... 1965, Patricia Roberts Harris (depicted on postage stamp at left) presented her credentials to become U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, President Lyndon B. Johnson having appointed her to the post on June 4. The 1st African-American woman to serve as an Ambassador, she held the post for 2 years. This was but 1 of many "1sts" among the achievements of Harris, a Chicago area native and law graduate of George Washington University. Others included 1st woman Dean of Howard University’s School of Law (1969); 1st African-American woman in the U.S. Cabinet (serving as Secretary of Housing an
d Urban Development 1977-79 and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare 1979-81); and 1st 1971 African-American woman to director of a major U.S. corporation (IBM, 1971). She died
from breast cancer in 1985.... 1927 (80 years ago today), Madam Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé (left), who served from 1987 to 2002 as the 2d woman member of Canada’s Supreme Court, was born in Québec. On the same day in 1943, another member of that Court was born in Pincher Creek, Alberta: the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C. (above right), today the Chief Justice of Canada.
