Editing Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (section)

== Education and Achievement ==

Sadie Tanner Mossell was born on January 2, 1898, in Philadelphia, into a prominent African American family—her father Aaron Albert Mossell was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her uncle Nathan Francis Mossell founded the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital. This lineage of professional achievement created expectations that she would meet and exceed. Her education at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her bachelor's degree (1918), her master's degree in economics (1919), and her doctorate in economics (1921), established the academic credentials that racism would nonetheless devalue.<ref name="wright">{{cite book |last=Wright |first=R.R. |title=The Philadelphia Colored Directory |year=1908 |publisher=Philadelphia Colored Directory Company |location=Philadelphia}}</ref>

Her inability to secure employment as an economist, despite credentials that would have opened any door for a white male, demonstrated that achievement alone could not overcome discrimination. Her decision to pursue law at Penn, from which she graduated in 1927, sought credentials more difficult for racist employers to ignore. Her marriage to Raymond Pace Alexander, also a Penn Law graduate who would become the city's first Black judge, created a partnership that combined legal practice with civil rights advocacy.<ref name="alexander"/>

Her practice, first with her husband and later independently, addressed the legal problems of Black Philadelphia while her civil rights work extended her influence beyond individual clients. Her appointment by President Truman to the Committee on Civil Rights in 1947, which produced the landmark report "To Secure These Rights," demonstrated that her prominence extended to national significance. Her continued activism throughout her long life maintained engagement that her credentials had enabled.<ref name="wright"/>