Gov. Deval Patrick will be the featured speaker at the Undergraduate Commencement on May 9, the University of Massachusetts announced Wednesday.

Patrick has been serving Massachusetts as governor since 2006 and is currently finishing his second term. He is the second ever African-American governor in the United States.

The governor grew up in Chicago, working his way to Milton Academy and then to Harvard College, becoming the first in his family to attend college. After attending Harvard Law School, he practiced law with the NAACP on death penalty and voting rights cases. He was named partner at the Boston law firm Hill and Barlow in 1990 at age 34.

Patrick entered the political sphere in 1994 when President Bill Clinton named him the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, a position he held for three years. Patrick has served on the boards of Reebok, Coca-Cola and the Ford Foundation. He also served as the chairman of Texaco’s Equality and Fairness Task Force.

When Patrick announced his candidacy for Massachusetts governor in 2005, he was initially seen as a dark horse candidate against veteran politicians in the Democratic primary. He won the governorship in 2006 and has since targeted the Commonwealth’s strengths as a hub for biotechnology and clean energy. Patrick has also helped to expand affordable health insurance and achieved reforms in the state’s pension systems, ethics laws and transportation system.

“Gov. Patrick has demonstrated how to succeed in both the public and private sector by harnessing the power of education,” Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said in a news release. “He also understands the economic and social good that can be generated by the research and intellectual inquiry that takes place at a great land grant university such as UMass Amherst.”

Subbaswamy called the governor a welcome friend and that Patrick has been one of the University’s strongest supporters, working to expand opportunity to all Massachusetts citizens and build a world-class public education system.

Patrick has previously spoken at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, supporting President Barack Obama in his reelection campaign.

Undergraduate Commencement will take place on May 9 at 4:30 p.m. in McGuirk Alumni Stadium. About 5,000 students are expected to receive bachelor’s degrees.