Frederick D Alexander

Frederick Douglas Alexander (February 21, 1910 – April 13, 1980) was a politician from North Carolina and the first African American to serve on the Charlotte City Council. Alexander was born in Charlotte, NC and was the son of Zechariah Alexander, a prominent African-American businessman and district manager of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and owner of the Alexander Funeral Home. Kelly Alexander, who eventually became a national leader for the NAACP, was Frederick's brother. Alexander graduated from Charlotte's Second Ward High School in 1926. He attended college at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. Upon his graduation in 1931 he returned to Charlotte to work at his father's funeral home.^[1]

Alexander began his political work organizing voter registration drives among Charlotte's African-American population. He also worked for the appointment of black police officers and mail carriers. He spoke about the importance of business courses in black high schools and about the need for better health care. In 1949 he served as executive secretary for the Citizens Committee for Political Action which sponsored African-American candidates for school board and city council. By continuing his civil rights work, Alexander gained notability throughout the community as a civil rights leader. He was a charter member of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Council on Human Relations, was elected to the Southern Regional Council, and served on the United Community Services committee.^[2]

In 1962, Alexander became the first African-American member of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and the Mecklenburg County Board of Public Welfare one year later. In 1965 he ran for and won a seat on the Charlotte City Council, making him the first African American on the Council since the 1890s. As a candidate, Alexander stressed "his desire not to be considered ‘the Negro candidate,’ but rather as a man who will work for the good of the entire community,” as one Charlotte Observer article put it.^[1] He served for nine years, helping pass several anti-discrimination ordinances while on the council. One of Alexander's most notable achievements was the removal of the fence separating the segregated Elmwood-Pinewood cemetery. Built in the 1930s, the partition dividing the cemeteries had remained a vestige of racial segregation even after Charlotte's voluntary integration following the 1964 Civil Rights Act.^[3] Alexander's initial proposal to City Council to remove the fence sparked the Charlotte Observer to prematurely publish that the fence would be demolished. That news led councilmen to decide the removal would require a motion. In July of 1968, the initial vote failed to pass and it was not until January 6, 1969, that it would be approved, thanks in part to one councilman's absence from the meeting and Mayor Stan Brookshire's favorable vote, which broke City Council's gridlock. The following day, Alexander oversaw the removal of the fence, remarking that upon his election "the Negro cemetery had no paved streets, was weedgrown and filled with trash... unprotected by fences on the outside."^[3] Along with ground maintenance and the erection of a perimeter fence, Alexander was instrumental in paving Pinewood's streets and closing the cemetery's Ninth Street entrance, to allow African Americans to enter through the main gate.^[4] One historian regarded the removal of the fence as a pivotal moment for Alexander, one in which he finally asserted himself as a councilman. His efforts had "initiated a symbolic gesture that said not only to black Charlotteans, but whites as well, that the barriers of segregation belong to a bygone era." ^[3] Not all citizens praised the councilman's efforts, however. After the premature 1968 Charlotte Observer article, various correspondences addressed to the council and Mayor Brookshire cited objections to removing the fence. One complaint assumed African Americans would steal funerary decorations from white graves, another spoke to white fears of assault from African Americans, and many took into account resignations of the writer's white ancestors, buried in bordering Elmwood.^[5] Regardless, the fence was removed and the cemeteries were united in what became a representation of the absurdities of segregation in a New South city like Charlotte, North Carolina. Other victories won by Alexander during his time as a councilman include the construction of a fire station for northwest Charlotte and the preservation of the Thompson Orphanage Chapel. He also pushed to have African Americans appointed to various committees and governmental boards in Charlotte as a way to increase African-American participation in government.^[6]

The Alexander home was one of the four houses hit during the Charlotte bombings on a November night in 1965. The homes of his brother Kelly, Julius Chambers, and Reginald Hawkins were also bombed that night in an attempt to stop civil rights lobbying in Charlotte. The terrorists were never caught and no one was killed by the blasts.^[1][7]

Alexander's work reached outside of Charlotte when he was elected to the North Carolina Senate in 1974 as a representative of district 22. While senator he served as vice chair of the Higher Education Committee. In 1979 he introduced legislation calling for the second week in February to be designated Black History Week in North Carolina. He was also part of the NAACP, the North Carolina Good Neighbor Council, Governor's Committee on Law and Order, and was president of the Mint Museum of Art from 1978-1979.^[1]

On April 13, 1980, Alexander died, and was buried at York Memorial Park in Charlotte.^[1]

References

• Frederick Douglas Alexander Papers, J Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte