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The phrase we typed into the search box read "first african american cabinet member," and the very first search result provided an answer. A citation from PBS on a page titled African-American Journey: History pointed us to a 1963 document written by Robert C. Weaver, The Negro as an American. The author is described as the "nation's first black cabinet member." For more information about Weaver and his cabinet post, we returned to our search results. On the African-American Firsts
page, we used the web browser's "Find" function (Ctrl-F) to locate Weaver's name without scanning and scrolling. In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Weaver to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Earlier, in 1961, Weaver was the first African-American appointee in charge of a major U.S. government agency, the Housing and Home Finance Agency. To learn more about the life and times of Robert Clifton Weaver (1907-1997), we searched on his name. A brief biography on the DiscoverySchool web site (a first-rate source of homework help) provided details of Weaver's life and work. Two related facts worth noting: - In 1977, a decade after Weaver's appointment, Patricia Roberts Harris became the first African-American woman in a presidential cabinet. She served under President Jimmy Carter, first as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), then, in 1979, as Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW).
- In July 2000, the HUD Headquarters Building was renamed to honor Robert C. Weaver.
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