Audio
Oral History Interview with Jack Alexander
Transcript
[Start of CT-2001-KS-001a_01]
Oloye Adeyemon: Brown versus Board Oral History Collection, Topeka, Kansas, school segregation/desegregation interviews. Interviewee, Mr. Jack Alexander. Interviewer, Oloye Adeyemon from the National Park Service. Interview conducted in the Brown versus Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas, on September 19, 2001. These interviews are made possible through-through funding of the National Park Service for the summer of 2001 for the Brown versus Board Oral History Research Project, part of the Brown versus Board of Education National Historic Site Oral History Project. Mr. Alexander, what is your full name?
Jack Alexander: Uh, full name?
Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.
Jack Alexander: That's the one I don't use.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-oh.
Jack Alexander: Francis Stewart Alexander.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: Now do you understand why they called me Jack?
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. [Laughter] And what is your birth date?
Jack Alexander: 12-7-30.
Oloye Adeyemon: And—
Jack Alexander: Historic date.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yes. Where were you born?
Jack Alexander: Iola, Kansas.
Oloye Adeyemon: Eh, what county is that?
Jack Alexander: Allen.
Oloye Adeyemon: Allen County.
Jack Alexander: Down in southeast Kansas.
Oloye Adeyemon: How far from Topeka?
Jack Alexander: Oh, comfortably, I'd say 175 miles [unintelligible 01:18].
Oloye Adeyemon: What year did you come to, um—at what age did you come to Topeka?
Jack Alexander: Uh, right after birth—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: - and part of that reason, my dad was already here in Topeka working at Topeka High School—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - wh-when I was born, and shortly after that, uh, he brought the family all to Topeka.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: So Topeka's been all I've ever known.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What are your parents' names?
Jack Alexander: Uh, Floyd—James Floyd Alexander, deceased, and, uh, my original mother was Agnes Marie Alexander, deceased. The lady—
Oloye Adeyemon: What was her maiden name?
Jack Alexander: Stewart. Sorry.
Oloye Adeyemon: Is that with a D?
Jack Alexander: S—uh, with a S. Stewart.
Oloye Adeyemon: No, end. D or T?
Jack Alexander: T.
Oloye Adeyemon: T.
Jack Alexander: Uh, the lady who was mother most of my life was a lady by the name of Mary Elizabeth Taylor Alexander—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and, uh, for all intents and purposes, that was my mother.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, and what mother—what year did your mother die?
Jack Alexander: My mother died in 1938, so I was—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so you were eight years old.
Jack Alexander: Yeah. I was pretty small.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh, were there brothers and sisters born in both marriages?
Jack Alexander: Uh, no, just in the first marriage.
Oloye Adeyemon: How many children?
Jack Alexander: I have, uh, three brothers—I'm sorry, two brothers and one sister.
Oloye Adeyemon: What are their names?
Jack Alexander: Uh, the oldest one, uh—I'm the oldest of the four. The next to me is, uh, Samuel L. Alexander. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska. The next one is Sadie Katherine Alexander Hudson—I'm sorry, Hefflin. Sadie Katherine Hefflin. And—
Oloye Adeyemon: How do you spell that?
Jack Alexander: H-E-F-F-L-I-N. And she lives in Lompoc, California. The youngest was, uh, James Floyd Alexander Jr., and he lives in Zion, Illinois.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I'm the only one that's still here.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, and what did your father and mother, both your biological mother as well as the mother that raised you—what did-what did your parents do for a living?
Jack Alexander: Uh, my biological mother was, uh, just a housewife, as far as I know. Uh, my stepmother, who I never called stepmother, just my second mother—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - um, she did, uh—oh, she—I would say that probably most of it would be classified as day work.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, my father, uh, was a custodian for the board of education—
Oloye Adeyemon: Here.
Jack Alexander: - all of his work-work career. Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What did you do?
Jack Alexander: Uh, as a young-youngster, one of the first jobs I had was working for the board of education. I, uh, uh, was an assistant helping him out, and then I, uh, ran the, uh, stock room—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, s-sort of a warehouse thing, supplying—uh, sending the supplies out to the schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. You had mentioned earlier, and I don't know whether that was common practice elsewhere—isn't even common today—but you had, uh, indicated that there were times when you did other things during your workday as an employee of the school system.
Jack Alexander: Very much so. A-as well as my father—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and my mother.
Oloye Adeyemon: You mentioned your uncle also worked [crosstalk 04:50].
Jack Alexander: I also had an uncle—I had two uncles that worked for the board of education.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: One—uh, and both were custodians. One was at, uh, Washington School, and for the life of me, I can't remember which school the other one was at, but it probably was—uh, uh, at different times, both of them, I'm sure, were at Washington. Uh, one of them, my Uncle Melvin Alexander, was later transferred to run, uh, uh, the, uh, sort of farming and-and, uh, ranch operation, uh, for the McFarland family, who he, uh, ended up working for and retired from.
Oloye Adeyemon: Really? Hmm. And—
Jack Alexander: Dr. McFarland was the superintendent of schools at that time.
Oloye Adeyemon: And did I understand that sometimes you would do other jobs—
Jack Alexander: We would do—
Oloye Adeyemon: - during work hours?
Jack Alexander: - do many things. Uh, for instance, I said—do you remember, I said my mother was a domestic-type person. If these folks were—not just—any number of-of-of school—not school—school administration personnel, management personnel. If they were having guests in or people were visiting and this kinda thing and they decided to—
Oloye Adeyemon: Personal guests.
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: If they needed to have a party or a dinner or something, then we'd be called in to-to, uh, uh, perform, you know, that-that service.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Um, certainly during that time, we—for several of them, we would go to homes. We would cut grass. We would clean. Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, we not only were, uh, janitors at the administration building during that period of time, uh, we did quite a bit of the work in and around, uh—for these, uh—some of the administrators within the system.
Oloye Adeyemon: And this is something you had first-hand experience with.
Jack Alexander: I did.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm, so you know that these [crosstalk 06:58].
Jack Alexander: I-I-I know that [crosstalk 06:59].
Oloye Adeyemon: What did you think about those things at the time?
Jack Alexander: At the time, I don't think I-I really thought that much about it. Uh, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: 'Cause it was just the status quo. It was the way things—
Jack Alexander: I-i-it was—yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: And it wasn't necessarily even somethin', in all fairness to those people, that began with them. It might have been just—
Jack Alexander: It—
Oloye Adeyemon: - the way that things had been done for—
Jack Alexander: - it-it was the way things had been done. I think it was handed down. You know, I had, uh—I cut grass at the administration building. Didn't have much up there, but we cut the grass. Didn't think any—that was part of the job, and I assumed a lot of these other things were part of the job. There were times also when we didn't do hardly anything—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and yet were paid—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - so, uh, no, uh, at the time, I didn't, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: It wasn't-it wasn't a bad job—
Jack Alexander: Oh, no.
Oloye Adeyemon: - at the time that you were—
Jack Alexander: No. At, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: - [crosstalk 07:43]
Jack Alexander: - not-not only were we paid, uh, you know, for that extra time, there's many times when you'd get a little extra check—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, to compensate you for some of this work.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, you said paid for that extra time. Was I correct in understanding that some of the work you might do for administration personnel during work hours—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - was not school-related or—
Jack Alexander: No.
Oloye Adeyemon: - related—it was personal.
Jack Alexander: Far from—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: - far from school-related.
Oloye Adeyemon: But then you're saying that sometimes if the work went over, you got paid the extra time.
Jack Alexander: You got paid, and when—
Oloye Adeyemon: But still as an employee of the school board.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, the reason that I thought that—you talked about that before we started the interview.
Jack Alexander: One of-one of-one of the-one of the, uh, uh, things that, uh, I recall that, uh, we certainly did, um—one of the administrator's husband owned a furniture store. We delivered furniture during the day, work hours. Uh, we, you know, cleaned furniture, polished furniture—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - so we did what we just were—
Oloye Adeyemon: Instructed to do.
Jack Alexander: - instructed to do and-and had no real mixed feelings about it because, bottom line, I think we looked at the jobs that we had, and, uh, during that period of time, uh, you know, they were pretty nice.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. I asked you about that—you had mentioned that before we started the tape, and I asked you that on the record because one of the things that we need to-to do in these interviews is to establish, first of all, what the person's connection to the story is, and of all the people we've interviewed thus far, you have a unique connection in that you worked for the school—
Jack Alexander: I worked for the system.
Oloye Adeyemon: - in that way, and y-you're-you're-you're sharing that it wasn't a bad job. You weren't treated badly. However, I think there's an important reason why this is important because what you're describing is a—almost an—a type of, uh, aristocracy—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that existed in segregated communities, and this type of thing was not just, uh, a result of racial segregation. It was a res—it was a result of a certain way in which society was run—
Jack Alexander: Almost-almost a plant system.
