Andrew Brimmer
Former Member, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Bank
Barbara Weinstock Lectures on the Morals of Trade
April 7, 1986 — 4:10 PMUniversity of California, Berkeley — UC Berkeley Campus
About Andrew Brimmer
Andrew Brimmer is a renowned economist, writer, and business leader. He was the first African American to serve as a governor of the United States Federal Reserve Bank. Before his governorship, Brimmer was dispatched to Sudan to help establish the newly independent nation’s central bank. As an economist, he supported a monetary policy that focused on alleviating unemployment and reducing the national deficit. Brimmer also argued that racial discrimination hurt the U.S. economy by marginalizing potentially productive workers.
Following his work with the Federal Reserve System, he briefly taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Business and founded his own consulting firm, Brimmer & Company, Inc. based in Washington, D.C. As an author, Brimmer’s writings reflect a deep dissatisfaction with racial discrimination, blaming its effect on black education as the cause for income disparity in relation to whites. Brimmer has also advocated strategies that connect Affirmative Action with African American self-help.