Portal:Philadelphia/Selected biography/May 2008

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in the United States, the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and was the first National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander served on many boards, committees, and commissions and held office in many local and national organizations including: President Harry Truman's Committee on Human Rights in 1947 and on the Commission on Human Relations of the City of Philadelphia from 1952 until 1968. She worked in her husband's law firm from 1927 until 1959, when he was appointed to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. She practiced law on her own until 1976, when she joined the firm of Atkinson, Myers, and Archie as a general counsel. She retired in 1982, was ill with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases for several years, and died in 1989.