Oloye Adeyemon: - where you might so many times—might—exactly. Where it-where it wasn't just race. It was also classes.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: And I think that, at least in my mind, you know, there's a kind of a parallel that might be missed otherwise to what people associated with the plantation system in the South.
Jack Alexander: Yeah. I—
Oloye Adeyemon: That's why I asked you to share.
Jack Alexander: - I lived through part of that, and there was another little piece that-that I-I would like to share with you, is that, uh, at that time, we had what I thought as a Black school superintendent, a gentleman by the name of Harrison L. Caldwell.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And Harrison was sorta over these four schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: We're gonna talk about that later, the four schools that were—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - set up for Blacks, [crosstalk 11:13] schools.
Jack Alexander: But-but-but the one thing that I want—the-the tie I wanna make back to what we were presently talking about—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - was, uh, uh, Harrison and the superintendent of schools both come from the same area of the state. Both went through college together, and it's my understanding that Harrison was the brain of the two and helped them get through that process and then later was brought into this system and given a—
Oloye Adeyemon: What was his title?
Jack Alexander: You know, I wish I could—like I say, I have always, in my mind, thought of Harrison as being somewhat a superintendent of the Black schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did—
Jack Alexander: Now, I know he was principal of the school that I went to, Washington.
Oloye Adeyemon: But this was later that he became over all four.
Jack Alexander: No, no, this was during that same period of time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: He was the principal, but he also had other duties—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that gave him—
Jack Alexander: In-in-in—
Oloye Adeyemon: - an administration kind of—administrative responsibility for all four.
Jack Alexander: Yes. That's how I viewed it.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. I-I guess—we're gonna footnote the transcript, and it'll be interesting to-to see if in the record we can find, uh, what his exact title was during those years.
Jack Alexander: Sure. Sure, because, you know, he was one of my early mentors.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And, again, I'm gonna tie that—those two pieces together because when Harrison used to go out to recruit teachers—and we'll get into the schools a little later on—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but I used to travel with him.
Oloye Adeyemon: Recruiting teachers for the schools from other areas.
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Unintelligible 12:55]
Jack Alexander: And-and at this time, you know, I'm-I'm just a high schooler or thereabouts.
Oloye Adeyemon: I'm gonna wanna come back to that. Um, you mentioned one other incident that occurred. Well, I'm sure there were many, but you mentioned one other incident that occurred in connection with your—performing your duties at the school—or during that period when you were performing your duties, and that, um, resulted from someone who worked for the school system—
Jack Alexander: Okay.
Oloye Adeyemon: - seeing you with your wife—or seeing you with a-a—
Jack Alexander: At that time—
Oloye Adeyemon: - became—who became your wife, but—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - at that time—
Jack Alexander: At that time, we were dating—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and-and, uh, my wife is American Indian, and some lady there at the administration building where we were still working at the time—
Oloye Adeyemon: You and your father.
Jack Alexander: Yes, and my mother.
Oloye Adeyemon: And your mother.
Jack Alexander: Anyway, they saw us somewhere—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and mentioned that to someone, and finally, it gets to the gentleman whose name was—McNeill 14:01 was his last name, who was my dad's—
Oloye Adeyemon: Immediate supervisor.
Jack Alexander: - I think immediate supervisor, and then when Mr. McNeill brought it to my dad's attention, uh, my dad, being what he was, and I'm sure having years of being able to do what he wanted and say what he wanted, uh, told him how he felt and this was none of his business. Uh, not long after that, we were transferred from the administration building to Lincoln Grade School. And, again, at Lincoln Grade School, there were no Black students at that time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And you were sent there to-to perform—
Jack Alexander: Well—
Oloye Adeyemon: - janitorial duties.
Jack Alexander: Yes. Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, did this, um, cause you to lose that extra money you might have made working for the—
Jack Alexander: Um—
Oloye Adeyemon: - administrative personnel?
Jack Alexander: - it probably did, but, uh, again, we were not—and-and-and, uh, uh, you know, I-I really don't know today. Uh, we were certainly removed from where we had been servicing some of those folk. Some of those folks also were leaving and doing—going different places.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Um, my mother—also, by this time, she is not at the, uh, administration building any longer, so, you know, she is still dealing with some of these same families—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but in a more one-on-one—
Oloye Adeyemon: I was just wondering—
Jack Alexander: - [crosstalk 15:36].
Oloye Adeyemon: - if you had a sense that this was a reprisal.
Jack Alexander: Well, I-I think-I think it was. I think-I think, along with what was going on at the time, it was maybe even embarrassing to my dad's supervisor, uh, that one of these other ladies mentioned this to him and he doesn't know how to deal with it, and then when he brings it to my dad, my dad told him it wasn't none of his business or none of those other folks' business. And-and I think today I would say that to re—to squelch that whole activity, we were then transferred.
Oloye Adeyemon: Or at least taken out of the public eye.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. The—now, during this time, you're-you're—y-y-you-you said based on what was going on. What was going on simultaneously to this? You said because of what was going on at the time—
Jack Alexander: Well, uh, uh, you know, the-the unrest that we were getting, you know, the court cases [crosstalk 16:41]
Oloye Adeyemon: So this is during that period.
Jack Alexander: Yeah, yeah. It's getting late, uh, uh, in that period, and-and that—
Oloye Adeyemon: So that's probably a period of tension—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - anyhow.
Jack Alexander: And, again, the school board conducted their business in this same building where we were all working.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand. Um, where—
Jack Alexander: And-and-and furthermore, you know, I-I at that time, as a youngster [unintelligible 17:08] was on first-name basis with many of the principals—
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and things throughout the schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Because of the work you did.
Jack Alexander: Because of the work I did.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What—I don't know if I asked this, but, um, your father and-and biological mother were born in the-the—
Jack Alexander: They were born in southeast Kansas. I think my dad was born in-in Yates Center—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and, uh, I think my mom was—she may have even been born in Iola. I don't even remember.
Oloye Adeyemon: In where?
Jack Alexander: In Iola.
Oloye Adeyemon: Iola.
Jack Alexander: Same place that I was.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: But if you saw my father—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, you would mistake him for—or-or not only my father. His brothers. You would mistake them for what they really are. They were very fair—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and all had long, curly hair—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, very handsome young men.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: So, again, that's part of, I think, uh, of-of-of some of that feeling.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: My dad and this same two uncles, when school was out, when they were working earlier at, uh, Topeka High School, when school was out, then they would take them, the three of them, to Estes Park, Colorado, and they would do that same thing: cook, clean—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - for these teachers—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - while they were—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - probably seminars. I don't—
Oloye Adeyemon: They-they would take 'em along.
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: Some of this might have been tea—school-related, but a lot of it wasn't.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Did your father and both mothers go to integrated schools?
Jack Alexander: Probably not. And, again, I—when I say probably not, uh, I don't think—and like I say, m—I—my re—uh, my mother died when I was eight. I don't know much about her background.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: My dad did not spend much time in school because he probably did the same things that he did after he went—come to To-Topeka to work. He was working in-in-in the fields and those kinds of things and traveled across western Kansas to Colorado, uh, and then—you know, in those mines and things, making-making bucks.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: So, uh, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: This is during the time, or before he started working in the school [crosstalk 19:41]
Jack Alexander: B—well, this-this was before he came to the—
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: - board of education.
Oloye Adeyemon: So what I was trying to get—isn't it true that in Topeka only the larger cities had segregated—segregation, and that was only in certain schools and then only after—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: - a certain point—
Jack Alexander: That's right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and that during their period, those laws might not have existed so that—
Jack Alexander: They may not have existed. Uh, you know, a-again, uh, in—you know, I-I-I can relate it to my education and my brothers' and sister's education much more than I can my parents.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: But again, from southeast Kansas, you know, uh, there were schools—you know, there wa—no segregated schools. They probably just all went to school together.
Oloye Adeyemon: That's what I was wondering about.
Jack Alexander: And, uh, uh, you know, uh, personally, I don't think, uh, they had any reflection upon that—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - until—
Oloye Adeyemon: Ka—
Jack Alexander: - probably until Brown.
Oloye Adeyemon: 'Til Topeka. Right, until Brown. Mm-hmm. So when you came to Topeka and started school, you went to—because of a law that I understand, uh, was passed in '26, uh, there-there were segregated schools at the elementary level.
Jack Alexander: There were four Black schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Which one of those did you go to?
