"Raymond Pace Alexander"(October 19,1898-November 24,1974)

Was a civil rights leader,Harvard-educated lawyer and the first African American judge appointed to the Court of Common Pleas in

Philadelphia,Pennsylvania.Many accounts of the African-American accounts civil rights struggle in the United States focus on the large-scale events,urban rebellions and nationwide efforts that characterized the years after the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v.Education.In realty some of the most notable and influential civil rights figures were local attorneys across the country who fought racial discrimination and broke down barriers in the courtrooms and in society during the first half of the twentieth century,laying the groundwork for Brown and the more wellknowned movement that followed.Raymond is one such figure who has too often been overlooked.After graduating from Harvard Law School,Raymond opened his own firm in his hometown of Philadelphia,where he not only one of the most prominent attorneys,but also stood at the forefront of the city's civil rights struggle.Raymond was born into a working-class African-American family in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.His parents,like many African Americans in the 1860s,& 1870s,had left the rural South looking for economic opportunities and an escape from the violence that accompanied Jim Crow.His father Hillard Boone Alexander,was born a slave in Mecklenburg,Virginia,and had migrated to Philadelphia with his brother,Samuel,in 1880.That same year Raymond's mother Virginia Pace,also migrated to Philadelphia with her brother,John Scholie Pace;they had been slaves in Essex County,Virginia.Hillard and Virginia married in Philadelphia in 1882.The city was in a period of transition at the time,and growth in population and infrastructure meant relatively greater economic opportunities for African-American that existed in the rural south.When Raymond was born,both of his parents,lived in the Seventh Ward-through their home was located in the "fair to comfortable"section of the ward on a predominantly white block.His father and Uncle were entrepreneurs;they were "riding masters"who gave horseback riding lessons to some of the wealthiest whites in Philadelphia for about twenty years.By 1915,the Seventh African-American had grown to such an extent that wealthy whites in Philadelphia were less and less interested patronizing African American businesses,and those in the African American community who depended on white clientele-including Hilard Alexander and his brother failed.In 1909,when Raymond was eleven his mother died of pheumonia.He began working to help support the family,Hilard felt unable to provide adequate care for the children and sent Raymond and his three siblings to live with their aunt and uncle Georgia and John Pace,in a growning African American community in North Philadelphia.The Paces were a working-class family as well and,recognizing that there were now even more mouths to feed,Raymond continued working through grade school and high school to help support himself and his siblings.In addition to school and church,he held 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.Perhaps most significantly,he was delivering newspapers nearby one afternoon,the owner of the Met,Jack Beresin,struck up a conversation with him that culminated with a job offer.Later,looking back on his time at the Met,he stated Jack had "opened a new world for [im]," and he credited that swanky environment with giving him "some of the smoothness and culture which characterize his later years.After graduating from the prestigious all-boys Central High School in 1917 as Valedictorian,Raymond attended the University of Pennsylvania on a merit scholarship and became the first African American graduate of the Wharton School of Business in 1920.He then enrolled at Harvard Law School and,after graduation in 1923,moved back in Philadelphia.That same year,he married his former Penn classmate Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander-who in 1927 would become the first African American woman to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.In addition to founding Philadelphia's premier African American law firm,he also served as the President of the National Bar Association from 1933-1935 and served on the Philadelphia City Council from 1951 to 1958,before becoming the first African American judge to be appointed to the City's Court of Common Pleas in 1959.He also associated as counsel for the NAACP in a number of high profile cases,and played the leading role in ending de jure segregation in Pennsylvania public schools in the 130s by successfully challenging the policies of two Chester County school districts in court.