In Memoriam: Dean of Black Economists Dr. Andrew F. Brimmer

As one of America’s most influential economists, Dr. Andrew Brimmer used his acumen and authority to implement monetary policy and promote financial stability as the first African American to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and to guide development of countries, cities, and corporations as a leading economic consultant. Appointed by President Bill Clinton to head Washington, D.C.’s Financial Control Board in the 1990s, he was largely responsible for rescuing the nation’s capital from bankruptcy during a crippling fiscal crisis. And throughout his career he became a catalytic force for black economic development and a powerful role model in the field. Brimmer died Oct. 7, 2012, at the age of 86.

“He was considered the dean of black economists and a tireless advocate for black business development and African American participation in the financial markets,” says Black Enterprise Chairman and Publisher Earl G. Graves Sr. “Among his greatest accomplishments has been his

mentorship of a generation of black economists and significantly raising the bar for all who operate in economics and finance.” In fact, he advised scores of powerful business leaders, including BE 100s CEOs such as Graves, who recruited him for BE’s first Board of Advisors and, in 1982, as a founding member of BE’s Board of Economists. Vital to the advancement of African American enterprise for more than a half century, he was bestowed BE’s highest honor, the A.G. Gaston Lifetime Achievement Award, in 2007.

“Andrew Brimmer was a giant,” says Dr. William E. Spriggs, a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor for the Obama administration. “From his groundbreaking work at the Department of Commerce to give a firm foundation to ending discrimination in interstate travel, to trailblazing [at the Fed,] to overseeing the restoration of financial stability to Washington, D.C.’s government, his expertise touched so many people and truly shaped American history.”

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The son of a sharecropper, the University of Washington graduate became a highly respected macroeconomist who studied in India through the Fulbright Program in 1951, earned his doctorate from Harvard in 1957, and became an expert on the financial sector and international banking, helping to establish a central bank in Khartoum, Sudan. As assistant secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Commerce, he played a large role in reversing Jim Crow laws through the development of the economic justification that led President John F. Kennedy in 1963 to base civil rights legislation on the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution and not solely the 14th Amendment. When the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was later challenged as being unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court used the congressional testimony prepared by Brimmer as the basis for unanimously upholding the law. His track record led to his historic appointment to the Fed in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson­–a position in which he demonstrated his prowess for 80 years.

“Andy Brimmer was a trailblazer and a role model for a generation of African Americans who aspired to be economic policy makers. Andy’s passing will be mourned deeply,” says Roger W. Ferguson Jr., president and chief executive officer of TIAA-CREF and former Fed vice chairman.

Friend and protégé Bernard Anderson, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of Business and former assistant secretary of the Department of Labor under President Clinton, adds that Brimmer was a “five-star general” in the battle against economic inequality: “He had a direct impact on the development of public policy and private actions of individuals, corporations, and activists in a way that had a beneficial effect on economic opportunity for black people.”

Brimmer demonstrated unyielding leadership when named director of  Washington, D.C.’s Financial Control Board in 1995 to address poorly

performing public services and astronomical debt under Mayor Marion Barry’s administration. “Dr. Brimmer, because of his no-nonsense approach, took the brunt of the opposition,” says former D.C. Mayor Anthony A.Williams, who worked with Brimmer to tame the city’s finances during that period. “The thing that most impressed me was his ability to just stand up, take charge, and do what needed to be done in a given situation. He was able to bring a real understanding of finance and economics to bear on real human problems here in the city.”

Says Margaret Simms, director of the Low-Income Working Families Project at the Urban Institute: “He was an outstanding example that would make people who were narrow-minded recognize that African Americans are capable of doing many things within the economics field, and for the larger profession in terms of opening their minds to think about African Americans in positions of power and influence.”