Jack Alexander: I went to Washington.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And would you believe, our house, which I still have—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and it's sitting vacant—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - is a half a block away from a White school.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Now, I didn't hafta go that far to school. Probably three, three and a half, four blocks.
Oloye Adeyemon: But it was the principal of the thing.
Jack Alexander: Yes—
Oloye Adeyemon: What was—
Jack Alexander: - because the same kids that went to that school, I played with almost year-round.
Oloye Adeyemon: Sure. What was the name of that school?
Jack Alexander: That was Parkdale.
Oloye Adeyemon: Parkdale. Where was it located?
Jack Alexander: It was located on East 10th, uh, I would say, and-and to put a boundary, it would be between Indiana and Chandler.
Oloye Adeyemon: So it was in the middle of the block—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - on East 10th. And where did you live?
Jack Alexander: I lived on Wood—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - Wood Street, which is a two-block street—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - one block off of 10th between Chandler and Hancock.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So very close.
Jack Alexander: [Laughter] Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So how far did you hafta go to get to Washington? Where was Washington located?
Jack Alexander: Washington was over at, uh, uh—well, we'll just say 10th and Washington.
Oloye Adeyemon: So it was about three—
Jack Alexander: Actually, it was 11th and Washington.
Oloye Adeyemon: You said about—
Jack Alexander: About three blocks down.
Oloye Adeyemon: - three and a half—three blocks.
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: So, in your case, you walked to school.
Jack Alexander: Walked to school.
Oloye Adeyemon: Were there—now, during the period that you're going to school, if you had lived further from Washington, you would have rode the-rode the bus.
Jack Alexander: Would—could have rode the bus, and-and-and—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - one of the few things that I can remember about my earlier points at that school was when I would walk and see these kids getting off of the bus.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I can't even tell you what year it was, but I can tell you that bus driver's name.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. What was his name?
Jack Alexander: Mr. Grimes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Now, he drove the school that the Black students—
Jack Alexander: He drove-drove the—
Oloye Adeyemon: - came to school on.
Jack Alexander: - he was a White fellow who drove the Black students, uh, to Washington School.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. One, uh—how'd you happen to know his name? I mean, what struck you about it?
Jack Alexander: Well, uh, I-I thi—I think more curiosity, and he was a nice fellow.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: You know, he-he talked to everyone and that kind of thing, but—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - I think primarily because, at that time, I don't understand how some kids get a ride to school—
Oloye Adeyemon: Ride the bus and you were walkin'.
Jack Alexander: - and I'm walkin'.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: You know, and-and, you know, in the wintertime, you know, uh, uh, walking to school with no soles—
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm, even in three blocks.
Jack Alexander: - yeah, with no soles on your shoes—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and a little thin coat—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - caused you to wonder why someone else was ridin'.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Did you use cardboard?
Jack Alexander: Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, [crosstalk 23:37].
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah. All over the country, they were keepin' [laughter] their used cardboard. They talk about the cardboard.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: And they had different colored cardboard.
Jack Alexander: Oh, yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: One person said, "Why don't-why-don't-why don't I have colored cardboard in my shoes?" 'Cause that's—
Jack Alexander: Of course, you know, a-after you got to be a young teenager and you had that one little decent pair of-of, uh, uh, Converse tennis shoes, and kids also, as the sole wo-wore out, then you'd get some black tape and just put a roll of tape around the [laughter]—make another sole.
Oloye Adeyemon: All right. So you do have a memory, then, of-of—that early, and-and it-it struck you about the buses. Now, one of the things that I found a little bit fascinating is that while the case here was fighting to integrate the elementary schools, the elementary schools had Black teachers, and many of the people said the education they received was good, the teachers were—
Jack Alexander: Excellent.
Oloye Adeyemon: - encouraged to—it's interesting that the case was fighting—and I-and I understand why there was fighting—to end that situation—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and to integrate the elementary schools, but when I ask people about their junior high and high school experience, which was an integrated experience—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - it was a bad experience.
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: This is—
Jack Alexander: Well—
Oloye Adeyemon: - this is a interesting phenomenon.
Jack Alexander: - my—I-I won't even say mine was bad.
Oloye Adeyemon: Many people have.
Jack Alexander: Okay, but I—
Oloye Adeyemon: But you agree that-that for many people that was—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Sure, because-because I don't think they were able to make some of that transition.
Oloye Adeyemon: And was it the case that in-in-in the junior highs and high school at that time, uh, they were integrated, but there were no Black teachers?
Jack Alexander: Right, and that-that is the one thing that-that, uh, uh—and no-no Black cu-custodians either. Uh, and we-we'll get into some things a little later on about that junior high experience, but then too, I think it mattered where that junior high school experience was in this city.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I grew up on the east side—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, you know, and-and the socioeconomic level, uh, was pretty similar.
Oloye Adeyemon: To—between Whites and Blacks.
Jack Alexander: Whites and Blacks.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: You know, because this-this-this was—now, you get into some of the better parts of the ci—when I say better, more affluent parts of the city—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - I can see where differences would be made.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: You know, I think that they—
Oloye Adeyemon: When you say differences would be made, such as?
Jack Alexander: [Crosstalk 26:17] even not just in s—in-in teachers—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but even in relationship with students.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: If you remember, I told you I—
Oloye Adeyemon: But-but in your case, you played with—
Jack Alexander: I played with—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - those guys year-round.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So it wasn't—
Jack Alexander: Never had an understanding, and I don't even know whether I ever had a thought, until later, of why, when school started, they went to Parkdale and I went to—
Oloye Adeyemon: Got it. So that helped to ease the transition for you.
Jack Alexander: I think so, in-in-in-in my particular case. Let me just speak for-for-for—
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Jack Alexander: - for me. I went to East Topeka.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: East Topeka is at, uh, 8th and Lake.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: All around East Topeka, going one direction, uh, primarily Black. Uh, on a couple of the corners, Whites, and then moving further, uh, back to the north were Hispanics.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: So we had a—
Oloye Adeyemon: And Hispanics went to the White school at that time.
Jack Alexander: Well, they-well, they had their own school.
Oloye Adeyemon: They had their own school?
Jack Alexander: They-they'd go to school—they'd got Guadalupe, which is—
Oloye Adeyemon: So was this a school that they had to go to?
Jack Alexander: Well, it-it—again, Catholic school [crosstalk 27:34]—
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, okay, so you're sayin' the Hispanics went to a Catholic school. They did not go to the public schools—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - for the most part.
Jack Alexander: To the—yeah, and-and—
Oloye Adeyemon: And they had to pay. Were there Hispanic children that couldn't afford—that—
Jack Alexander: Oh, sure, sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Would they have gone to public schools?
Jack Alexander: Uh, I—and I'm sure that some of them did go. Uh, if they—
Oloye Adeyemon: They—
Jack Alexander: - and if they did—if they went to-to public schools—and let's just use East Topeka as an example—they probably would have gone to a place called Lafayette, which was between—
Oloye Adeyemon: Which was a White elementary school.
Jack Alexander: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Now, that would have been regardless of their com—their complexion because Hispanics are a mixture of people—
Jack Alexander: That's right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - African—
Jack Alexander: That's right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - Native American, and European, so they range in color from very light to very dark—
Jack Alexander: That's very true.
Oloye Adeyemon: - but regardless, as Hispanics, they would have went to the White school.
Jack Alexander: They would have gone—yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Now, what about the Native American children?
Jack Alexander: I don't think we—I think they blended in wherever.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I don't think we had that many that I know of, particularly—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - during that period of time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And if they were there, they primarily would have been probably, uh, uh, bordering more into the Hispanic neighborhood—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and then in the neighborhoods that I grew up in.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Jack Alexander: My neighborhood primarily was-was-was all Black—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - for quite a ways around there.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. And you had said that Blacks were to the east, Hispanics were to the north. Who was it that was to the west?
Jack Alexander: Well, uh, to the west, you would have had a-a mix of-of-of-of Black and White.
Oloye Adeyemon: And to the south?
Jack Alexander: And the same-same way, but the Blacks would have been more, uh, closely aligned to where Washington School—
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Jack Alexander: - was—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and then as you further went east, then it would-would get Whiter.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. So these schools were built and placed near pockets that Blacks [crosstalk 29:29].
Jack Alexander: Sure. Neighborhood schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: But they were still in different—in four different sections of the city.
Jack Alexander: That's right.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So that helped to ease the transition. Did you experience any of that-that—uh, some people have talked about— not everybody had that experience, but some people have talked about, in terms of, uh, problems from the attitudes of the White teachers, who—
Jack Alexander: In a—
Oloye Adeyemon: - you know, you know, were-were—
Jack Alexander: We had-we had a few. I was lucky enough that I don't think I had over one or two that-that may have been—
Oloye Adeyemon: So it did exist, but it was not the rule.
