Deval Patrick
Deval Laurdine Patrick is an American politician and civil rights lawyer who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, Patrick served as the United States assistant attorney general for the civil rights division under President Bill Clinton. He was first elected in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney who chose not to run, and reelected in 2010. He is the first and currently, the only AfricanAmerican to have served as governor of Massachusetts.
Patrick was born, on July 31, 1956, in the South Side of Chicago, where his family resided in a twobedroom apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes housing projects. Patrick was born to his mother, Emily Mae , and his father, Laurdine Pat Patrick, a jazz musician in Sun Ras band. In 1959, Patricks father abandoned their family in order to play music in New York City and because he had fathered a daughter, LaShon Anthony, by another woman. Deval reportedly had a strained relationship with his father, who opposed his choice of high school, but they eventually reconciled. Patrick was raised by his mother, who traces her roots to American slaves in the American South, in the state of Kentucky. The family spent many months living on welfare.
Source: Wikipedia