Institute of Politics

The University of Chicago's annual MLK Celebration at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel honors diversity and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This year's event featured a keynote address by Deval Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 2006. Patrick has charted a path from his childhood on the south side of Chicago to the US Justice Department, and now to the Massachusetts State House. A graduate both of Harvard College and of Harvard Law School, he served as law clerk to a federal appellate judge before joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund as a staff attorney, and was then called to serve in President Clinton's administration as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the nation's top civil rights post. In each of these capacities, he has been guided by the advice of his grandmother: hope for the best and work for it.