Jack Alexander: No, no. And-and I think the other thing was—I think that, uh, uh, coming into that system where you're going into homerooms, you had a homeroom teacher who'd become a quasi mother—I had an excellent one, Mrs. Wallbridge 30:23—who helped you select classes, and I'm sure—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - that being the kind of person she was helped some of us.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Had an old man named Mr. Chalmers who was a math teacher.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I don't know whether he was a-a-a-a bigot or not, but in thinking about him and his negative—
Oloye Adeyemon: Comments.
Jack Alexander: - comments and—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - approaches, uh, you know, you could—I could certainly put him in that category. Now, I never had him as a-as a teacher, but—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - I'm talkin' about the problems that people that had him—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - that—
Oloye Adeyemon: Have told you about.
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah. I've also heard that, uh, the counselors that—the White counselors, uh—hmm, some people have said that they felt that the counselors, uh, gave advice to Black students that they might not have given to White students—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: - about technical or vocational—
Jack Alexander: I think—
Oloye Adeyemon: - studies.
Jack Alexander: - and-and I think I noticed that more in high school than I did in junior high school.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Like I say, in-in junior high school, I can remember the guidance from my homeroom teacher, uh, and again, even then, you know, I can recall taking, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - mechanical drawing and—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and shop—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and those kinds of things, but all the students in the school were take—there weren't just—
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Jack Alexander: - just-just, uh, uh, Black kids in those classes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. You-you-you mentioned you remember more of that from high school, and many people said that the things that they identified as discriminatory were more prevalent in high school—
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: - than they were in junior high school.
Jack Alexander: - and-and I-and I would-I would venture to say all of that is—was really true because—a-and again, I would say that, in my time at-at East Topeka, which was, I guess, uh, '44, '45, and '46, we had an excellent, hard-nose old principal.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, the little fella who-who-who demanded respect—
Oloye Adeyemon: Who was that?
Jack Alexander: Uh, Phil Oyler.
Oloye Adeyemon: Oyler?
Jack Alexander: Oyler.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: He demanded respect, but he also respected you.
Oloye Adeyemon: He respected all the students, White and Black.
Jack Alexander: Yes. He was the kinda guy that if-if-if Jack goofed up and got in trouble, he'd invite Jack down and—of course, at this time, you know, we still got paddled.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And he'd get his paddle out, and he'd give you three or four swats. Get on back to class.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Same guy would catch you at your next study hall and come down, tap you on the shoulder, and say, "Let's go to the ping-pong room 'cause I know I can beat ya."
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: It was a-a love thing there.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And-and-and for me, it-it-it really helped because I just wasn't bein' disciplined and wait 'til he goofs up again and I'll put some more paddle on. Now, he'd put some more paddle on ya—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but you also knew that-that-that he cared about ya.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And you felt he was even-handed.
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: He was treatin'—
Jack Alexander: Ver—oh, yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - [crosstalk 33:41].
Jack Alexander: Yeah, yeah, he didn't-he didn't-he didn't draw the line on-on-on who he put that paddle on.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So that was typical of your experience—
Jack Alexander: Well—
Oloye Adeyemon: - or did you find that-that—I guess what I'm asking is—because we are talking about a segregated city.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh, the schools were not only segregated, the-the, uh—
Jack Alexander: Everything was segregated.
Oloye Adeyemon: - movie theaters and—
Jack Alexander: Movie theaters—
Oloye Adeyemon: So—
Jack Alexander: - hotels.
Oloye Adeyemon: - it would seem that that would—it doesn't necessarily hafta do that where it would harden, uh—let me back up and say, um, people have indicated that they feel that unless people go to school together and do other things together, they have a difficult time living and—you know, they-they many times may not have an understanding of differences, culture differences or whatever, and I guess with it being a segregated city, uh, what I'm wondering is, in the schools, were there tensions where—or-or even, uh, prejudices that didn't necessarily come from meanness, just-just came from-from, uh, limited background—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: - where—
Jack Alexander: I-I'm sure that existed.
Oloye Adeyemon: You know, and-and-and-and even I wondered, you know, what the-what the climate was like between the—
Jack Alexander: But-but—
Oloye Adeyemon: - White and Black students.
Jack Alexander: - but I also feel that, uh, uh, much of that was overcome sorta due to the neighborhoods where we kinda grew up.
Oloye Adeyemon: That was the key.
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: The fact that Whites and Blacks interacted—
Jack Alexander: Did something.
Oloye Adeyemon: - had been doing that—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - even prior to elementary school—
Jack Alexander: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and through elementary school, so that was one of the things that might have made it less—
Jack Alexander: I think—
Oloye Adeyemon: - difficult than it would have been if it had been—
Jack Alexander: - I-I think some of the hurdles were lower than they normally would have been.
Oloye Adeyemon: I-I understand.
Jack Alexander: You know, and-and-and then, again, I think part of it dealt with how individuals felt about themselves.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I was-I was—honestly, I was raised to be as good as anybody.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand. Were there any areas inside the schools—high schools and junior highs—or activities that were segregated?
Jack Alexander: Oh, yeah, there were a lot of activities that were segregated, and I'm almost ashamed to sit here and tell you that it's only after all of that do I realize that I probably was part and party to that, but again—
Oloye Adeyemon: By not questioning it.
Jack Alexander: By not questioning.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Give me examples.
Jack Alexander: Let me-let me give you an example.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, again, my-my ba—I'll use my parents again.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: My dad and my uncle—uh, this—lemme digress just a minute. This basketball team called the Ramblers was a Black basketball team.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. There was a White basketball team.
Jack Alexander: There was a White basketball team, the Trojans, but this Rambler team—this is before I'm in high school, maybe junior high or—if—my dad and my uncles, where this team practiced, which happened to be at that junior high school that I later went to—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - gorgeous gym—
Oloye Adeyemon: What was the name of the junior high?
Jack Alexander: East Topeka Junior High School.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Um, my folks, you know, opened it up, uh, cleaned it, the team—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - practiced there.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I grew up. The only thing I ever wanted to do when I went to Topeka High School was to play—
Oloye Adeyemon: On the Ramblers.
Jack Alexander: - for that Rambler basketball team.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I—
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you play?
Jack Alexander: Yeah—
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you end up playing?
Jack Alexander: - and I-and I don't wanna boast. [Laughter] I don't wanna boast.
Oloye Adeyemon: I felt that you—
Jack Alexander: But I—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but I will. [Laughter] I was a—I-I was a pretty good athlete.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, one of my dearest friends doesn't see this story that I'm telling you quite the same—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and when I give you his name, you'll maybe understand, but, uh, the only thing I wanted to do was play on that basketball team. I never thought about the Trojans, but I used to go sit and watch these guys, and I learned my game right there.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And—
Oloye Adeyemon: Who was the coach of that team?
Jack Alexander: At-at that time, a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Parks.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Jimmy left—later left and went to—into the military, and a young man by the name of Spam Henderson—but this gentleman that you're trying to get to see, Merle Ross, was my coach.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, I was a three-year letterman for that team. I was a captain of the last all-Black basketball team at Topeka High School.
Oloye Adeyemon: What was your-what was your record?
Jack Alexander: Uh, we were lousy, [laughter] 14 and 11 or—
Oloye Adeyemon: You were a good athlete.
Jack Alexander: I was good.
Oloye Adeyemon: It was just the t—rest of the—
Jack Alexander: Yeah, I-I-I—
Oloye Adeyemon: - [laughter] the team.
Jack Alexander: - at our last, uh, high school reunion, I rode a truck with this guy I'm telling you about, and, you know—and, of course, he wasn't much—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but, uh, you know, I'm scoring better, and I'm shootin' better, and-and, you know, it—the older I get, the better I was.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: This guy's a White fellow by the name of Dean Smith.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And Dean and I are-are [crosstalk 38:59]—
Oloye Adeyemon: Same coach that became a—
Jack Alexander: That's the guy.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: That's the guy.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: But when—
Oloye Adeyemon: Who is that? He's at North Carolina.
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: When—I played golf with him this year.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: When, uh, uh—when we talk about the Ramblers and the Trojans—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and if he was sitting right here, he would say, "No, Jack, that's not right. They wouldn't let you play."
Oloye Adeyemon: They wouldn't let who play?
Jack Alexander: Me.
Oloye Adeyemon: Who wouldn't let you play?
Jack Alexander: The school administration. That's his view of why I played—not just me, but why the Ramblers existed.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: That the school administration wouldn't allow it.
Oloye Adeyemon: What is your—
Jack Alexander: Mine was all I ever knew was I didn't care about your Trojans.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Laughter] You didn't wanna play with the Trojans.
