ABSTRACT
Andrew Brimmer was born in 1926 to a sharecropper father and warehouse-working mother in rural northeast Louisiana. He picked cotton as a child growing up along the Mississippi River. Despite coming from an indigent family, his upbringing was one of self-confidence, high values, and high standards. Brimmer was the first African-American to be named a governor of the Federal Reserve System. Brimmer is considered one of the foremost leading African-American economic theorists today. Brimmer is an acknowledged expert on economic development, especially as it applies to sub-Saharan Africa. Brimmer analyzes the state of black economy over the past four decades from 1960 to 1990. Brimmer noted that many black men had dropped out of the workforce; consequently, black women were contributing more economic support to black families. Black firms must strategize and focus on a wider appeal, both nationally and internationally.
