Thomas Sowell

 Thomas Sowell (/soUl/, born June 30 1930) is a prominent American economist author, writer, and political commentator. He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a well-known voice in American conservative movements and was published extensively in books and in commentary. He also appeared on radio and TV as an interviewer. Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina to an impoverished family. He was raised in Harlem, New York City, and dropped out of Stuyvesant's high school. He then worked odd jobs, and was a member of the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He took night classes at Howard University after which he went to Harvard University. In 1958 his name was given the magna cum felicite. He received a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968 under his mentor Milton Friedman. In his academic career, he has been on the faculties at Cornell University, Amherst College, Brandeis University, the University of California, Los Angeles and, most recently, Stanford University. He has worked for think tanks, including the Urban Institute. He has been a Hoover Institution Senior Fellow in Public Policy at Stanford University since 1977.