On this date, in 1898, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was born. She was an African-American lawyer and activist. She was a pioneer among Black women in United States law and education, and a committed civil rights activist. From Philadelphia she came from an accomplished family and was educated in that city and Washington D.C. Alexander graduated from M Street high school (now Dunbar high school) in Washington D.C., she entered the University of Pennsylvania’s school of Education in 1915. Graduating in 1918, she helped found the gamma Chapter of the Delta Theta Sorority. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics by 1921 and was one of the first African-Americans to receive a doctorate in economics. She was also the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, she was the first president of the predominantly Black Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. While an actuary for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., she married Raymond Pace Alexander. Together they worked tirelessly in numerous Philadelphia-area civil rights cases. In 1943, she became the first woman to be elected secretary (or hold any office) in the National Bar Association, a position she held for four years. Alexander used her training to become active in the Civil Rights Movement. President Truman appointed her to his commission on civil rights in 1946. In 1948, Alexander helped prepare the report “To Secure These Rights”, a document that was influential in the foundation of the civil rights policy in the years that followed. She joined the law firm of Atkinson, Myers, Archie & Wallace as counsel in 1976. Sadie Alexander died in her hometown on November, 1989.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 11:30:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015