Harris, Abram Lincoln

Related Category: Economics: Biographies

1899–1963, American economist, b. Richmond, Va. He headed the economics department at Howard Univ. (1936–45) and taught at the Univ. of Chicago (1946–63). Starting from a Marxist viewpoint, Harris was later influenced by the liberalism of John Stuart Mill. In such books as The Black Worker (written with Sterling D. Spero, 1931) and The Negro as Capitalist (1936), he explored the problems involved in attaining social and economic equality for African Americans and concluded that a unified working class offered the best hope.