MIKE GRACIA

On January 13, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed
the first African American cabinet member, making Robert C.
Weaver head of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD). The agency that develops and
implements national housing policy and enforces fair
housing laws.
 

In keeping with his vision for a Great Society, Johnson
sought to improve race relations and eliminate urban
blight.

As many of the country’s African Americans lived in run-
down inner-city areas, appointing Weaver was an attempt
to show his African American constituency that he meant
business on both counts.

On December 6, 1961, Syracuse running back Ernie Davis
became the first Black player to win the Heisman Trophy—
college football’s top individual award—beating Ohio State
fullback Bob Ferguson.

Earlier in day, Davis met with President John Kennedy at
the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. "I never thought
I’d ever be shaking the hand of the President of the United
States," he says.

As a senior in 1961, Davis rushed for 823 yards and scored 14 touchdowns. The previous season, he rushed for 877 yards.

Davis was the first pick in the 1962 NFL draft, by Washington,
which traded him to the Cleveland Browns. But he never
played in the NFL. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia later
in 1962, and died on May 18, 1963. He was 23.

Ernie Davis Statue, Syracuse University.

 
CARLATA BRADLEY

Chief Justice Earl Warren swore in Thurgood Marshall, the first
Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People in the 1940s and ’50s.

Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy
that ended the era of official racial segregation.

Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall
(July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993)