Jack Alexander: Didn't wanna play 'em. You'll hear this from Merle Ross. Coupla years ago—I think it was the 100th year anniversary of Topeka High School—was the first time in all of my years in this city, as well as his and some of the other fellas, that we were ever introduced as basketball players from the Topeka High School gymnasium.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. How 'bout that.
Jack Alexander: And one of Connie and-and our classmates who played for the White team in '49—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - a gentleman by the name of Henry Butch Allberg 40:21—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - he was the only one of the class, the White fellows that played in '49, that came to that reunion, and he is the world's greatest person to be single because he was a Rambler that day.
Oloye Adeyemon: All right. [Laughter]
Jack Alexander: But he was that way even-even before. He was a good guy.
Oloye Adeyemon: Before we go on to talk about the court case, I understand that, you know, for some time, your children were in the public schools, and at that point, they were still segregated or they were integrated?
Jack Alexander: Uh, public schools?
Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.
Jack Alexander: At that time, public schools were integrated.
Oloye Adeyemon: And that would have been the '50s.
Jack Alexander: That would have been, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Early—
Jack Alexander: - oh, yeah—
Oloye Adeyemon: - to mid '50s?
Jack Alexander: - getting into '56—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - seven, in that period.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah.
Jack Alexander: Let me—
Oloye Adeyemon: What did you think—
Jack Alexander: - let me-let me give you one little tidbit. Uh, uh, it has nothing to do with that, but again, it has something to do with my kids.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: If you recall, the military was just integrated—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - in '51, '52.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I went into the military in '52.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And I'd been the right rat at the right hole at so many of the right times.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Again, a good chief.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: In high school, I had studied electronics.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, and I'm sure you've found out—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - about our war hero, Frank Buddy Peterson, who was the three-star general.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: We all went to class—the same classes, electronic classes. When I graduated out of bootcamp, my chief told me—he said, "Jack," he said, "they've opened up a new billet, a new job, in the navy called storekeeper. Warehouseman."
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: He said, "I'm gonna recommend that you go to, uh, warehouse school."
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And before that, there was only two things that-that Blacks or any minority could do, and that was that you be a stim, which is a-a steward—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - or a cook.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And I talked to this guy, and I told him, "You know, I've got an electronics background." And I said, "You know, I would like to be—do something in electronics." He said, you know, "We ain't got that for ya."
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Carl Bush 42:41 was this guy's name, chief petty officer. I said, "But Chief Bush," I said, "I know you seen my transcript." I said, "If you could get me just the opportunity to take the, uh, radioman's test, if I don't finish in the top five percent, I'll be the best damn storekeeper the United States Navy's got."
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: Remember, I said I've been the right rat a lot—at a lotta the right times.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: That guy went out on the limb. He got me the test, and I become a radioman in the-in the United States Navy.
Oloye Adeyemon: All right.
Jack Alexander: But the point I'm tryin' to make—it wasn't so much me. I had the ability, but it took that White chief—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - to push and say, "You give this guy a shot." And-and-and over my life, there's been a lot of those.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And so maybe that's—I-I say that just to say why maybe some of my background is not as negative.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Even going back into—to when I was in school—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - don't forget—
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: - I—uh, uh, my family's name is in the school administration.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand. [Laughter] Uh, briefly, 'cause we only have about a minute left, tell me a little bit about, uh, r—you know, your feelings about that little bit of time that your children were in public schools.
Jack Alexander: Oh, I'm sorry. You know, uh, uh, they started the public schools, and-and—the two oldest ones.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And I would just say they were probably in—probably third and fourth, fifth grade, somewhere—
Oloye Adeyemon: Were you pretty satisfied with their education?
Jack Alexander: Um, at that point, I was.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: You know, I-I was satisfied inasmuch as the school was near where we lived.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, just happened to see the old ex-principal yesterday—I run into them—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - every now and then—that taught the kids. My wife, being Catholic, wanted the kids to go to Catholic school.
Oloye Adeyemon: So they left the public school system. It wasn't so much that you were dissatisfied as much as it was she wanted them to have a—
Jack Alexander: She wanted them to go. Let me give you a—one other little parable about Catholic schools if we've got a minute.
Oloye Adeyemon: We got about a half a minute.
Jack Alexander: Okay. Guys that I was in the navy with who were Catholic excelled much faster than the rest of us.
Oloye Adeyemon: Why do you think—
Jack Alexander: So—
Oloye Adeyemon: - that was?
Jack Alexander: Well, because they got a good foundation.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Let me go back. Uh, when did the Catholic schools in Topeka integrate?
Jack Alexander: As far back as I can remember, they've always been integrated.
Oloye Adeyemon: So there were students that you knew that went to Catholic schools?
Jack Alexander: There were students my age and older that I know personally that had gone through Catholic schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did they go all the way through from elementary all the way through?
Jack Alexander: Uh, at least—to the best of my knowledge, uh, from at least, uh, uh—yes, they would have had to have gone.
Oloye Adeyemon: Thank you very much.
Jack Alexander: My pleasure.
Oloye Adeyemon: Really got a lot out of your interview.
[End of CT-2001-KS-001a_01]
[Start of CT-2001-KS-001a_02]
[Pause 00:00 - 00:06]
Oloye Adeyemon: Brown versus Board Oral History Collection. Brown versus Board of Education, Topeka court case interviews. Interviewee, Mr. Jack Alexander. Interviewer, Oloye Adeyemon for the National Park Service. This is the s—this is the second part of our interview with Mr. Alexander. Um, previously, we talked about the schools. This time, we're gonna talk about the court case. Uh, Mr. Alexander, um, I'd like to talk a little bit more, uh, before we start, about, uh, some of your experience. Uh, I understood from our previous interview that you were a radioman in the, uh, armed forces. When you came back, uh, what did you do for a living?
Jack Alexander: Uh, actually, before I had left going into the navy, I worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and so I'm on leave of absence, so when I—
Oloye Adeyemon: What work did you do for them?
Jack Alexander: Uh, I was in—a production worker.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Um, and, uh, upon coming back from the navy—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - I then, uh, went back to Goodyear to work.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, I stayed there—I think I-I started—probably went back in—let's say '57—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and I s—actually stayed at Goodyear until about—I think it was about 1972.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, had gotten involved in plant politics and this—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - kind of thing—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and along with—
Oloye Adeyemon: Was there a union? Was there a union there?
Jack Alexander: Yes, and I—
Oloye Adeyemon: You were a union member?
Jack Alexander: - I was a union member and worked—did a lotta things, run their political action committee.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Again, uh, there were a lot of ancillary things that I did that we'll get into a little later that helped some of this—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but, uh, um, it was about the time cable television come to Topeka—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and we had some—
Oloye Adeyemon: What year would this have been?
Jack Alexander: Uh, probably early '70s.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And we had, uh—some of our city government people, uh, uh, were not too ethical in dealing with the cable folks as they come in.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Consequently, they got into trouble and were having to leave office.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, my union brothers—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - came to me, and, at that time, we were very involved in local politics, and, uh, uh, they had gotten wind that these guys were going to, uh, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Vacate office.
Jack Alexander: - be out of office. And they d—my brother—union brothers decided this is the time for us to make a move.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, so in conversation and, again, laughing again, they said, "Jack, we want you to be a candidate for one of these positions."
Oloye Adeyemon: What-what did those—what would those pos-positions have been?
Jack Alexander: Actually, there was a water commissioner, I think the park commissioner was under fire, and the finance commissioner, so there was three jobs. Anyway, um, you know, I-I-I laughed. I-I said, "Okay, yeah." Um, you know, I'm not even thinking anything about it.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Well, uh, we—they began to-to make movements.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And so, uh, we had a come-to-Jesus meeting—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - because I told 'em, you know, this has never happened before.
Oloye Adeyemon: What?
Jack Alexander: There has never been a Black in public office in this city.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. Now, percentage of Blacks in the city is about 10 percent, right?
Jack Alexander: Ten to fourteen percent—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - give or take.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: So you would have had to been elected by—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - mostly White voters.
Jack Alexander: Oh, yes. This was an a—eh, an appointment to fill an unexpired term at this time, and the union was flexing its muscle from [crosstalk 03:48].
Oloye Adeyemon: So they were tryin' to get you appointed to fill the position while it was—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: All right. After we had the meeting—and they convinced me, "We're serious."
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: "We're serious." And—
Oloye Adeyemon: Why did they choose you?
Jack Alexander: Uh, like I say, I-I r—I ran their political action committee. I—
Oloye Adeyemon: And they were satisfied with—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - the work you had done.
