
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 2, 1994                   TAG: 9402020108
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From Knight-Ridder/Tribune and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CIVIL RIGHTS CHIEF NAMED

As a kid, Deval Patrick lived in one of the toughest black neighborhoods in Chicago. There were only two beds in his basement apartment, so he, his mother and sister took turns sleeping on the floor.

He felt the sting of racial discrimination and deprivation, the suspicions of pushy cops and store detectives and the riots that turned his elementary school into a war zone in the late 1960s.

But a program for the underprivileged took him away from all that and into a new life among the elite of Boston. He became a Harvard-educated partner in the high-prestige firm that spawned two governors of Massachusetts, but he never stopped using civil rights laws to help others.

On Tuesday, President Clinton summoned Patrick, 37, to the White House to nominate him to become the Justice Department's top enforcer of civil-rights laws, a job that has remained vacant for more than a year.

"We need a strong and aggressive Civil Rights Division and a strong and compassionate advocate of freedom and fairness at the helm of that division," Clinton said.

Clinton said Patrick's critics "don't give a rip about civil rights."

Patrick said he felt "humbled by the knowledge that I am standing here on the shoulders of those courageous advocates . . . who have had the guts to stand up in some court somewhere and give the Constitution life."

Civil rights leaders, many upset over Clinton's refusal to fight for his first nominee, Lani Guinier, took a favorable view.

Jesse Jackson said Patrick "has a background of suffering, sacrifice and achievement against the odds. It is the challenge of this administration to take a principled stand and be with him against the reactionary attacks of the forces of injustice."

Patrick is expected to win Senate confirmation.

by CNB