Deval Laurdine Patrick is an American politician, civil rights lawyer, the 71st and current Governor of Massachusetts. 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 re-elected in 2010. He is the first African-American Governor of Massachusetts. Born to and raised by a single mother on the South Side of Chicago, Patrick earned a scholarship to Milton Academy in Massachusetts in the eighth grade. He went on to attend Harvard College and its Law School, where he was President of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. After graduating he practiced law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later joined a Boston law firm, where he was named a partner at age 34. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed him as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, where he worked on issues including racial profiling and police misconduct. 

July 31st, 1956 in Chicago (Age 68)