[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 19 (Tuesday, March 3, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1255-S1257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. MOYNIHAN (for himself, Mr. Kerry, and Ms. Moseley-Braun):
  S. 1700. A bill to designate the headquarters building of the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, District of 
Columbia, as the ``Rovert C. Weaver Federal Building''; to the 
Committee on Environment and Public Works.


     the robert c. weaver federal building designation act of 1997

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to name 
the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters here in Washington 
after Dr. Robert C. Weaver, adviser to three Presidents, director of 
the NAACP, and the first African-American Cabinet Secretary. I am 
pleased that Senators Kerry and Moseley-Braun are co-sponsors of my 
bill. I would point out that Senator Kerry was poised to introduce 
similar legislation; in fact, he sent out a Dear Colleague on the 
subject last November. But he graciously deferred to me, and I am most 
appreciative. Bob Weaver was my friend, dating back more than 40 years 
to our service together in the Harriman administration. He passed away 
last July at his home in New York City after spending his entire life 
broadening opportunities for minorities in America. I think it is a 
fitting tribute to name the HUD building after 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 educational and job opportunities for blacks. 
The Washington Post

[[Page S1256]]

called this work his greatest legacy, the dismantling of a deeply 
entrenched system of racial segregation in America. Indeed it was.
  Dr. Weaver was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Housing for New York 
State in 1955, and later became State Rent Administrator with Cabinet 
rank. It was during these years working for New York Governor Averell 
Harriman that I first met Bob; I was Assistant to the Secretary to the 
Governor and later, Acting Secretary.
  Our friendship and collaboration continued under the Kennedy and 
Johnson administrations. In 1960, he became the president of the NAACP, 
and shortly thereafter would become a key adviser to President Kennedy 
on civil rights. In 1961, Kennedy appointed Dr. Weaver to head the 
Housing and Home Finance Agency, an entity 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 job.'' He thus became its first 
Secretary, and the first African-American to head a Cabinet agency. 
Later, he and I served together on the Pennsylvania Avenue Commission.
  Following his government service, Dr. 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, a visiting 
professor at Columbia Teacher's College and New York University's 
School of Education, and the president of Baruch College in Manhattan. 
When I became director of the Joint Center for Urban Studies at MIT and 
Harvard, he generously agreed to be a member of the Board of Directors.
  Dr. Weaver had earned his undergraduate, master's, and doctoral 
degrees in economics from Harvard; he wrote four books on urban 
affairs; and he was one of the original directors of the Municipal 
Assistance Corporation, which designed the plan to rescue New York City 
during its tumultuous financial crisis in the 1970s.
  Last July, America--and Washington in particular (for he was a native 
Washingtonian)--lost one of its innovators, one of its creators, one of 
its true leaders. For Dr. Robert Weaver led not only with his words but 
with his deeds. I was privileged to know him as a friend. He will be 
missed but properly memorialized, I think, if we can pass this 
legislation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my bill, and a July 21, 
1997 editorial in the Washington Post, and a July 19, 1997 obituary 
from the New York Times be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                S. 1700

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. DESIGNATION OF ROBERT C. WEAVER FEDERAL BUILDING.

       In honor of the first Secretary of Housing and Urban 
     Development, the headquarters building of the Department of 
     Housing and Urban Development located at 451 Seventh Street, 
     SW., in Washington, District of Columbia, shall be known and 
     designated as the ``Robert C. Weaver Federal Building''.

     SEC. 2. REFERENCES.

       Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, 
     or other record of the United States to the building referred 
     to in section 1 shall be deemed to be a reference to the 
     ``Robert C. Weaver Federal Building''.
                                  ____


               [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, 89, 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 
     89.
       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.
       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

[[Page S1257]]

     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 Housing 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.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I join Senator Moynihan in supporting his 
legislation to designate the headquarters building of the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C. as the ``Robert C. 
Weaver Federal Building.''
  Robert Weaver was a stalwart leader in the fight to build a society 
free from racial prejudice and discrimination. He spent his life in a 
pursuit of equality and a campaign to end all forms of discrimination 
based on race.
  Dr. Weaver was a member of ``the black cabinet'' which sought to 
ensure that the new government projects of the New Deal applied to and 
benefitted minority groups during the Roosevelt Administration. His 
personal crusade led for civil rights led to the selection of the first 
African-American to be a general in the Army, the naming of the first 
African-American to be a civilian aide to the Secretary of War, and the 
appointment of the first African-American to be a high-ranking aide to 
the head of the Selective Service.
  In 1955, Dr. Weaver began a long career in housing when he was 
appointed Deputy Commissioner of Housing for the State of New York. 
Later that year, he became the state rent administrator. In 1960, Dr. 
Weaver was selected to be the vice-chairman of the New York City 
Housing Redevelopment Board, a three-member body responsible for 
administering the city's urban renewal and moderate-income housing 
programs.
  Dr. Weaver's reputation as a skilled housing policy and program 
practitioner soon extended well beyond New York. President John K. 
Kennedy named Dr. Weaver as Administrator of the Federal Housing and 
Home Finance Agency, and President Lyndon Johnson nominated him to be 
the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development when the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development was formed in 1966.
  Dr. Weaver's leadership and vision set the course for the future of 
the housing and urban redevelopment industries. Past Federal housing 
programs had focused largely on ``bricks-and-mortar'' policies, but Dr. 
Weaver believed that ``you cannot have physical renewal without human 
renewal.'' His principal concern was to raise the standard of urban 
housing and to move away from the bleak high rise projects that scarred 
the urban landscape and were the origins of many inner city social 
problems that were just beginning to be recognized. He used all of his 
various positions and considerable experience to advocate effective 
public programs to house all Americans and to revitalize communities.
  He was a true visionary who fought to expand the possibilities of all 
Americans. I can think of no better person to name the first building 
to house the Department of Housing and Urban Development than Dr. 
Robert Clifton Weaver, the first African-American Cabinet member in New 
York State, the first African-American member of a President's cabinet, 
and the federal government's first Secretary of Housing and Urban 
Development. This tribute is even more fitting because Robert Weaver, 
along with then Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey and others, laid the 
cornerstone of this building during his tenure as Secretary.
                                 ______