You may have read recently that the city of Philadelphia is seeking artists to create a statue to honor the late civil rights lawyer and economist Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, a former long-time West Mt. Airy resident who died in 1989. The statue, likely to be installed in 2026 at Thomas Paine Plaza outside the Municipal Services Building, will become the city's second public art statue of a Black woman, following Harriet Tubman's statue at City Hall.

That statue will have special meaning for me, because I had the privilege of interviewing Alexander in 1976, as part of a series on the “Black Elite” that I was doing for Philadelphia Magazine.

Alexander wasn’t the type of person who craved media attention, so it wasn’t an easy interview to get. It was Norristown historian Charles Blockson, curator of the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora at Pennsylvania State University and the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University, who arranged it. He vouched for me and accompanied me to her home at 700 Westview Avenue, where she lived until 1987. 

I remember that day very clearly. After all, I was meeting a woman whose long list of impressive firsts – the first Black American to earn a PhD in economics, the first Black woman admitted to the University of Pennsylvania Law School – truly did make her a living legend. At 78, she struck me as a gracious and charming person who had a spine of steel. When she spoke, it was with the kind of determination that had marked her groundbreaking career as she recounted the “humiliating” level of discrimination she faced in those years. 

“When I was working on my doctorate degree at Penn, I had to buy lunch in the school cafeteria and go eat it on a park bench on Walnut Street because I was not allowed to eat it in the cafeteria,” she recounted. 

But Alexander – whose family of achievers includes her grandfather, Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner of the AME Church, her uncle, the renowned painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, and her father Aaron Albert Mossell, Penn Law's first Black graduate – didn’t let that stop her.

“My family fought for generations against this oppressive system, and they would want no less from me,” she told me. “Circumstances made a student like me either a dropout or a survivor so strong that I could overcome anything, regardless of the indignities. I was determined that someday I would make the students, the faculty and the administration recognize me in some manner.”

And the rest, of course, is history. 

Alexander became the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in economics in 1921 with a doctoral dissertation challenging prevailing theories about migrant workers. She argued their movement wasn't just about seeking higher wages but about pursuing dignity and opportunity.

While racial barriers prevented her from practicing as an economist in Philadelphia, she pivoted to law, becoming the first African American woman to graduate from Penn Law in 1927 and the first admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.

The legal partnership she formed with her husband, Raymond Pace Alexander, became a powerhouse for civil rights in Philadelphia. Their offices on Broad Street handled everything from desegregation cases to everyday legal matters for African American businesses and families. They also hosted regular dinners for young activists and professionals, creating networks of support and opportunity in the African American community.

She became a passionate advocate for economic justice, arguing that civil rights without economic opportunity was an incomplete victory. She was particularly concerned about education and mentored young African American students and lawyers while pushing for systemic changes in Philadelphia's schools.

Her appointment to President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights brought national recognition. She helped craft the committee’s "To Secure These Rights," which laid the groundwork for civil rights legislation of the 1960s. She later served on Philadelphia's Commission on Human Relations, the National Urban League board for 25 years and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to chair the White House Conference on Aging in 1979.

Through it all, she said, she always knew that she was carving a path for future generations. “So many of us fought and died so that generations coming after us would be able to have opportunities,” she told me. “We fought to open doors that others could walk through. We tilled virgin soil.”

I've interviewed many prominent figures in my many years of reporting, but few left such a lasting impression as Sadie Alexander. As Philadelphians prepare to honor her with a statue, I won’t just join them in marking her groundbreaking legacy of achievement. I'll also be counting myself lucky enough to have met her.

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com