Jack Alexander: Yeah, yeah. I did a lotta work for them, um, work that I believed in, as well as a lotta community things I was involved in.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And-and the president—
Oloye Adeyemon: And you were ethical. 'Cause I think ethics were involved with the people leaving office, so they wanted to choose someone who was ethical.
Jack Alexander: Right. And then the president of the union was also not only a friend, but another guy who we'd gone to high school with.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: White fella.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Guy by the name of George Amis. Well, anyway, we then find out that whoever fills the appointed term cannot run—has to agree not to run for the se—for the seat at the next election, and, uh, so my friends say, "Oh, no, no. We're-we're not gonna be a party to that. If that's the way it's gotta be, then expect us at the next election." Nineteen seventy-three, I was the first Black elected in this city, mainly—
Oloye Adeyemon: To any office.
Jack Alexander: To any office.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Mainly because of the work that they did. My campaign office was the union headquarters.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: They turned staff—everything. We-we really put a-a-a interesting campaign together, and that'd take a day to tell you all about that, but-but I was elected.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I-I beat a former mayor, uh, former street commissioner, and, uh, uh, was elected. And there was a lotta dirt that went on. Uh, during that earlier period, they—again, they tried to drag my kids back into it, that they had burned, uh, the auditorium at, uh, Highland Park High School. Remember where I told you my kids went to school?
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: They didn't go to Highland Park. They went to-went to Hayden. [Laughter] But that was the kind of—and-and that's politics. I understand that. [Laughter] But anyway, uh, I win.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And to my dying day, I-I-I will never forget the day they—after the election—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - somebody comes to—one of the reporters come to the house, and they want a picture of me—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - pulling out my yard sign—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and his first question was, "Jack, how do you feel being the, uh—" I wanna phrase this right. "Now, how do you feel being the Black water commissioner?" Something to that effect. I mean, that doesn't sound kind of—but anyway, I told him, "You got that wrong. I am the city water commissioner who happens to be Black." And from that point on, we had a good relationship.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I'd also tell ya, I stood for election six times, and I was the leading vote-getter in the city in five of those races. I was the president of the Topeka—
Oloye Adeyemon: Any—eh, for any election, you're saying—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - you were the leading vote-getter.
Jack Alexander: Oh, oh, and these are city-at-large races.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, I was the president of the Topeka City Commission, and what that is is—today they would call it vice-mayor.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: But I was that for 10 of my 12 years.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I abdicated two years because of a gentleman who I worked well with who had never been that who had always supported me—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and who was going off the commission, and I deferred to let him do it.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I say all that to say that-that a lotta the things that we had done in the community helped trigger a lot of those things.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Jack Alexander: And, uh, as we sit today, the only criticism that I know of that, uh, people say about me as I served as their water commissioner was, uh, uh, "What happened to all that money that you wouldn't let the city have?"
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: And under the city commission form of government, that money belonged to the water users—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and I told 'em, "Well, you can take it, but I'll see ya in court."
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And the day that I quit, 1985, we had a change of form of government—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - which I opposed, and I said, "Well, if-if you oppose it, it's time for you to go." I left. My department not only was sound, run very well, we left $25 million in the kitty.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: That's gone today, but that's—
Oloye Adeyemon: That's gone today. So what—
Jack Alexander: And you're talkin'—l-let me-let me go one further step in that em-employment. Remember, we talked a little bit about, uh, the deceased governor—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - who worked at the city while I was there with the administrative assistant [noise 08:41] mayor.
Oloye Adeyemon: First female governor.
Jack Alexander: First female governor—
Oloye Adeyemon: Her name was—
Jack Alexander: - for the state of Kansas. Joan Finney. I was at Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and, uh, she called and wanted me to come downtown after her election, uh, and she beat an—a sitted—seated, eh, governor who was running for reelection. She beat him. She wanted me to come down and do her legislative work.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I didn't wanna come, but I finally did, and, of course, she said, "Jack, just come do it for a coupla years. Let me help—help me get started." Said, "Then you can do whatever you want to." She said, "And I know you like working outta Health and Environment." Said, "I'm going to need a secretary out there or division heads." Secretary is the—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - top guy. And I told her, you know, "I'm not—" I-I really wasn't interested, and I wasn't.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I'm not being, uh, ungrateful or—
Oloye Adeyemon: So this is what you did the first two years.
Jack Alexander: No.
Oloye Adeyemon: What'd you do the first two years?
Jack Alexander: The first two years that I was for her?
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I was her legislative liaison.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: I-I worked the—
Oloye Adeyemon: And then after that, what were you?
Jack Alexander: Well, I, uh—that's where we're getting to now. I told her—she asked me—said, "Eh, if there's something I—you know, you'd like to do—" I told her, "Governor, in all my time, there's only been one job that I was ever interested in that was a state job. Not being in the senate or in the repres—and that is at the Kansas Corporation Commission." And she says, "Funny you'd say that." I said, "Why?" She says, "I got two positions. Look like I only got one left now 'cause one of 'em's yours." And if you could—should go to that office today, there's only one Black face on that wall.
Oloye Adeyemon: So you're saying you were the first Black, and only Black—
Jack Alexander: Only Black.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that was ever in that position.
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what exactly is that?
Jack Alexander: A state regulatory position. There are only three other ones in Kansas.
Oloye Adeyemon: For the state. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Every state—
Oloye Adeyemon: Are all three of these the same position, or are they regulatory in different ways?
Jack Alexander: No, they're all—we're all co-equal.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Jack Alexander: All co-equal.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, we may spend a lotta time in different things.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Um, I had strong background in-in utilities, and that's what it's about, regulating the Southwestern—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - Bells and-and, uh, all the oil and gas—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - transportation.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you work with people in other states?
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Every state in the union as well as-as outside. I've done even a little consulting work, you know, in-in foreign countries.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which ones?
Jack Alexander: Been to Russia, spent some time in Asia—
Oloye Adeyemon: What part?
Jack Alexander: In Asia? Uh, we-we-we were in the—in—more in the mountainous country because what they were looking—
Oloye Adeyemon: In-in—
Jack Alexander: In Asia, trying to look at developing, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, eh, was there a particular area of Asia that you were in?
Jack Alexander: Well, uh, not any particular area because—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: - what we were looking at is grids for electric—
Oloye Adeyemon: I see.
Jack Alexander: - power.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And, uh, uh, that was primarily—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - one of the expertises that I had.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And-and the same way with the Russia connections.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: You know, they were tryin' to get power from here to there.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. What—and so those are two of the countries that you—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So—
Jack Alexander: But all over the-all over the state, yeah. Um—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Jack Alexander: - all over the country, we—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, interacted with-with, uh, all the regulatory agencies—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - which are all state-appointed.
Oloye Adeyemon: Any of the governors?
Jack Alexander: All the governors. I—
Oloye Adeyemon: All of 'em?
Jack Alexander: - [crosstalk 12:15]—yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: I was just reading an article here the other day, uh, about Governor Romer.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Was governor in Colorado then.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Used to spend a lot of time with Governor Romer.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: One of my fondest memories is havin' a raft trip down the Colorado River with a gentleman who later become president—
Oloye Adeyemon: Who was that?
Jack Alexander: - who at that time was governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Um, I think that that's helpful, um, in just positioning you in this community, uh, to give some indication of, um, I feel, the seriousness of the reflections that you have. You know, that-you know, that it's a person that's-that's seen a lot and knows a lotta people and has been involved for a long time, has a lotta respect in the community. Having, uh, established that, I'd like to turn our attention to the NAACP.
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh, when did you join?
Jack Alexander: Probably, uh, in the early '40s. Uh, I grew up in the same neighborhood, half a block from a gentleman by the name of Sam Jackson, who was active, then later become president. His brother and I were good buddies.
Oloye Adeyemon: What year would that have been?
Jack Alexander: That would probably have been—let me say, uh, mid '40s.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So were you aware of the Graham case?
Jack Alexander: The Graham? No.
Oloye Adeyemon: No. 'Cause that was one of the early—and I'm not sure—I think it was a little earlier than that. Uh, during the '40s, um, I guess particularly in the late '40s, the NAACP begin to, um, take an active, uh, interest in the school situations [crosstalk 14:09].
Jack Alexander: In the schools, public accommodations. Uh, you know, we-we-we-we had sit-ins around here. We've, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What-what-what were some of the things that you were trying to achieve at that time?
Jack Alexander: Well, uh, uh, being able to participate equally at lunch counters.
Oloye Adeyemon: Lunch counters where in particular? What were some of the places you actually—
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: - uh, picketed or sat in?
Jack Alexander: - right here on Kansas Avenue, uh, uh, we had a number of what we called then, uh, five-and-ten-cent stores.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. All of them were segregated?
