Background
She was born on May 31, 1924 in Mattoon, Illinois, to working class parents.
She was born on May 31, 1924 in Mattoon, Illinois, to working class parents.
Patricia educated in the Chicago public schools. She attended Howard University in Washington, D. C. , where Harris was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude in 1945.
After graduation she returned to Chicago and pursued graduate studies in industrial relations at the University of Chicago.
In 1949 she journeyed back to Washington and enrolled in American University for further graduate study.
In 1959 she entered the George Washington University Law School.
Patricia Harris graduated first in her class in 1960.
From 1946 to 1949 Harris was a program director for the Young Women’s Christian Association in Chicago.
Along with her education, Harris kept busy as assistant director of the American Council of Human Rights and, after 1953, as executive director of Delta Sigma Theta, an African American sorority. She kept that position until 1959.
In 1960 she took a position as attorney with the appeals and research section of the criminal division of the Department of Justice.
After serving there for two years she joined Howard University as assistant professor and associate dean of the law school. While at Howard, President John Kennedy appointed her chairperson of the National Women's Committee for Civil Rights, an unpaid position to create and coordinate support from women's groups for a new civil rights bill.
The hard work and loyalty of this life-long Democrat paid off when she was asked to second the presidential nomination of Lyndon Johnson at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Later that year the president named Harris to the 13-member Commission on the Status of Puerto Rico. Impressed with her diplomatic skills, Johnson appointed Harris the first female African American ambassador in U. S. history when he made her ambassador to Luxembourg in 1965.
After serving there two years Harris returned to Howard and eventually became the first female African American chosen dean of a law school. At the same time she served as the first U. S. African American delegate to the United Nations.
She left Howard in 1969 in protest against what she felt was a lack of support from the university's president for her strong stand against protesting students.
Following her departure she joined the law firm of Freed, Frank, Harris, Shriver, and Kampelman. Besides practicing corporate law, she served on the board of directors of Chase Manhattan Bank, I. B. M. , and Scott Paper. Throughout this period she remained active in Democratic politics. Her star rose rapidly, and her fellow Democrats selected her permanent chairperson of the powerful Credentials Committee for the 1972 Democratic National Convention. When the Democrats won the presidency in 1976, President Jimmy Carter named Harris secretary of housing and urban development. Although the appointment of this African American woman to a cabinet post proved controversial, much of the concern came from liberals who feared her lack of experience in housing and her close connection with the "establishment. " During her confirmation hearing came the famous exchange between Sen. William Proxmire and Harris.
In 1981 she returned to George Washington University as a full-time professor of law, and in 1982 she made an unsuccessful bid for mayor of Washington, D. C.
William Beasley Harris married her on September 1, 1955.