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Deval Patrick

Born: 1956 in Chicago, Illinois
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Governor Patrick was born and raised by a single mother in the south side of Chicago, Illinois.

Biography: Duval is the 71st and current Governor of Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic Party, Patrick served as an Assistant United States Attorney General under President Bill Clinton. He is the state's first African-American governor and the second African American to be elected governor of any US state, after Douglas Wilder.While Patrick was in middle school, one of his teachers referred him to A Better Chance, a national non-profit organization for identifying, recruiting and developing leaders among academically gifted minority students, which enabled him to attend Milton Academy. Patrick graduated from Milton Academy in 1974. After high school, Patrick became the first person in his family to attend college. He graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. cum laude in English and American literature in 1978. He then spent a year working with the United Nations in Africa. In 1979, Patrick returned to the United States and enrolled at Harvard Law School. While in law school, Patrick was elected president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where he first worked defending poor families in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Non-Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Website: http://www.mass.gov/governor/
Deval Patrick on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=deval++patrick+


Selected Titles

  A reason to believe :
ISBN: 9780307878106 OCLC: 697161688

Books on Tape, Westminster, Md. : ℗2011.

In January 2007, Deval Patrick became the first black governor of the state of Massachusetts, one of only two black governors elected in American history. But that was just one triumphant step in a long, improbable journey that began in a poor tenement on the South Side of Chicago. From a chaotic childhood to an elite boarding school in New England, from a sojourn doing relief work in Africa to the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, and then to a career in politics, Patrick has led an extraordinary life. In this book, he pays tribute to the family, friends, and strangers who, through words and deeds, have instilled in him transcendent lessons of faith, perseverance, and friendship. In doing so, he reminds us of the power of community and the imperative of idealism. With humility, humor, and grace, he offers a road map for attaining happiness, empowerment, and success while also making an appeal for readers to cultivate those achievements in others, to feel a greater stake in this world, and to shape a life worth living. This book tells the story of a uniquely American odyssey and a testament to what is possible in our lives and our communities if we are hopeful, generous, and resilient.

 

 

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