Widely known for being the first African American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, Roberts Harris was President Jimmy Carter’s U.S. Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1977 to 1979 and as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from 1979 to 1981.
She accomplished a number of other firsts in her illustrious career. Prior to serving in the cabinet, President Lyndon Johnson appointed her the ambassador to Luxembourg in 1965, making Roberts Harris the first African American woman to be an ambassador. She was also a pioneer in business, becoming the first African American woman to serve on a corporate board of a Fortune 500 company: IBM.
In addition, there were her notable accomplishments in academia: Roberts Harris was the first African American to be a dean of a U.S. law school when she took on the role at Howard in 1969.
However, she also broke new ground at Howard by leaving a legacy – the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship for Public and International Affairs – which makes it possible for Howard students to follow in her footsteps in living a life of public service.
Patricia Roberts was born May 31, 1924, in Mattoon, Illinois, the daughter of railroad dining car waiter Bert Fitzgerald Roberts and Hildren Brodie. She had one younger brother, Malcolm. Her parents separated when she was 6 years old, after which she was raised primarily by her mother and grandmother, attending public school in Chicago.
While Roberts earned scholarships to five different colleges, she elected to attend Howard University, from which she graduated, summa cum laude, in 1945. While at Howard, she was elected Phi Beta Kappa and served as Vice Chairman of the Howard University chapter of the NAACP. In 1943, she participated in one of the nation's first lunch counter sit-ins.
She did graduate work in industrial relations at the University of Chicago from 1946 to 1949. In order to be better involved in civil rights work, she transferred to American University in 1949, where she would ultimately receive her Master's Degree.
Harris met William Beasley Harris, then a member of the Howard law faculty and later a federal Maritime Commission administrative judge. They began dating in 1955, and were married on September 1, 1955. It was William who encouraged her to go to law school and in 1960 she received her J.D. from the George Washington University National Law Center, ranking number one out of a class of ninety-four students. She passed the bar exam the same year.
Her first position with the U.S. government was in 1960 as an attorney in the appeals and research section of the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice. There she met and struck up a friendship with Robert F. Kennedy, the new attorney general.
One year later, Harris took a job as a lecturer and the Associate Dean of Students at Howard University. In 1963, she left her role as Dean, but stayed on as a lecturer. Concurrently, from 1962–65, she worked with the National Capital Area Civil Liberties Union. As her skills as an organizer bloomed, Harris also became increasingly involved in the Democratic Party.
In 1963, she was elevated to a full professorship at Howard, and President John F. Kennedy appointed her co-chairman of the National Women's Committee for Civil Rights, described as an "umbrella organization encompassing some 100 women's groups throughout the nation." Her co-chair was Mildred McAfee Horton.
In 1964, Harris was elected a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from the District of Columbia. She worked in Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign and seconded his nomination at the 1964 Democratic Convention. In October 1965, President Johnson appointed her Ambassador to Luxembourg, a role she served in until the end of the Johnson administration.
In 1967, Harris returned to the faculty of Howard University's School of Law, where she was named Dean in 1969, another first for a Black woman. She resigned as Dean a month later when Howard University President James E. Cheek refused to support her strong stand against student protests. She then joined Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, one of Washington, D.C.'s most prestigious law firms.
In 1971, Harris was named to the board of directors of IBM, becoming the first Black American woman to sit on a Fortune 500 company's board of directors. In addition, she served on the boards of Scott Paper, the National Bank of Washington, and Chase Manhattan Bank.
In 1981, Harris was appointed a full-time professor at the George Washington University Law School. She remained on the faculty until her death in 1985.
On January 27, 2000, the United States Postal Service's released its 23rd commemorative stamp in its Black Heritage Series, honoring Harris. The stamp was designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, and 150 million copies were produced in recognition of Black History Month. Additionally, in 2003, Harris was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.