Born: December 29, 1907, Washington, DC

Education: Harvard University, B.S. cum laude, 1929, M.S., 1931, Ph.D., 1934

Died: July 17, 1997, New York, NY

Instilling familial values of education and service, Weaver rose to be Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD, 1966–68), the first black cabinet secretary in American history.

He advocated racial equality. A member of the War Production Board and the Negro Manpower Commission in World War II, he opposed segregation. His studies of race and class discrimination in employment, housing, and the armed forces reinforced his call for civil rights laws. Weaver's Negro Labor: A National Problem (1946) and The Negro Ghetto (1948) detailed disparities that the nation could ill afford to ignore. During the postwar years, he worked in various agencies, including the American Council on Race Relations, pursuing remedies to inequality. As director of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, he pursued fairness in lending and anticipated the “affirmative action” policy later adopted at HUD. But HUD's other priorities (Demonstration Cities and the Metropolitan Development Act) were stillborn, due to rising costs of the Vietnam War as well as backlash to urban riots. He resigned in 1969, turning to college administration and teaching, as one of the nation's most respected advocates of social justice. Weaver also chaired the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (1973–87).