Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon, academic, author, and government official who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021.

[7] His additional accomplishments include performing the first successful neurosurgical procedure on a fetus inside the womb, developing new methods to treat brain-stem tumors, and revitalizing hemispherectomy techniques for controlling seizures.

[14] Following his victory, President Trump nominated Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, being confirmed by the United States Senate in a 58–41 vote on March 2, 2017.

[30][37] At the age of eight, Carson dreamt of becoming a missionary doctor, but five years later he aspired to the lucrative lifestyles of psychiatrists portrayed on television, and his brother bought him a subscription to Psychology Today for his 13th birthday.

[30][42][43] In high school, he played the euphonium in band and participated in forensics (public speaking),[44] chess club,[45][46] and the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program where he reached its highest rank—cadet colonel.

[53] Carson has said that he protected white students in a biology lab after a race riot broke out at his high school in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

"[79] In the summers following his high school graduation until his second year in medical school, Carson worked at a variety of jobs: as a clerk in the payroll office of Ford Motor Company, supervisor of a six-person crew picking up trash along the highway under a federal jobs program for inner-city students, a clerk in the mailroom of Young & Rubicam Advertising, assembling fender parts and inspecting back window louvers on the assembly line at Chrysler, a crane operator at Sennett Steel, and finally a radiology technician taking X-rays.

Carson said the professor awarded him $10 and that a photographer for the Yale Daily News was present to take his picture, which appeared in the student newspaper with a story about the experiment.

[91] While at Johns Hopkins, Carson figured in the revival of the hemispherectomy, a drastic surgical procedure in which part or all of one hemisphere of the brain is removed to control severe pediatric epilepsy.

[95] Carson participated in four subsequent high-risk conjoined-twin separations, including a 1997 operation on craniopagus Zambian twins Joseph and Luka Banda, which resulted in a normal neurological outcome.

[99] According to The Washington Post, the Binder surgery "launched the stardom" of Carson, who "walked out of the operating room that day into a spotlight that has never dimmed", beginning with a press conference that was covered worldwide and created name recognition leading to publishing deals and a motivational speaking career.

[95] On the condition the film would have its premiere in Baltimore,[95] Carson agreed to a cameo appearance as "head surgeon" in the 2003 Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You, starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins who, unhappy after their surgical separation, continue life attached to each other by Velcro.

[110][111] According to CNN, Carson had an "extensive relationship" from 2004 to 2014 with Mannatech, a multi-level marketing company that produces dietary supplements made from substances such as aloe vera extract and larch-tree bark.

Carson's relationship with Mannatech continued after the company paid $7 million in 2009 to settle a deceptive-marketing lawsuit in Texas over claims that its products could cure autism and cancer.

"[120] PolitiFact rated Carson's denial of any involvement as "false", pointing to his paid speeches for Mannatech and his appearances in promotional videos in which he favorably reviewed its products, despite not being "an official spokesman or sales associate".

[121] On November 3, 2015, Mannatech said on its website that for compliance with federal campaign finance regulations, the company had removed all references to Carson before he announced his bid for the presidency.

[132] In his book America the Beautiful (2013), he wrote: "I believe it is a very good idea for physicians, scientists, engineers, and others trained to make decisions based on facts and empirical data to get involved in the political arena.

[149] The next day, May 4, 2015, at the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts in his home town of Detroit,[150] he officially announced his run for the Republican nomination in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

After the song, Carson took the stage and announced his candidacy alongside a speech on his rags to riches life story, at one point stating: "I remember when our favorite drug dealer was killed.

CBS News described Carson's narrative of "overcoming impossible odds as a child growing up in an impoverished, single-parent household to reach international prominence as a pediatric neurosurgeon" as "a key part of his presidential campaign".

[155] The Wall Street Journal said the narrative came under "the harsh scrutiny of presidential politics, where rivals and media hunt for embellishments and omissions that can hobble a campaign".

[156] CNN characterized the core narrative as "acts of violence as an angry young man", followed by a spiritual epiphany that transformed Carson into the "composed figure" he now portrays.

[178] During the Republican National Convention, Carson appeared with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in support of the pro-Donald Trump Great America PAC at an event in Cleveland.

Internal documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the younger Carson "put people he'd invited in touch with his father's deputies, joined agency staff on official conference calls about the listening tour and copied his wife on related email exchanges".

[213] This expenditure was discovered after Helen Foster, a career HUD official, filed a complaint alleging that she had been demoted from her position because she refused to spend more than the legal $5,000 limit for office redecorations.

[215] On March 20, 2018, Carson testified before the United States House Committee on Appropriations that he had "dismissed" himself from the decision to buy the $31,000 dining room set and "left it to my wife, you know, to choose something".

[224] In 2021, Carson founded the American Cornerstone Institute, or ACI, a conservative think tank advancing policies that promote "faith, liberty, community, and life.

"[225][226] The ACI's mission statement is "dedicated to promoting and preserving individual and religious liberty, helping our country's most vulnerable find new hope, and developing methods to decrease the federal government's role in society and to improve efficiency to best serve all our nation's citizens.

[243][249] In 1998, Carson was invited to give the commencement address at the prominent Andrews University, the flagship institution of the Seventh Day Adventist school system.

During his speech, Carson voiced sympathies for the long discredited belief that the pyramids of Giza were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain.