The reckoning on race in the field of economics began around 100 years ago. To put that in perspective, white women had only recently been granted the right to vote, and, in 1921, white people had burned Black Wall Street, in Tulsa, to the ground.
Yet, in that same year, at the age of 23, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander achieved the unthinkable when she became the first Black woman in the U.S. to earn a doctorate degree in economics. Throughout Alexander’s long and fruitful career, she championed civil rights for marginalized groups, especially Black women, creating a path for today’s Black economists, lawyers, and policy practitioners. She’s an example for all of us today on how to weather uncertain times at the nexus of political instability, racial injustice, and a global health crisis.
Ever since the death of Trayvon Martin, the senseless deaths of Black people have launched mass protests concerning police brutality and the systemic racism that permeates every aspect of our society. In 2020, industries and institutions that had long escaped close scrutiny found themselves facing uncomfortable, overdue questions.
As a young Black woman in the field, it’s strange to watch academia — and the economics profession in particular — only now begin grappling with how racism shapes the career trajectories of Black people. As of 2017, Black women still made up less than 0.6% of all doctoral recipients. There remains a glaring lack of literature highlighting race and ethnicity in the top economics journals. Yet so many non-Black experts — many of whom study and inform topics that shape Black communities, such as housing, health care, technology, and higher education — largely remain silent on the issue of discrimination and bias in our profession. The structural violence I feel subjected to, having not yet taken a full-time job in this space, is overwhelming.
The National Economic Association, the caucus of Black economists formed in 1969 to address the marginalization of Black economists by the American Economic Association, spoke out against this deafening silence last year. The organization decried the police killings of Black people as “part of the political, economic, social, and physical violence that has been built into America’s institutions since its inception.” My organization, the Sadie Collective, which focuses on addressing the underrepresentation of Black women in economics and related fields, also called on leaders in economics and related fields to “stand on the right side of history” — history that begins with America’s first Black economist.
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From her life’s work, it was clear that Alexander lived and breathed #BlackLivesMatter. She knew that achieving a more equitable society relied on uprooting the lasting legacy of white supremacy from economic, social, and political life. Although racism and sexism prevented her from finding work as an economist after receiving her doctorate, Alexander decided to pursue law, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania’s law school in 1927. She and her husband, Raymond Pace Alexander, spent the entirety of their adult lives focused on fundamentally changing the institutions that refused to mandate civil rights for African Americans and support organizations that challenged the status quo.
She was the first woman to serve as secretary of the National Bar Association, the largest and oldest network of Black lawyers and judges. She marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to demand civil rights for Black Americans. She advocated for re-centering the economy on Black women workers as one way to promote economic growth. She proposed desegregating the military and many other progressive political and economic remedies to the exclusion Black Americans faced. And she also served as the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, one of the largest Black greek-lettered organizations in the world.
As a part of the next generation of emerging voices in economics and related fields, there are three important lessons from Alexander’s life that should serve as a guide for all of us in 2021 and beyond:
Economic policy can foster equity: Alexander’s early speeches are foundational to how Black economists and policy practitioners think about racial justice and policy advocacy today.
We can demand structural change through organizing: Alexander understood that coalitions for change would be key in addressing racism and sexism.
There is no way forward until we center Black women: Alexander advocated for equipping, empowering, and elevating Black women in American society, reflecting Janelle Jones’s Black Women Best (2020) framework, which argues that an economy that works for Black women works for everyone
With these lessons in mind, I am encouraged by my peers and allies who are at the forefront of a new reckoning — one that challenges institutions that have long dismissed the intellectual contributions of the Black people who have dedicated their lives to producing work that furthers racial and economic justice. I am encouraged by the Black leaders who have paved a way by demanding a seat at the table or choosing to build their own, like Lisa Cook and Cecilia Rouse, who, if confirmed, will be the first Black person ever to head the Council of Economic Advisers that advises the president. I am encouraged by emerging initiatives that support Black, Latinx, and/or Native women in these spaces, such as Research in Color Foundation and Black Girls in Boardrooms — both led by early career Black women. And finally, I am encouraged by the Sadie Collective, named for Dr. Sadie Alexander, which will be celebrating 100 years of her legacy on February 19-20, 2021, with our annual conference for Black women in economics and related fields.
By daring to pursue a better future for all, one that is steeped in hope and justice, we all can honor the legacy of America’s first Black economist, who famously said, “I knew well that the only way I could get that door open was to knock it down, because I knocked all of them down.”
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