E’ry day this month, Philly’s 7th Ward, in partnership with the Center for Black Educator Development, will highlight a “Black Educator Hall of Famer.“ But, don’t forget, e’ry month is Black History Month. February is just the Blackest. Every day is an ongoing opportunity to learn and teach the colossal impact Black educators have had on society.
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Born in Philadelphia, PA, on January 2, 1898, Alexander was part of an honored and distinguished family.
Some notable people include her grandfather, Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner editor of the Christian Recorder and the AME Church Review, her uncle, surgeon Dr. Nathan F. Mossell, founder of the Frederick Douglass Hospital (now Mercy-Douglass Hospital) with his wife Gertrude, aunt, Dr. Hallie Tanner Johnson who founded Tuskegee Institute’s Nurses’ School & Hospital, and uncle, famed painter, Henry Ossawa Tanner. Her father, Aaron A. Mossell, was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Her pedigree assured her of greatness.
Alexander lived between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. during childhood, but she moved permanently to Washington, D.C. for high school, where she attended the famous Dunbar High School. She graduated in 1915 and attended the School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1918. She continued her studies at the University of Pennsylvania, earning an M.A. and then a Ph.D. in economics, becoming the first black woman in the U.S. to earn the degree.
Like many Black students who entered an education space where there were few Black people, Alexander encountered racism while at Penn. But it made her a survivor:
“Let us imagine you came from outer space and entered the University of Pennsylvania School of Education. You spoke perfect English, but no one spoke to you. Such circumstances made a student either a dropout or a survivor so strong that she could not be overcome, regardless of the indignities.”
She worked in Durham for two years before returning to Philadelphia, where she married attorney Raymond Pace Alexander and started their family. From there, she entered law school at the University of Pennsylvania, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from that institution and the first Black woman admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1927. Her specializations were real estate and family law.
She worked with her husband at his law firm, handled cases in the Orphans’ Court, and later advocated against racial discrimination, segregation, and employment inequality. She also served as secretary for the National Urban League from 1930 to 1957, wrote speeches and articles on the economic condition of African Americans, and was an active and outspoken advocate of civil rights throughout her life.
Alexander also served in various government positions at various levels. From 1928 to 1930 and again from 1934 to 1938, she served as Assistant City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia and formed a legal aid bureau to assist African Americans who could not afford lawyers. She also served two presidents: on
President Truman’s Committee on Human Rights in 1947 and as chair of President Carter’s White House Conference on Aging in 1978. Alexander died on November 1, 1989.
Happy Black History Month and make sure to read up on Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, a member of the Black Educator Hall of Fame.
