Patricia Roberts Harris was dedicated to public service, civil rights and the promotion of social justice. A woman of many firsts, she was the first African American woman to serve the nation as Ambassador, the first African American woman to become dean of a law school, and the first African American woman to serve in a Presidential cabinet.

Born in Mattoon, IL in 1924, Patricia Roberts excelled academically and won a scholarship to Howard University. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude in 1945; and had already become a civil rights activist. In 1943, she participated in one of the earliest student sit-ins in the District of Columbia’s Little Palace Cafeteria, protesting the owner’s refusal to serve African Americans.

She served as Assistant Director for the American Council of Human Rights and then as the first Executive Director of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She married in 1955, and at her husband’s urging entered law school. She earned her law degree from George Washington University, graduating number one out of a class of 94. She was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar and admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
Harris worked briefly for the U.S. Department of Justice and was appointed co-chair of the National Women’s Committee for Civil Rights by President John F. Kennedy. She returned to Howard University as an associate Dean of Students and lecturer in the law school and became a full professor in 1963. In 1965, Harris took a leave from Howard to accept appointment as Ambassador to Luxemburg. She returned to the university in 1967, and served as the U.S. alternate delegate to the 21st and 22nd General Assembly of the United Nations. She served briefly as Dean of Howard Law School in 1969. In 1977, Harris was appointed as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. At her confirmation hearing, she was queried as to her ability to represent the interests of the poor. Her response was:
“I am one of them. You do not seem to understand who I am. I am a Black woman, daughter of a dining-car worker. I am a Black woman who could not buy a house eight years
ago in parts of the District of Columbia. I didn’t start out as a member of a prestigious law firm, but as a woman who needed a scholarship to go to school. If you think that I have forgotten that , you are wrong.”
In 1980, Harris was appointed Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Throughout her life, Harris believed change could also be advanced through corporate responsibility. She served on the boards of several major corporations, including IBM and Scott Paper. In 1979, addressing the National Women’s Political Caucus, she said she looked forward to hearing “…the Speaker of the House addressed as Madam Speaker and I want to listen as she introduces Madam President to the Congress assembled for the Sate of the Union…..” Though Harris did not live to see her vision become reality, her legacy continues to inspire her successors.