Karl D. Gregory is an American economist who is professor emeritus of economics at

Oakland University Oakland University is a public research university in Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Michigan. Founded in 1957 through a donation of Matilda Dodge Wilson, it was initially known as Michigan State University-Oakland, operating under the Mi ...

in Michigan, and was an early president of the National Economic Association. In 1962, he was refused the opportunity to purchase a home in developer William Levitt's Belair subdivision of Bowie, Maryland, based on his race, sparking extensive protests which contributed to the passage of the

Civil Rights Act of 1968 The Civil Rights Act of 1968 () is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applie ...

Education and early life

Gregory was born and raised in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, Michigan. He earned two degrees from Wayne State University and a PhD in economics from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Career

Gregory worked in the Bureau of the Budget (now the

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...

) in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations while volunteering as chair of the Congress of Racial Equality. He then joined the faculty of Oakland University, where he taught for 27 years. In 2014, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights awarded him the Bishop H. Coleman McGehee Jr., Lifetime Achievement Award.

Selected works

* Gregory, Karl D. "Some Alternatives for Reducing the Black-White Unemployment Rate Differential." The American Economic Review 66, no. 2 (1976): 324–327. * Gregory, Karl D. "Brief report of the State of the Black Economy, 1973." The Review of Black Political Economy 3, no. 3 (1973): 3–16. * Gregory, Karl D. "A task force report on Ghana." The Review of Black Political Economy 10, no. 2 (1980): 169–184.

References

American economists African-American economists Wayne State University alumni University of Michigan alumni Oakland University faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century African-American educators Presidents of the National Economic Association {{economist-stub