Andrew Brimmer Biography Favorites Color Blue Food Salmon Time of Year Spring Vacation Spot Vancouver, British Columbia

Noted economist, academic and business leader Andrew F. Brimmer was born in Newellton, Louisiana, on September 13, 1926. The son of sharecroppers who had been driven off of the land by boll weevils, Brimmer attended local, racially segregated elementary and high schools. Upon graduation, he moved to Bremerton, Washington, with an older sister and worked as in a navy yard as an electrician's helper. In 1945, Brimmer was drafted into the Army, and served until November 1946. After completing his military service, Brimmer enrolled in the University of Washington, earning a B.A. in economics in 1950. In 1951, after receiving an M.A., he won a Fulbright grant to study in India. In 1952, he enrolled in Harvard, earning a Ph.D. in 1957.

While working on his doctorate, Brimmer went to work for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as an economist. During that same time, he traveled to Khartoum, Sudan, to help the country establish a central bank. During the Kennedy administration, Brimmer became assistant secretary of economic affairs in the U.S. Department of Commerce, and served until 1966. That same year he began an eight-and-a-half year term on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. While there, he became the first African American governor of the Federal Reserve. In 1974, he left to take a post at Harvard University, where he stayed for two years. When he left, he formed his own consulting company, Brimmer & Co. In 1997, he returned to the governorship of the Federal Reserve, and in 1999 became vice chairman.

Brimmer was elected to the Washington Academy of Sciences in 1991, largely as a result of his published works on the nature and importance of central banking systems. He has served as vice president of the American Economic Association and president of the Eastern Economics Association. Currently, he is president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and serves on a number of other corporate boards of directors.

Selected Bibliography
Brimmer, Andrew. International Banking and Domestic Economic Policies: Perspectives in Debt and Development. University of California Press: 1986.
––––. Economic Costs of Discrimination Against Black Americans. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies: 1995.

Brimmer was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 24, 2003.