The Forgotten Female Civil Rights Icon

 

     Few people know the name Patricia Robert Harris, but even fewer have blazed as many trails for black women as she. Born on May 31st, 1924, in Illinois, she was the first black woman to be the dean of a law school (Howard University's School of Law) as well as the first black woman to sit on the Board of Directors of a Fortune 500 company (IBM). Friends with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, in 1965 she was named the first black woman to serve as an American envoy abroad when she was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

     From 1977 to 1981, she served in the cabinet of Jimmy Carter, the first black woman to serve in the cabinet and the first black woman in the presidential line of succession. She was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1977 to 1979, serving as the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1979 to 1980. When the Department of Health and Human Services was created in 1980, she became the first HHS secretary.