Flournoy A. Coles Jr. ( 1915 – August 1, 1982) was an official of the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

and a professor at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

Owen Graduate School of Management The Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management is the graduate business school of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1969, Owen awards six degrees: a standard 2-year Master of Business Administr ...

. He was the first Black faculty member to gain tenure at

Early life and education

Coles was born in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.Xavier University Xavier University ( ) is a private Jesuit university in Cincinnati and Evanston (Cincinnati), Ohio. It is the sixth-oldest Catholic and fourth-oldest Jesuit university in the United States. Xavier has an undergraduate enrollment of 4,860 studen ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where he earned a doctorate in economics at the

Wharton School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in P ...

of Business. He served in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Career

Coles was an economist with the State Department from 1951 to 1963, serving in posts in Europe and Asia. In 1967, he became the chair of the economics department at

Fisk University Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1930, Fisk was the first Africa ...

Nashville, TN Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

, and in 1969, he was hired as a tenured faculty member at Vanderbilt University. He was a president of the

National Economic Association The National Economic Association (NEA) is a learned society established in 1969, focused on initiatives in the field of economics. The purposes of the Association are "to promote the professional lives of minorities within the profession. In a ...

Selected works

* Coles, Flournoy A. Black economic development. Burnham Incorporated Pub, 1975. * Coles, Flournoy A. An analysis of black entrepreneurship in seven urban areas. National Business League, 1969. * Coles, Flournoy. "Recommendations from Nashville Conference on Economic Curriculum in Black Colleges." The American Economic Review 60, no. 2 (1970): 412-415. * Coles Jr, Flournoy A. "The Unique Problems of the Black Businessman." Vand. L. Rev. 26 (1973): 509. * Coles Jr, Flournoy A. "Financial Institutions and Black Entrepreneurship." Journal of Black Studies 3, no. 3 (1973): 329-349. * Coles Jr, Flournoy A. "Rethinking economic development." The Review of Black Political Economy 11, no. 2 (1981): 277-281.

References

1982 deaths People from Trenton, New Jersey United States Foreign Service personnel Xavier University alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni African-American diplomats Fisk University faculty Vanderbilt University faculty African-American economists Presidents of the National Economic Association {{US-economist-stub