Raymond Pace Alexander

Raymond Pace Alexander (October 13, 1898 – November 24, 1974) was a civil rights leader, Harvard-educated lawyer, Philadelphia City Councilman, and the first African-American judge appointed to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Early life and education

Alexander was born into a working-class black family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 13, 1898.^[1] His parents, like many African Americans in the 1860s and 1870s, had left the rural South looking for economic opportunities and an escape from the violence that accompanied Jim Crow.^[2] His father, Hillard Boone Alexander, was born a slave in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and migrated to Philadelphia with his brother, Samuel, in 1880.^[1] That same year, Raymond’s mother, Virginia Pace, also migrated to Philadelphia with her brother, John Schollie Pace; they had been born slaves in Essex County, Virginia. Hillard and Virginia married in Philadelphia in 1882.^[1]

Alexander graduated from Philadelphia's Central High School in 1917.

When Raymond was born, his parents, like most of the city’s black population, lived in the Seventh Ward (what is now the western part of Center City). Their home was located in the "fair to comfortable" section of the Ward on a predominantly white block.^[3] His father and uncle were "riding masters" who gave horseback riding lessons to wealthy white people in Philadelphia.^[4] But by 1915, the emergence of the automobile era led the business to decline and ultimately fail.^[4]

In 1909, when Alexander was eleven years old, his mother died of pneumonia.^[4] Although Alexander immediately began working to help support the family, his father felt unable to provide adequate care for the children and sent Alexander and his three siblings (including his sister Virginia) to live with their aunt and uncle, Georgia and John Pace, in a growing black community in North Philadelphia.^[4] The Paces were a working-class family as well and with even more mouths to feed, Alexander continued working through grade school and high school to help support himself and his siblings, holding a number of jobs during those years; he worked on the docks unloading fish, sold newspapers, and owned a bootblack stand where he worked six days per week for a time.^[5] Perhaps most significantly, Alexander worked at the Metropolitan Opera House in North Philadelphia for six years, beginning when he was 16 years old.^[6] Later, looking back on his time at the Met, Alexander said that it had "opened a new world for [him]," and he credited that swanky environment with giving him "some of the smoothness and culture which characterizes my later years."^[6]

Alexander attended Central High School and graduated in 1917, delivering a speech "The Future of the American Negro," at the commencement ceremony.^[7] Alexander attended the University of Pennsylvania on a merit scholarship and became the first black graduate of the Wharton School of Business in 1920.^[8] He then enrolled at Harvard Law School.^[8] While there, Alexander supported himself by working as a teaching assistant during the school year.^[9] In the summers, he took classes for a master's degree in political science at Columbia University and worked as a porter for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad.^[10] While still in law school, Alexander brought his first discrimination lawsuit, suing Madison Square Garden for refusing him entry on account of his race, a violation of New York's equal rights law (as he was not yet barred, Alexander hired an attorney to represent him.)^[11]

Legal career

Alexander graduated from Harvard Law in 1923. That same year, he married his former Penn classmate Sadie Tanner Mossell. Mossell was the granddaughter of Benjamin Tucker Tanner and in 1927 would become the first black woman to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.^[12] They would have two daughters, Rae and Mary.^[13] He passed the Pennsylvania bar exam in 1923, becoming one of a few black lawyers in the state.^[14] Despite his credentials, Alexander had difficulty finding a job in Philadelphia after graduation. Ultimately, he took a position in the law office of John R.K. Scott, a white Republican former Congressman with a small office in the city.^[15] Soon thereafter, he opened his own office with a focus on representing black people.^[15]

He soon rose to prominence in Philadelphia's black community. In 1924, he represented Louise Thomas, a black woman accused of murdering a black policeman. After she was convicted and sentenced to death, Alexander secured her a new trial at which she was found not guilty, a first in Pennsylvania legal history.^[16] That same year, he filed an anti-discrimination lawsuit against a movie theater owner in Philadelphia who refused admission to black ticketholders. He lost the case, but it nonetheless raised his profile as a black lawyer willing to fight for equal rights.^[17] Around this time, Alexander began to identify with the black intellectual "New Negro" movement, which advocated self-help, racial pride, and protest against injustice.^[18] he also joined the National Bar Association, an association of black lawyers that had formed when its founding members were denied membership in the American Bar Association. Though the NBA, Alexander began to use political protest as well as legal action in the struggle for equal rights.^[19]

Berwyn desegregation case

In 1932, Alexander became involved with efforts to desegregate the schools in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. After Easttown Township built a new elementary school, neighboring Tredyffrin Township closed their school and paid to send their students to Easttown (the Berwyn region included parts of both townships).^[20] Easttown converted their older, smaller school building into one "for the instruction of certain people", which in practice meant all black students in the district, segregating the previously integrated schools.^[21] As a result, 212 African-American students began to boycott the public schools.^[20] The families hired Alexander to press the issue in court.^[22]

With the assistance of the NAACP, Alexander negotiated with school board to end the boycott, but the stalemate dragged on into 1933.^[23] Tensions increased as the state Attorney General, William A. Schnader, ordered the black parents prosecuted for refusing to send their children to school.^[24] some refused to pay bail and stayed in prison as a protest. Alexander approved of the strategy, while the NAACP thought it too confrontational; they also objected to Alexander's acceptance of help from International Labor Defense lawyers, fearing association with the far-left group.^[25]

As the boycott dragged on into 1934, groups organized protest marches in Philadelphia. Schnader, now running for governor, now promised to find a solution.^[26] Alexander and others credited Schnader's conversion to his recognition of the growing influence of black voters in Pennsylvania.^[27] By June, the school board agreed to allow students to be admitted to the two schools on a race-neutral basis, and the parents ended their boycott.^[22] The following year, state representative Hobson R. Reynolds, a black Republican from Philadelphia, successfully proposed a strengthened equal rights bill in the state legislature to prevent similar situations from occurring again.^[28]

Political and judicial career

In addition to founding Philadelphia's premier black law firm, Alexander also served as the President of the National Bar Association from 1933 to 1935. He was elected to the Philadelphia City Council in 1951 and served there until 1958, before becoming the first black judge to be appointed to the city's Court of Common Pleas in 1959.^[8]

References

Sources

External links

• Raymond Pace Alexander Papers 1880–1975 at the University of Pennsylvania University Archives and Records Center