Unsung Economists #1: Sadie Alexander : Planet Money Sadie Alexander was the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in economics. We think her contributions deserve another look.

Unsung Economists #1: Sadie Alexander

Creative Commons/University of Pennsylvania
Sadie Alexander
Creative Commons/University of Pennsylvania

In 1921, Sadie Alexander became the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in economics. A few years later, she went to law school and became a celebrated civil rights attorney. But she never abandoned her focus on economic issues. In speech after speech, she argued that full employment — when everyone who wants a job can get one — was absolutely necessary to achieve racial equality. Today on The Indicator, Episode 1 in our multipart series about overlooked economists from the past.

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Correction Feb. 25, 2019

In a previous version of this podcast, we said Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a senior at the University of Maryland. In fact, she is a senior at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.