Sadie T.M. Alexander

As we pause to acknowledge, celebrate, and honor Women's History Month, it is incumbent upon us to recognize the many exceptional Black Women who pioneered and blazed trails that not only opened doors for themselves but rendered stellar service to humanity leaving an awesome legacy for others to follow and emulate.

- Junious Ricardo Stanton

One such Sheroe is Sadie Tanner Mossel Alexander. Sadie Tanner Mossel was born on January 28, 1898, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three daughters born to Aaron Mossel and Mary Tanner Mossel.

Her parents separated when she was an infant, and she grew up in a single-family household, moving between Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

Sadie was part of a prominent and accomplished extended family. Her grandfather was Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, a leader in the African Methodist Church.

One of her uncles was Henry Ossawa Tanner, an acclaimed artist, and another uncle was Nathan F.Mossel, who was the first African-American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School who became a surgeon and co-founder of the Black hospital Mercy-Douglas in Philadelphia.

Her father was the first Black graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her paternal grandfather, Aaron Mossel, Sr., owned a successful brick-making company in Lockport, New York. An aunt, Hallie Tanner Johnson, became a social worker and a physician, establishing a Nursing School in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Her family impressed upon Sadie the importance of education, determination, perseverance, and service.

Miss Mossel graduated from the M Street High School in Washington, DC (later renamed Dunbar High). She lived with an uncle, Lewis Baxter Moore, her mother's sister's husband, who was the Dean of Education at Howard University. He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

At M Street, she was exposed to influential African Americans who frequently visited and