Deval Patrick

Deval Patrick (born July 31, 1956, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) is an American politician, the first Black governor of Massachusetts, serving from 2007 to 2015, and the second Black person to be elected governor of a U.S. state. The Democrat briefly ran for the U.S. presidency in 2019–20.

Early life

Patrick was born in Chicago to Emily Wintersmith Patrick and Laurdine Patrick. His father, a jazz musician, left the family when Patrick was a young boy, and he was raised by his mother on the city’s South Side. When he was in eighth grade, Patrick was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Milton Academy outside Boston. He went on to college at Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature in 1978.

Business career

After serving a yearlong fellowship for the United Nations in Sudan, Patrick enrolled in Harvard Law School, earning a degree in 1982. He went to work for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he filed a voting rights lawsuit against then governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton. Patrick would ultimately go into private practice, continuing his focus on civil rights work. When Bill Clinton was elected president, he apparently harboured no ill feelings toward Patrick, appointing him to be assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. In his three years at the Justice Department, Patrick oversaw an investigation of the burning of Black churches in the South and worked on the enforcement of discrimination laws. In 1997 he once again went into private practice before taking on roles first at Texaco and then at the Coca-Cola Company. He left the corporate sector in 2005, as he began to eye a run for political office.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Political life

Despite never having run for political office, Deval Patrick emerged from a crowded Democratic field to win the 2006 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts. In November 2006 Patrick defeated Republican candidate Kerry Healey and independent Christy Mihos to become the state’s first Black governor. (He was the second Black person elected governor, behind Douglas Wilder of Virginia. Wes Moore became the third Black man elected governor when he won the Maryland gubernatorial race in 2022.) He would win reelection in 2010. During his time in office, Patrick’s administration emphasized the need for health care reform, provided more funding for education in the life sciences, and oversaw extensive work on transportation infrastructure. He also raised both the state sales tax and the minimum wage.

He was term-limited to serving eight years as governor and left office in 2015; many on the national political stage envisioned Patrick as a future presidential candidate. He instead went to work at the Boston-based investment company Bain Capital. In late 2019 he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. But his candidacy never gained traction, and he ended his campaign after the New Hampshire primary. In 2022 he was named a professor and codirector of Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.

Personal life

Patrick married Diane Bemus Whiting, also a lawyer, in 1984. The couple has two grown daughters, Sarah and Katherine, and continues to live in Massachusetts.