The origins of a new Negro lawyer: Raymond Pace Alexander, 1898-1923.

Introduction

During the twentieth century, black lawyers played a Leading role in dismantling segregation and obtaining African American civil rights. Nationally known attorneys such as Charles Hamilton Houston, the first African American head counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); William Hastie, the first African American federal judge and NAACP lawyer; and Thurgood Marshall, who would become the first African American United States Supreme Court Justice, have received scholarly attention, but many equally important black attorneys such as Raymond Pace Alexander have been overlooked (McNeil, 1983; Ware, 1984; Williams, 1998). In her essay, "Black Lawyers and the Twentieth-Century Struggle for Constitutional Change," historian Darlene Clark Hine laments how historians neglected to explore the role of local attorneys who "labored behind the scenes" during the civil rights movement. Hine referred to black attorneys as "black legal soldiers ... who transformed constitutional jurisprudence to embrace the primacy of civil rights over states rights, and replaced the doctrine of "separate but equal" with one of equality: (Hine, 1995, 34). In addition to finding out more about the "local black attorneys" who assisted the NAACP during the civil rights movement, historians must examine the role that black attorneys such as Raymond Pace Alexander played in the civil rights struggle in Philadelphia from the New Negro Movement to the Civil Rights Era.

Between 1915 and 1954, the United States Supreme Court passed forty decisions in favor of the NAACP and black civil rights. White supremacy and Jim Crow laws in the South forced the NAACP litigation campaign to concentrate in the South. As a result, the NAACP's litigation campaign that desegregated graduate and professional schools, equalized black southern teacher's salaries, guaranteed a fair trial, and enforced the right the vote, viewed as a national movement, was in reality a southern movement. Alexander's civil rights struggle in Philadelphia complements the NAACP's southern campaign and expands the scope of civil rights scholarship. It forces historians to view the civil rights movement as a national, and not just a southern, movement. In Philadelphia, Alexander encountered extreme barriers such as hostile white juries, prosecutors, and judges. In northern cities blacks voted, but they still experienced de facto segregation in hotels, theaters, restaurants, housing, and schools. De facto segregation or institutional racism varied from city to city. For example, Charles Hardy maintains that, in 1923, the majority of Philadelphia's hotels, restaurants, and theaters were segregated. Moreover, some white businesses overtly violated the 1887 Pennsylvania's Equal Rights Law and posted signs that stated "No Negroes allowed" (Hardy, 1989, p. 199). In 1950, Raymond Pace Alexander recalled

"In 1923, the year of admission to our Bar, every central city theatre, motion picture as well as legitimate playhouse, had a pronounced policy of discrimination against Negro patrons. In the theatres that had but a one floor seating arrangement, a section in the rear of the theatre, the most uninviting side, was reserved for Negroes. In neighborhood houses, in white sections of Philadelphia and in the outlying districts, they simply refused to admit people of color at all even on a discriminatory basis and made no bones about it" (Alexander, 1950, 2).

Philadelphia was a northern city with southern race relations. Historian Rayford Logan argues that, between 1877-1901, a "color line in the New North" emerged (Logan, 1954, p. 215). This color line was racist and it segregated the black community. However, the segregated environment molded Alexander's race consciousness and commitment to protest. It forced Alexander to create his own black organizations, law practice, and fight for civil rights. Alexander was in the forefront of eradicating the color line in Philadelphia.

The Alexanders and Philadelphia's Seventh Ward 1898-1912

Raymond Pace Alexander, the grandson of slaves, was born on October 13, 1898 in Philadelphia to Hillard Boone Alexander and Virginia Pace Alexander. Alexander's father was born enslaved on November 22, 1856 to James and Ellen Alexander, Raymond's grandparents, in Mecklenberg, Virginia, which is located southwest of Richmond near the North Carolina border. In 1880, Hillard and his brother Samuel migrated from Mecklenberg to Philadelphia. Virginia Pace was born enslaved in 1854 to Thomas and Jenne Pace in Essex County, Virginia, which is located seventy-five miles south of Washington D.C. Limited information reveals that Virginia Pace and her brother John Schollie Pace migrated to Philadelphia in 1880. Two years later she married Hillard Alexander (Philadelphia Tribune, 1932, p. 2; Philadelphia Tribune, 1950, p. 2). Like most African Americans in Philadelphia, the Alexanders lived in the Seventh Ward, later made famous by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois's seminal 1899 sociological study The Philadelphia Negro.

From 1870-1890 the black population in Philadelphia increased from 22,147 to 39,371, with the majority of African Americans migrating from Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. Although Philadelphia was an expanding industrial city, historian Theodore Hershberg argues that whites denied African Americans opportunities to work in factories even though they lived close to high paying industrial jobs (Hersberg, 1981, p. 471). As a result, a disproportionate amount of African Americans, more than fifty percent, were employed in service jobs. These occupations included domestic work, caterers, longshoremen, and barbers. The year Alexander was born, his family lived at 534 South 24th Street, in what Du Bois classified as the "Fair to Comfortable" section of the Seventh Ward. Their home was located at the outer limits of the Seventh Ward next to a predominantly white block, however there is not record of any racial incidents. Du Bois's occupational study listed one horse trainer between the ages of 31 and 40. This may have well have been Alexander's father or uncle (DuBois, 1899, p. 47, 107).

Alexander's family belonged to what Du Bois described as the working class who lived "in comfortable circumstances." Du Bois characterized Philadelphia's black working class as ambitious, literate, active in the church, and their children attended school past the sixth grade. Du Bois concluded that Philadelphia's black working class experienced a "midst of discouragements" or racism, but the Alexanders survived in spite of the structural disadvantages they encountered. According to Du Bois, fifty-six percent of the black families in Philadelphia were working class, and Alexander was raised in an environment where he internalized his working class family values: hard work, education, church, and family (DuBois, 1899, p. 311-16).

On June 17, 1903, shortly after his youngest brother Schollie was born, Alexander's mother died of pneumonia (Death Certificate, 1903). In 1896 the death rate for African Americans with pneumonia was approximately 291 per 100,000. It was the third leading cause of death in the black community. Du Bois attributed the high rate of pneumonia to poor housing conditions in the Seventh Ward. Alexander's father's long work days made it difficult for him to take care of his five children. As a result Alexander, along with his four siblings, Irene, Hilliard, Jr., Schollie, and Virginia moved to North Philadelphia to live with their maternal aunt, Georgia Chandler Pace. Born in 1866 in Richmond, Virginia, Georgia Chandler graduated from high school and was a teacher. In 1887, she migrated to Philadelphia and married Alexander's maternal uncle John Schollie Pace. Initially the Paces lived in South Philadelphia, but in 1902 they moved to North Philadelphia, an expanding black community (Alexander, n.d p. 1). They also left Holy Trinity Baptist Church and joined Zion Baptist Church, the third largest black church in Philadelphia, where Alexander became a life member. Zion Baptist Church played an important role in Alexander's life. Alexander's aunt and uncle had an adopted child named Alice, therefore the Paces had to take care of six children on his uncle's waiter salary and the money Alexander's father contributed (DuBois, 1899, p. 152, 214).

Immediately following his mother's death when he was eight years old, Alexander started working to assist his …