"John Hanks Alexander(" January 6 1864- March 26 1894)

The son of slave parents, John attended Oberlin College for one year until he scored higher on a test than the son of Ohio's chief justice and received an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1883.Despite white ostracism,he did well in all of his courses, particularly those in languages, and in 1887 became the second black graduation, he reported to the all-black Ninth Cavalry Regiment,where he served for the next seven years and complied an excellent record.Booker T. Washington and other black leaders tried to get him assigned as an instructor of military science at Tuskegee Institute or some other black college, but they were not successful until January 1894 when, through the efforts of the president of Ohio's Wilberforce College, he was assigned there. He had just begun his tour of duty when died of a heart attack.Had he lived he might very well have later become the ranking black officer in World War 1; he outranked the later famous Charles Young by two years. During that war, the War Department named a Virginia stevedore encampment Camp Alexander after him.