History of the United States II / Unit 11 USH2 1553 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Black Cabinet
Captions available
The idea
Roosevelt relied unofficially on the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, called his Black Cabinet, with Mary McLeod Bethune among its members.
In practice
The young Harvard economist Robert Weaver, in nineteen sixty-six the first Black American to serve in a cabinet.
Where people slip
Weaver served Lyndon Johnson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the anchor notes. The advisers had influence without office.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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