page_title: J. Ernest Wilkins Sr.
section_title: Education and early career
hierarchical_section_title: J. Ernest Wilkins Sr. / Education and early career
caption_attribution_description: English: J.E. Wilkins Sr
context_page_description: Jesse Ernest Wilkins Sr. was a U.S. lawyer, labor leader, undersecretary in the Eisenhower administration and both the first African-American to be appointed to a sub-cabinet position in the United States Government and the first to attend White House cabinet-level meetings.
  After a public falling-out with the president and his administration, Wilkins was dismissed from his post by Eisenhower, and then went on to join the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1958.
context_section_description: Wilkins studied mathematics at the University of Illinois and then attended the University of Chicago Law School in the 1920s, becoming one of its first-ever black graduates. He graduated with a PhD at age 20, a member of its Phi Beta Kappa Society and then practiced law locally for several years.
caption: J.E. Wilkins, 1918
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