When your maternal grandfather is the first African-American to graduate from Harvard University’s School of Dentistry, then your middle-class status is firmly established and your educational pedigree is a mark of distinction. These were conditions that greeted Robert C. Weaver when he was born on Dec. 29, 1907, in Washington, D.C. Groomed for success, at a very early age, Weaver began to evince the intellectual and native abilities that would speed him through the first stages of schooling.
There’s a good chance he was at the prestigious M Street High School (now the Paul Dunbar High School) when the esteemed Robert Terrell was the principal. Even if he was not there, Weaver quickly distinguished himself in an environment noted for its high achievements. Later, like his grandfather, Weaver studied at Harvard and stayed there long enough to earn his Bachelor of Science, master’s degree and Ph.D degree in economics. He completed his doctorate in the same subject in 1934.
Activities
Find out more: Getting your hands on copies of Weaver’s books is not an easy task, but if you are fortunate to find “Negro Labor” or “The Negro Ghetto,” then his best writing is available.
Discussion: These days, affordable housing is a critical issue in just about every major city in the nation, and Weaver was a leading expert on this topic. It would be interesting to see how he would feel about the current dilemma.
Place in context: Weaver came along at a very historic moment in American history, and because of his expertise, he was able to help guide the nation out of the Great Depression and help formulate and manage the New Deal.
Weaver was working on his doctorate while he was employed as an aide to Harold Ickes, the U.S. secretary of the interior. He also had a stint in Chicago as executive director of the Mayor’s Commission on Race Relations.
With a freshly minted doctorate, he was tapped to serve in the cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was among 45 African-American to attain such a position, including Frank Horne and Mary McLeod Bethune. Weaver was particularly important during the Great Depression and when Roosevelt began to devise his New Deal.
He was an indispensable special assistant at the Works Progress Administration, one of the key agencies formed during the New Deal program to rescue the nation from the joblessness and economic decline.
After working in the federal government, he taught at several colleges before being appointed to the position of state rent commissioner from 1955-1959 in New York under Gov. W. Averill Harriman, which was another first for an African-American. Subsequently, given his insight on housing and economic development, he was named to New York City’s Housing and Redevelopment Board.
President John F. Kennedy sent for Weaver with the idea of creating a new housing department. Meanwhile, Weaver was assigned to administrate the Housing and Home Finance Administration. In effect, Weaver’s joining the Kennedy administration meant there was another Harvard man on the team, one who possessed more higher education degrees than any of the others.
The idea of the new department of housing almost died with Kennedy, and there certainly was opposition from Southern politicians. President Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t appear to be excited about the idea, at least not with Weaver at the helm.
In 1966, Johnson, as he had done on several other monumental occasions, recognized the importance of dealing with the country’s inequities and appointed Weaver as the first secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to the website the Black Past. Three years later, Weaver was working his magic in higher education as president of Baruch College (1969-1970). He also taught at Hunter College for eight years, 1970-78.
Many New Yorkers remember the role he played as a member of the Municipal Assistance Corporation and its attempt to rescue the city from bankruptcy.
Weaver was a prolific writer with articles and essays in leading economic and civil rights publications. But it was his books that commanded the broadest range of influence, especially “Negro Labor: A National Problem” (1946), “The Negro Ghetto” (1948), “The Urban Complex: Human Values in Urban Life” (1964) and “Dilemmas of Urban America” (1965).
This Week in Black History
June 3, 1904: Dr. Charles Drew, whose pioneering work on blood produced the plasma that was so important in transfusions and operations, particularly for wounded soldiers, is born on this date.
June 4, 1972: Revolutionary activist and intellectual Angela Davis is acquitted of murder and other charges for her alleged involvement in a shoot-out in California on this date.
June 6, 1966: On this date, firebrand Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) makes the call for Black Power in Mississippi.
A memorable quote from him pertained to the issue of public housing, of which he was an unflinching advocate. He said, “You cannot have physical renewal without human renewal.” And the two were without exception inseparably linked in his policy, no matter where he landed—and he often landed in some fairly rarefied places. He also said, “Fight hard and legally, but don’t blow your top,” and he followed this advice.
But Roosevelt’s press secretary, Steve Early, did blow his top, and Weaver had to come to the rescue. According to Weaver’s obituary in the New York Times, “Shortly before the 1940 election, [Dr. Weaver] 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.
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.’’’
Noted journalist Simeon Booker, writing in Ebony magazine, observed, “[Weaver’s] race relations service was an innovation for government [at that time].” According to Booker, Weaver was not satisfied “with fighting discrimination on the job.” He spent his free time fighting the battle, too. During his first year in government, he and some friends desegregated the employee cafeteria.
In post-war America, Black workers were restricted to unskilled and foundry work, and neither they nor the union seemed to care one way or the other. “Not only did colored union members generally accept this situation,” Weaver wrote in 1946, “but in certain instances, they encouraged its development. At one of the large automobile factories in Flint, Negroes were employed as laborers, machine cleaners and truck drivers, and the local union classified all Negro employees as janitors.”
After a long, varied and productive career, Weaver died at his home in Manhattan on July 17, 1997, at the age of 89.