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: The counters.
Jack Alexander: The counters were.
Oloye Adeyemon: You could go in and get food, but you had to take it out in the—
Jack Alexander: You-you-you stood at the end of the counter, and they'd give it to you—
Oloye Adeyemon: You couldn't sit down and eat.
Jack Alexander: - in a sack.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: The same way with most of the little greasy-spoon restaurants.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, you know—
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, would have also been true of the hotels located—
Jack Alexander: Hotels, very much so.
Oloye Adeyemon: Would you-you not have been able to stay in the hotels?
Jack Alexander: You-you would not, and yet—and still, a lot of us worked in those hotels.
Oloye Adeyemon: But you could not sleep there.
Jack Alexander: But you could not sleep there, and if you were going to eat, you had to go down, you know, into the kitchen.
Oloye Adeyemon: Were there Black-owned hotels?
Jack Alexander: There were Black-owned hotels down here on 4th Street at that time, actually. I can remember three Black-owned hotels, but again—
Oloye Adeyemon: Where were they located?
Jack Alexander: They were up—uh, betw—they were on 4th Street between Kansas Avenue and Quin—well, actually, one of 'em was on Quincy.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Do you remember the names of any of 'em?
Jack Alexander: You had the Dunbar, uh, Jenkins had a hotel, which is on the second floor, and the, uh, name of the third one I can't think of.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: For instance, today, where we have bed and breakfasts, there were several rooming houses—
Oloye Adeyemon: In addition—
Jack Alexander: - in a—in addition to that.
Oloye Adeyemon: And this was true, I guess, in all segregated communities across—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - the country. Uh, would you say that, uh, one of the things that happened immediately after integration was that a lot of these Black businesses folded?
Jack Alexander: Oh, yes. Today-today, you know, we're scattered everywhere. While integration certainly was great in a lotta ways, it put a lot of Black en-entrepreneurs out of business. They are no longer, uh—we—across the street from one of those hotels, we had a drug store. I was r—the neighborhood I was raised up in, there was a Black drug store.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, Black grocery stores. Those things are non-existent today.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What about the, uh, movie theaters?
Jack Alexander: We had, uh, one movie theater where, uh, uh—it was a Black theater.
Oloye Adeyemon: What was the name of that?
Jack Alexander: Uh, the Ritz.
Oloye Adeyemon: Where was it located?
Jack Alexander: It was on the corner of 4th and Quincy.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, we could go to a couple of the other movie theaters—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but there was a little corner up in the balcony where you had to sit.
Oloye Adeyemon: That's the only place you could sit—
Jack Alexander: That's the only place you could sit—
Oloye Adeyemon: - even if the theater was empty.
Jack Alexander: - and-and the rest of the theater could be almost empty, and if your area was filled up, and they—and sometime you'd sneak across, but if they found you over there, you—they-they'd give your money back and put you out.
Oloye Adeyemon: Swimming pools the same way?
Jack Alexander: Si—swimming pools were the same way. We had-we had our own Black swimmin' pool.
Oloye Adeyemon: Where was that?
Jack Alexander: That was down at city park, which we called the city park, which is, at that time, a Black park.
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm, where was it located?
Jack Alexander: Uh, it's right down off of the river, right off of Kansas Avenue. I was a—again, there I go again. I was a lifeguard at that-that pool. Um, and believe it or not, in that park, there was a coupla tennis courts, a—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - bandshell where the—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - the, uh, musicians used to entertain, a ball diamond. Weekends, you'd have three, four thousand people—
Oloye Adeyemon: It seems to me that—
Jack Alexander: - in that ballpark.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. This is kind of a, you know, aside, but I think you mentioned, uh, Paul Laurence Dunbar coming to town?
Jack Alexander: Uh, Paul Robeson.
Oloye Adeyemon: Paul Robeson.
Jack Alexander: Paul Robeson, and that was when I was still working at, uh, the administration building, uh, and the only thing that I—the two things that I can remember, his performance was at Topeka High School.
Oloye Adeyemon: He came to perform there, or he performed there while he was in town?
Jack Alexander: He-he came to perform.
Oloye Adeyemon: So was this-was this—was he performing—
Jack Alexander: He—
Oloye Adeyemon: - for the high school students or for the community and they just—
Jack Alexander: No, no, no. It wa—it was—
Oloye Adeyemon: - had it at that location?
Jack Alexander: - it had to be a community event because it was at night.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah, so tickets were sold—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and he was singing.
Jack Alexander: And he was brought to town, and the other thing I remember, he stayed at the Kansan Hotel, and the—remember, [crosstalk 18:27]—
Oloye Adeyemon: Was that one of the Black hotels?
Jack Alexander: No. That was one of the bigger White hotels, and the reason that I remember that is that's the o—first person that I have ever known of color to have stayed at that hotel.
Oloye Adeyemon: How do you know he stayed there?
Jack Alexander: Because I delivered him there.
Oloye Adeyemon: You took him.
Jack Alexander: Took him there.
Oloye Adeyemon: How did you happen to be the one to do that?
Jack Alexander: Well, because, at that time, remember, we were working at the administration building—
Oloye Adeyemon: Oh, yeah, this is one of those side jobs—
Jack Alexander: - and so that was one of those [laughter]—
Oloye Adeyemon: - [laughter] that you talked about in the earlier interview.
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: So Paul Robeson, uh, stayed, and I've heard that there were many, uh, people of his stature who, when they would go into communities, that was a demand that they made, but I've understood that, in some cases, even though they stayed there, they couldn't eat in the dining room.
Jack Alexander: Probably not. I-I would be willing to bet—and I don't know that, but I w-would be willing to bet that he had-had—they probably gave him room service.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Did he go in the front door?
Jack Alexander: Uh, yes. Actually—and actually, the front door—and I can't remember that, but I don't think the hotel opened on Kansas Avenue. As I remember, there was an opening onto 9th Street.
Oloye Adeyemon: But he used the entrance that everybody else used.
Jack Alexander: He used that entrance, yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And-and drove up there, and that's where we picked him up—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and that's where we took him to Topeka High School.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Uh, going back to the NAACP, you joined, and-and there were these variety of things, a lot of 'em dealing with the issue of segregation.
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. What was going on in terms of schools?
Jack Alexander: School segregation?
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Well, again, uh, by this time, myself, I'm into junior high school, and I'm in an integrated school, but those four Black schools, four segregated schools, are still there, and we're now talking about, uh, you know, the—as the NAACP is talking about, uh, getting court activities to break this down.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And we were—we w—you know, we were—like I say, we were sitting in at different lunch counters.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, what point is it that—you said Sam—
Jack Alexander: Sam Jackson.
Oloye Adeyemon: - Jackson. What point—
Jack Alexander: Sam was—
Oloye Adeyemon: - who follows him as president?
Jack Alexander: Well, um, again, I-I don't remember exactly because Sam would have still been president, I think—no, Sam would have left because Sam went in the military also—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - so, uh, again, I'm fuzzy as to who was president after Sam.
Oloye Adeyemon: When did you go in the military?
Jack Alexander: I went in the military in 1952.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So when did Burnett become president?
Jack Alexander: Uh, he would-he would-he would have been in and around that time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh.
Jack Alexander: So he may—
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, he was president for almost a d—uh, over a decade—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - so he would have been president from the '40s—
Jack Alexander: And-and he may have followed—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - yeah, he may have followed that period—
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Jack Alexander: - in there because, again, at that time, before going into the military, was when we were talking about—
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Jack Alexander: - schools—
Oloye Adeyemon: Schools—mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and integrating—
Oloye Adeyemon: The Brown—
Jack Alexander: - the rest—
Oloye Adeyemon: - the Brown case also—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - came up at that time. So if I'm not mistaken, um, it was around the mid '40s—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - '45 or somethin' like that, that Burnett came in, and he stayed 'til '57, so that means he would have been there for much of the time before you went in the service.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: You knew him personally?
Jack Alexander: I knew him personally.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh. What-what-what-what can you tell us about him as a person?
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: And anything that you think might have been a factor in terms of why he was involved in the NAACP—
Jack Alexander: I think he wa—he was—
Oloye Adeyemon: - and why he—and he took a-a very special interest in the schools in particular.
Jack Alexander: Well, I-I-I think, first of all, uh, uh, uh, he had a lot of religious underpinnings.
Oloye Adeyemon: He was a member of the Church of God.
Jack Alexander: Church of God. Uh, he had a very strong wife. Lena Burnett was a very strong lady, so both—
Oloye Adeyemon: In terms of religious convictions?
