Patricia Roberts Harris (May 31, 1924March 23, 1985) was an American politician, diplomat and legal scholar. She served as the 6th United States secretary of housing and urban development from 1977 to 1979 and as the 13th United States secretary of health and human services from 1979 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. She previously been appointed United States ambassador to Luxembourg from 1965 to 1967 under President Lyndon B. Johnson. A member of the Democratic Party, Harris was the first African American woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet, as well as first to be United States ambassador. She was also the first Black American woman to be dean of a law school, and the first to sit on a Fortune 500 company's board of directors. Early life Patricia Roberts was born on May 31, 1924, in Mattoon, Illinois, the daughter of railroad dining car waiter Bert Fitzgerald Roberts and Hildren Brodie (née Johnson). She had one younger brother, Malcolm, known to his family as Mickey. 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, IL. Education After earning scholarships to five different colleges, Roberts selected 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. During her time at Howard University, she was also a member of Delta Sigma Theta — a historically Black sorority which had been founded at Patricia's alma mater in 1913. 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. After marrying in 1955, Harris was beginning to pursue a career in education, but saw limited opportunity because of segregation. Her husband encouraged her to go to law school, and she received her J.D. from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1960, ranking number one out of a class of ninety-four students. She passed the bar exam the same year. Career While studying in Chicago, Roberts was a program director for the Young Women's Christian Association. While