Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer

Weaver (1907–1997), the first black cabinet secretary (Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1966–1968) has become “a marginal figure in our public discussion today,” but “for almost half of the century,” Pritchett asserts, Weaver “shaped the development of American racial and urban policy.” Pritchett follows Weaver from the Roosevelt to the Johnson administrations, guiding the reader safely through the mine field of acronymic government agencies, various foundations and academic institutions (he was the first president of Baruch College) in which Weaver played a role. Weaver's targets were racially restrictive covenants and the entrenchment of segregation in both public housing policy and government supported loans; compromises involving the latter made him a controversial figure as the civil rights movement burgeoned. Pritchett's biography is an exhaustive but well-paced account of a life more absorbed by political process and research than by social or political drama. Yet, as Pritchett shows, Weaver “was instrumental in the implementation of every major urban initiative, including public housing, urban renewal, affirmative action, rent control, and fair housing.” (Oct.)