Robert C. Weaver papers

1869-1970 [bulk 1923-1970]

Robert Clifton Weaver, the first black presidential cabinet officer, served as the first Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Lyndon Baines Johnson. However, this represented only one of a series of important posts in federal, state and municipal governments as well as private foundations, organizations and universities held by Weaver during his long and illustrious career. As economist, public administrator, educator and author, Weaver devoted himself to the multifaceted issues of minority labor and urban problems.

In 1933, Weaver was one of a number of young men drawn to Washington by the New Deal administration, where he received a succession of assignments as adviser on minority problems to various agency administrators. He soon became the leader of “The Black Cabinet” whose efforts resulted in increased participation by and benefit to minority groups in the numerous projects and programs sponsored by the government during this period. His associates in this group included Ralph Bunche (United Nations Undersecretary General), U.S. Court of Appeals Judge William H. Hastie and N.A.A.C.P. Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins. While in the federal service, Weaver also supervised the National Survey of Negro White Collar and Skilled Workers sponsored by the Department of the Interior and served as a consultant both to the T.V.A. and to President Franklin Roosevelt's Advisory Committee on Education.

After World War II, Weaver left the federal government to teach and write on the problems of urban living. His research resulted in numerous articles as well as the following monographs: Negro Labor(1946), The Negro Ghetto(1948), and The Urban Complex(1964).

In 1961, Weaver returned to Washington when President Kennedy appointed him Director of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, which later became the Department of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.). There Weaver tried to stimulate a more aesthetic environment in public housing and to improve relocation policies by increasing funds available to small businessmen displaced by urban renewal. He ensured that the Housing Act of 1961 included grants for recreational and scenic areas and pushed through the controversial Section 221d3, giving non-profit corporations cut-rate mortgage loans to provide housing for displaced families of low and moderate income.

Weaver was born and raised in Washington, D.C. His father, Mortimer Grover Weaver was a U.S. postal clerk. Weaver's maternal grandfather, Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, the first black in the United States to earn a doctoral degree in dentistry, graduated from Harvard's dental school with its first class in 1869. Both Weaver and his brother, Mortimer, attended Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. where Weaver had his own electrical business during his senior year. Mortimer Weaver, who graduated from Williams College and Harvard University, was an assistant professor of English at Howard University at the time of his death in 1929 at the age of twenty-three.

Robert Weaver was a Distinguished Professor of Urban Affairs and Director of Urban Research Center at Hunter College. He was also a member of the New York City's Municipal Assistance Corporation, the Rent Stabilization Board, and the Conciliation and Appeals Board of New York City, and has received numerous citations and honorary degrees.

For more detailed information on Weaver's life and career, see Chronology.

Chronology
• 1907, Dec 29 Born in Washington, D.C. to Mortimer Grover Weaver and Florence E. Freeman Weaver.
• 1929 Graduated with a B.S. cum laude from Harvard College where he won the Pasteur Medal and Boylston Speaking Prize.
• 1931 Received an M.A. in economics from Harvard University.
• 1931-1932 Taught economics at the Agricultural and Technical College, Greensboro, North Carolina.
• 1932-1933 Doctoral student and Austin Scholar at Harvard University.
• 1933-1934, Nov Associate Adviser on Negro Affairs, Department of the Interior under Clark Foreman.
• 1934 Received Ph.D. in economics from Harvard with a thesis entitled The High Wage of Prosperity.
• 1934-1938 Adviser on Negro Affairs, Department of the Interior under Secretary Harold L. Ickes and Consultant to the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration.
• 1935, July Married Ella V. Haith, who had graduated from the Drama Department, Carnegie Institute of Technology before receiving an M.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Speech.
• 1938-1940 Special Assistant in charge of race relations to Nathan Straus, Administrator of the U.S. Housing Authority.
• 1940-1942 Administrative Assistant to the Labor Division, National Defense Advisory Commission under Sidney Hillman.
• 1942 Chief, Negro Employment and Training Branch, Labor Division, Office of Production Management.
• 1942-1943 Chief, Negro Employment and Training Branch, Labor Division, War Production Board.
• 1943-1944 Chief, Negro Manpower Service, War Manpower Commission.
• 1944-1945 Executive Director, Mayor's Committee on Race Relations, Chicago.
• 1945-1948 Director, Community Services Division, and later Consultant to the American Council on Race Relations, where he was concerned with intergroup understanding and developing programs and techniques and determining causes for tension in employment, housing, education, law enforcement and community organization.
• 1946, Mar-Aug Supply Officer and Acting Deputy Chief, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's Mission to the Ukraine.
• 1946 Publication of Negro Labor.
• 1947, Summer Visiting Professor of Economics, Teachers College, Columbia University.
• 1947-1948 Lecturer in Economics, Northwestern University.
• 1948 Publication of The Negro Ghetto.
• 1948-1951 Visiting Professor, School of Education, New York University.
• 1949, Summer Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research, Summer Session in Europe.
• 1949-1951 Member of the Fellowship Committee, Julius Rosenwald Fund.
• 1949-1955 Director, Opportunity Fellowships, John Hay Whitney Foundation.
• 1950-1955 Chairman, National Committee against Discrimination in Housing.
• 1952-1954 Member, National Selection Committee, Fulbright Fellowships.
• 1952-1956 Member, Board of Directors, Health and Welfare Council of New York City.
• 1953-1955 Member of the Advisory Committee on Urban Renewal, U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency.
• 1955 Deputy Commissioner of Housing, New York State.
• 1955-1959
  New York State Rent Administrator. The first black to serve in the New York State Cabinet, Weaver advanced a four point program: 1) decreasing the demand among non-whites for middle-income housing in the center of cities. 2) removing the attraction of racial homogeneity from the suburbs. 3) reducing the snob appeal of racial exclusiveness. 4) preventing “tipping” (overbalance) in any open neighborhood.
• 1955-1959 Member, Executive Committee of the Commission on Education, New York Board of Education.
• 1955-1959 Vice-Chairman, National Board, N.A.A.C.P.
• 1959-1960 Chairman, National Board, N.A.A.C.P.
• 1959, Sept-1960, Oct Consultant to the Public Affairs Program, Ford Foundation.
• 1960, June-Dec Vice-Chairman, New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board.
• 1961-1966 Administrator, U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency.
• ca.1963 Death of Weaver's adopted son, Robert C. Weaver, Jr.
• 1964 Publication of The Urban Complex.
• 1966-1968 Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• 1966-1969 Member, Board of Trustees, Antioch College.
• 1969-1970 President, Baruch College, City University of New York.
• 1970-1971 Professor of Economics, City University of New York.
• 1971- Distinguished Professor of Urban Affairs, Hunter College.
• 1973 Chairman, Mayor Abraham Beame's Housing and Land Use Task Force.
• 1974-1975 Chairman, Governor Hugh Carey's Task Force on Housing.