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Examining Frank Adair Jr. As An African American Cpa Pioneer: A Historical Note, Keith Hollingsworth

Accounting Historians Journal

In 1932, Frank Adair Jr. achieved his Certified Public Accountant (CPA) status as the sixth African American CPA in the US and only the second in the Deep South. Although his active professional career was brief (5 years), it typifies not only the difficulty experienced by an African American achieving this designation in the Jim Crow South, but also the factors that were necessary for such an achievement to occur in that time period. First, Adair Jr. practiced in a dynamic and vibrant segregated business community. Second, he was educated at a black college. An African American who wanted to …