Weaver, Robert Clifton, 1907-1997
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Weaver, Robert Clifton, 1907-1997Description:
Bio: Robert Clifton Weaver was born on December 29, 1907, in Washington, D.C. Weaver received his B.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. Throughout the New Deal era, Weaver served as an advisor on minority affairs in a number of federal agencies. He remained an active participant in efforts to improve race relations throughout the mid-1940s. Following the Second World War, Weaver was a professor at Northwestern, Columbia, and New York Universities from 1947 until 1951. Between 1949 and 1955, he also worked for the John Hay Whitney Foundation, overseeing the opportunity fellowship program. In the late 1950s, Weaver was New York state's rent commissioner. Then, in 1960, he became vice chairman of the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board. President-elect Kennedy asked Weaver to serve as the administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA).Weaver continued working at HHFA during the Johnson administration, drafting all of the administration's housing and urban renewal programs. Weaver also worked on the $7.8 billion housing bill in 1965, which included an expansion of public housing and programs for rent supplementing low-income families. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was created in September 1965, and Weaver became its first secretary the following January -- thereby becoming the first African-American appointed to a cabinet position.