital.
       A portly, pedagogical man who wrote four books on urban 
     affairs, Dr. Weaver had made a name for himself in the 1930's 
     and 1940's as an expert behind-the-scenes strategist in the 
     civil rights movement. ``Fight hard and legally,'' he said, 
     ``and don't blow your top.''
       As a part of the ``Black Cabinet'' in the administration of 
     President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. Weaver was one of a 
     group of blacks who specialized in housing, education and 
     employment. After being hired as race relations advisers in 
     various Federal agencies, they pressured and persuaded the 
     White House to provide more jobs, better educational 
     opportunities and equal rights.
       Dr. Weaver began in 1933 as an aide to Interior Secretary 
     Harold L. Ickes. He later served as a special assistant in 
     the housing division of the Works Progress Administration, 
     the National Defense Advisory Commission, the War Production 
     Board and the War Manpower Commission.


   a behind-the-scenes civil rights strategist during the 1930's and 
                                 1940's

       Shortly before the 1940 election, he devised a strategy 
     that defused anger among blacks about Stephen T. Early, 
     President Roosevelt's press secretary. Arriving at 
     Pennsylvania Station in New York, Early lost his temper when 
     a line of police officers blocked his way. Early knocked one 
     of the officers, who happened to be black, to the ground. As 
     word of the incident spread, a White House adviser put 
     through a telephone call to Dr. Weaver in Washington.
       The aide, worried that the incident would cost Roosevelt 
     the black vote, told Dr. Weaver to find the other black 
     advisers and prepare a speech that would appeal to blacks for 
     the President to deliver the following week.
       Dr. Weaver said he doubted that he could find anyone in the 
     middle of the night, even though most of the others in the 
     ``Black Cabinet'' had been playing poker in his basement when 
     the phone rang. ``And anyway,'' he said, ``I don't think a 
     mere speech will do it. What we need right now is something 
     so dramatic that it will make the Negro voters forget all 
     about Steve Early and the Negro cop too.''
       Within 48 hours, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was the first black 
     general in the Army; William H. Hastie was the first black 
     civilian aide to the Secretary of War, and Campbell C. 
     Johnson was the first high-ranking black aide to the head of 
     the Selective Service.
       Robert Clifton Weaver was born on Dec. 29, 1907, in 
     Washington. His father was a postal worker and his mother--
     who he said influenced his intellectual development--was the 
     daughter of the first black person to graduate from Harvard 
     with a degree in dentistry. 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.
       In 1960, after serving as the New York State Rent 
     Commissioner, Dr. Weaver became the national chairman of the 
     National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 
     and President Kennedy sought Dr. Weaver's advice on civil 
     rights. The following year, the President appointed him 
     administrator of the House and Home Finance Agency, a loose 
     combination of agencies that included the bureaucratic 
     components of what would eventually become H.U.D., including 
     the Federal Housing Administration to spur construction, the 
     Urban Renewal Administration to oversee slum clearance and 
     the Federal National Mortgage Association to line up money 
     for new housing.
       President Kennedy tried to have the agency raised to 
     Cabinet rank, but Congress balked. Southerners led an attack 
     against the appointment of a black to the Cabinet, and there 
     were charges that Dr. Weaver was an extremist. Kennedy 
     abandoned the idea of creating an urban affairs department. 
     Five years later, when President Johnson revived the idea and 
     pushed it through Congress, Senators who had voted against 
     Dr. Weaver the first time around voted for him.
       Past Federal housing programs had largely dealt with 
     bricks-and-mortar policies. Dr. Weaver said Washington needed 
     to take a more philosophical approach. ``Creative federalism 
     stresses local initiative, local solutions to local 
     problems,'' he said.
       But, he added, ``where the obvious needs for action to meet 
     an urban problem are not being fulfilled, the Federal 
     Government has a responsibility at least to generate a 
     thorough awareness of the problem.''
       Dr. Weaver, who said that ``you cannot have physical 
     renewal without human renewal,'' pushed for better-looking 
     public housing by offering awards for design. He also 
     increased the amount of money for small businesses displaced 
     by urban renewal and revived the long-dormant idea of Federal 
     rent subsidies for the elderly.
       Later in his life, he was a professor of urban affairs at 
     Hunter College, was a member of the Visiting Committee at the 
     School of Urban and Public Affairs at Carnegie-Mellon 
     University and held visiting professorships at Columbia 
     Teachers' College and the New York University School of 
     Education. He also served as a consultant to the Ford 
     Foundation and was the president of Baruch College in 
     Manhattan in 1969. His wife, Ella, died in 1991. Their son, 
     Robert Jr., died in 1962.

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