By Tyler Lewis

The Carol Craven Gallery has on display a portrait of our country’s first black cabinet member, Dr. Robert Clifton Weaver (1907-1997), commissioned in 1968 to be painted by Island artist Stan Murphy.

Mr. Weaver was the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Born into a middle-class family in Washington D.C., he earned three degrees from Harvard University, including a PhD in economics. Renowned for his knowledge of housing affairs and the civil rights movement, he was appointed to the Roosevelt administration at age 27 years as a member of the Black Cabinet — a group of prominent African American advisors to the president on issues including housing and employment.

Throughout his career he held several public policy jobs, serving as the New York State rent commissioner in the mid to late 1950s, and the national chairman of the NAACP soon thereafter.

President Kennedy, having turned to Mr. Weaver for advice on civil rights, appointed him administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Administration (HHFA) in 1961. The HHFA was a part of Kennedy’s plan to create a department of Housing and Urban Development, and to elevate Mr. Weaver’s group to the cabinet level. Though the department was not approved under the Kennedy administration, it did become a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. President Johnson appointed Mr. Weaver as its head, making Weaver the first African American member of the Cabinet. As Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he promoted giving more funds to housing programs for the poor, among other things.

In 1968, Stan Murphy was asked by the Johnson Administration to paint the official portrait of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Murphy agreed and made several trips to Washington D.C., where Secretary Weaver sat while Murphy drew pencil drawings — studies for the portrait.

Finished in 1968, Weaver’s portrait has no iconography — just a man with a pleasant face in a red velvet jacket with a large cigar in his hand. While it is impossible to know why Murphy painted his subject eschewing traditional images that connote power and authority, the choices made give the portrait a very personal feel, while the size and scale of the painting still present Weaver with the stature of an authoritative and influential man.

After serving as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1969, Weaver went on to become president of Baruch College in Manhattan, and later taught at Hunter College, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia Teacher’s College and the NYU School of Education.

Mr. Weaver died in 1997, at the age of 89.

The Carol Craven Gallery is open Monday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout August.