NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Lieutenant Governor David Paterson was set to become the state's first black governor and the first legally blind governor in U.S. history, after the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer Wednesday.
Paterson, 53, became New York's first African-American lieutenant governor in November 2006. He has been legally blind since childhood, with only partial sight in his right eye.
Spitzer resigned after media reports linked him to a prostitution ring. He said Paterson would take over Monday.
The following are some facts about Paterson:
Paterson was born in Brooklyn to Portia and Basil Paterson. His father
was the first non-white secretary of state of New York and the first
African-American vice chair of the national Democratic Party.
He earned his bachelor's degree in history from Columbia University,
graduating in 1977, and completed his law degree at Hofstra Law School
in 1982.
Paterson became a public servant in 1985 when he began representing
Harlem in the New York State Senate, according to the New York
governor's Web site.
In 2002, he became the body's minority leader, the first non-white
legislative leader in New York state history.
In 2004, he became the first legally blind person to address the
Democratic National Convention.
In 2006, Paterson was elected New York's first African-American
lieutenant governor.
Paterson ran the New York City marathon in 1999.
Paterson, an adjunct professor at Columbia's School for International and Public Affairs, lives in Harlem with his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, and their two children. Additional information from a New York Times article FROM January, 08
"As a disabled person, there's certain times that I don't want to appear to need that much help. When I was in college, when I was at Columbia, I had a professor - I actually Googled him, he passed away in 1986 and his name was Basil Ruch, and he was a professor of history at Barnard College, and he showed me a picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt being carried into the 1932 Democratic convention. And he said that Roosevelt by 1932 was still able to walk a certain distance, but not quickly, and he wanted to walk in, he wanted the country to see him standing, and but what happened was, when he started to walk, and he got toward the end, he was starting to be a little jittery, that a bunch of supporters, thinking they were helping him, grabbed him and picked him up and carried him in. And you see in this picture - and I couldn't really see it, but he described it to me - he has this stern, angry look, because they messed up his moment. And I know what he was feeling. Because sometimes you want to project a certain amount of strength. And you can project it if you're a woman, you can project it if you're disabled, you can project it, but often the people who love you don't see the need for you to project it.
I remember when I was in the D.A.'s office, and I conducted a hearing and it had to do with a stalker who was bothering this woman. And I got to feeling when the woman saw me holding the file up to my face and that kind of thing, and the stalker's looking at her, and she's kind of - I got that she didn't really know if I was able to handle this. And I went over to her and I said, "Listen, just in case we lose this hearing, don't worry, because when he goes outside, I'm going to kick his butt."
I said that to her because I wanted her to know that I'm in charge of her case. And that's what I'm saying about projection."
Q: Did you always think, with your disability, that you could follow
your father into politics, or was that something you came to over time?
A: When I was 10 years old I watched Robert Kennedy speak at the
Democratic National Convention and I wished I was him. And I think, again, there
was that family connection - he was following in the footsteps of John, Hillary
follows
in the footsteps of Bill, so I always relate to that, you know, kind of
family member who has to deal with that shadow.
When I was in college, though I had academic ability, I don't know that
I was all that socially developed, or had a real difficult problem asking
people for assistance, and had a lot of problems as a result of that. And I think
as I had more problems, my ideas about being in politics, or following my father
dwindled. I didn't see myself as - I think my self-esteem really
suffered from
that. ...
Q: In terms of your vision, how much can you see?
A: I am legally blind in my right eye, and totally blind in my left eye.
I'm looking at Armen [Meyer, a press aide who was in the room]. I know he
has a white shirt on, I know he has a tie on, but from this distance I can't
tell you what color it is. I think it's a darker color. ...
When I am in places where I am familiar, I will appear to see better
than in places where I'm not. If I walked around my house, and you didn't know,
you'd probably think I have no vision problems.
When I say I saw something, it's more like I sensed it. So when I said
that we were on a plane with the Clintons, and we're all eating pizza, I knew
that I was eating pizza and I knew they took pizza off the tray, so I assume
they're eating it. I think people's perception of me sometimes is that I see more than
I actually do. But I play basketball, and I've done things that people
with my vision aren't
supposed to do. I'm in this interesting sort of zone between the sighted
and the unsighted, and have never really met anyone who I visually relate to,
I've never
met anyone who is kind of like me. ...
My truest disability has been my ability to overcome my physical
disability. So
in other words, as soon as people see that I can be independent, then
they hold me to the standard that everyone else is. So I remember once I told the
airlines that I had a sight problem, and they put me on this bus to go to a hotel
because there were no other flights out of the airport that night, and I gave up
my seat
to everyone got on and they passed me, and then like this 90-year-old
woman, who was trying to get up the steps, and I couldn't take it anymore so I
helped her
up the steps, gave her my seat and took another seat. First stop, the
bus driver tells me to get off. And I know that he's doing this now because he
thinks I have no problem. He goes, "Go that way." And I almost fell in the
wishing well
in front of this hotel. That's because he saw me able to fend for
myself.
And I think that's been my greatest disability, that as I've overcome my
physical disability, it just leads to other problems. So I think I have
now learned - and I'm not doing this to be deceptive - but I don't act the
way I did when I was 17, like I can do everything myself, because I realized the
minute I do that, no one helps me. So I learned to be a little more pragmatic
about life.
Created on ... March 16, 2008