Jack Alexander: As well as she was quiet, but she would have her say relative to things that were going on.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, he had a pretty s—pretty good-sized family. Some of, uh, his children—I went to school with some of his children, particularly Marcella. She and I were in the same class, and some older—
Oloye Adeyemon: How many of his children were-were the—uh, were the-were the petition done in—on behalf of?
Jack Alexander: Of his children? I don't think any of his children were—uh, uh, were—
Oloye Adeyemon: Were that age?
Jack Alexander: - part of—no, they were not a part of the petition.
Oloye Adeyemon: And they were also not of that age.
Jack Alexander: Well, he would have had some that would have been older. I mean, uh, no, no, no.
Oloye Adeyemon: They all would have been older.
Jack Alexander: Uh, no. Uh, Marcus—I think Marcus is probably the youngest, and, uh, he probably fit in between.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Unintelligible 23:13]
Jack Alexander: Yeah. So, no, at that time, he—
Oloye Adeyemon: So—
Jack Alexander: - he-he didn't have any children—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - to the best of my knowledge, in, uh, you know, the grade school.
Oloye Adeyemon: So he was doing what he did on behalf of all the children.
Jack Alexander: All the children, yes, yeah. His-his—and that was his dedication relative to anything, you know. Uh, I think that, uh, uh, many values that a lot of us learned—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, we learned by just being around, watching—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - being a part of what he was about.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Did-did he ever, um—was there—what kind of work did he do, other than the NAACP?
Jack Alexander: To the best of my knowledge, I don't really know, and-and, uh, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: [Unintelligible 23:58]
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: I wondered because w—the NAACP was not really popular—
Jack Alexander: Well, they—no. Well, not only was—
Oloye Adeyemon: - the things that it was doing.
Jack Alexander: - didn't have any money either.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Jack Alexander: So-so it wasn't—so he had to have some other—
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah, 'cause I was thinking—
Jack Alexander: - point of being—
Oloye Adeyemon: - that there were a lotta places the NAACP people that were active, especially that chose to—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - to cha—try to change the status quo—um, there was intimidation, uh, where they might lose their jobs or that type of thing.
Jack Alexander: Yeah, I think it would be interesting, and it's a thought that I've never, uh, uh, considered, but it would be interesting to know, and I know—you know, I know family members well enough that I'll-I'll find that out, but—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. That would be good because we're gonna footnote this transcript—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and that would allow us to add that footnote to [crosstalk 24:44]
Jack Alexander: Well, I will certainly find out because that's an interesting, interesting, uh, uh, uh, point because nothing stood in his way of moving forward with his desire to want to bring equality, and he-he ha—he had the bully pulpit of the NAACP.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So I understand that there were parents selected to take their children to have them attempt to enroll—
Jack Alexander: Attempt to enroll.
Oloye Adeyemon: - in a White school.
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: Was this a single school or several schools?
Jack Alexander: Several schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Background noise 25:20]
Jack Alexander: Uh, n—uh, and it—I-I think it had to deal mostly with the—see, we still had neighborhood schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Those schools that would have been in and around their neighborhood. I would just—
Oloye Adeyemon: Do you remember any of 'em?
Jack Alexander: Uh, there were several of the, uh, uh, plaintiffs that came out of what we called Tennessee Town—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - so they probably would have been, um, Lowman Hill, um, probably maybe even Gage.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: I-I'm tryin' to think to the south, whether there were-were any.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Um, but, uh, along that corridor. Certainly, probably, some on the north side.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: And then there was—I know that, uh, uh, uh, one of the, uh, uh, plaintiffs was a young lady from eastern part of the city, so she probably either went to—they probably tried to enroll her in at Lafayette or a-a, uh, Parkdale.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So once this happened in the school, they were turned away.
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: That was the point when they had what they needed to begin to build the case.
Jack Alexander: That's when—
Oloye Adeyemon: They knew that was gonna happen.
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: They just wanted to do that so that they could then build a case around it.
Jack Alexander: It-it-it was then of record, and, uh, then the legal people began to pull the pieces together.
Oloye Adeyemon: And this is a major turning point. From what I've understood—and I'm gonna check the record and add it to our transcripts that we're doin', but from what I've understood, the NAACP won just about every case they fought about the schools, but all the cases up to this point had been for equity—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - not for integration, and that was what the turn—made this the turning point. Uh, what was—
Jack Alexander: Well—
Oloye Adeyemon: - not-not—
Jack Alexander: - wasn't there two or three other cases that were moving, uh—was it one in South Carolina—
Oloye Adeyemon: One in Virginia—
Jack Alexander: - one in Virginia—
Oloye Adeyemon: - one in Delaware, and one in DC.
Jack Alexander: - and-and-and they were—you know, the-the movements were very similar.
Oloye Adeyemon: Sure.
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: But I get the sense, though, that the decision to-to build an integration case was a decision made locally.
Jack Alexander: Oh, yes, yes, yeah. That was made—
Oloye Adeyemon: That's unique, though, because [crosstalk 27:31]
Jack Alexander: It was made without kn—the knowledge of-of those others. [Crosstalk 27:35]
Oloye Adeyemon: No, not the—no, I'm not speakin' of the—about the others now, but I'm speakin' about the national office of the NAACP. I got the impression in-in some of the interviews that the thinking about doing this was independent of the national—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - office's attempt to do this in the Deep South.
Jack Alexander: Right. Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: That this was an—was somethin' that had been decided on locally by the NAACP, and it was something that was consistent with what the national office was then planning for primarily, uh, areas that were-were more of the-the areas that people associate with-with—
Jack Alexander: With—
Oloye Adeyemon: - areas of cultural—
Jack Alexander: - segregation.
Oloye Adeyemon: - slavery—
Jack Alexander: Yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that type of thing.
Jack Alexander: And I think the key in that-the key in that was M.L. Burnett.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand perfectly. Now, the reason I ask that is because, with the other communities, the other four communities that were part of the Supreme Court case, in each of those cases, likewise, the cases began in those communities.
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: They did not begin with the national office, and either parents started off with a equity case, which was like the cases that had been fought—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - previously—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and the local NAACP took it on, or lawyers who were working with the NAA took it on only if they would be willing to fight—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: - segregation, but in many of the cases, the NAACP national office were the ones that said, "We'll get involved with this, but only if you make it a integration case instead of a equity case."
Jack Alexander: And I think-and I think that is-is-is kind of what started to pull—let's say the-the-the-the Brown case together, because many of these plaintiffs and their peers at that time—one of the strong—a few organizations of existence at that time, other than social organizations—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - was NAACP.
Oloye Adeyemon: Especially, they had lawyers—
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that would be able to fight these cases, 'cause I understand that there was a need fund that was set up specifically so that they could raise the money, you know, nationally, to do—you know, to fight these cases.
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: But I understand that here locally, uh, you had to rely on your own resources to fight your local cases.
Jack Alexander: Own resources.
Oloye Adeyemon: The-the local case, before it became part of the—
Jack Alexander: Sure, and I think therein, again, gets back to, uh, plaintiff parents who were active and, again, that, uh, uh, belief in this gentleman that was leading, whose only thing to gain was something better for a community.
Oloye Adeyemon: It seems to—for—to me, from what you've said and what others have said, that he was a very key person during that period and in this community.
Jack Alexander: Yes. And-and-and—you know, and he certainly was one of those that was forgotten—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - once the thing caught fire, not being an attorney.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. He didn't get—he didn't—people don't-don't remember his name.
Jack Alexander: That's right. He had put all of the key pieces of the puzzle together—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and he, typically him, got behind it and pushed.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: He wasn't out in front tryin' to pull it along with him.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, I've heard that, uh, many of the teachers were afraid they were gonna lose their jobs—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: - and there were other Blacks in the community that objected to what the NAACP was doing. How strong was that division in the Black community?
Jack Alexander: I think it was very strong because, uh, again, the status quo was that some Blacks had gained employment, and [crosstalk 31:38]
Oloye Adeyemon: Particularly teachers.
Jack Alexander: Yeah. Oh, teachers very much so because—
Oloye Adeyemon: Because they were aware—
Jack Alexander: - at one point in time, teachers couldn't even get married.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. But many teachers—
Jack Alexander: And-and-and they-and they did not want to be out on the cutting edge of something like this because, at that time, there was only a few jobs for them.
Oloye Adeyemon: And if they lost their job, they couldn't fall back on their husband.
Jack Alexander: Yeah. They can't go nowhere.
Oloye Adeyemon: But one of the things that I guess might have been in the back of their mind too is that if these elementary schools are integrated, then the same pattern that existed in the junior high and high school where White parents don't necessarily want Black teachers—
Jack Alexander: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - may apply, and we won't—there'll be a integrated elementary school, but there won't be any Black teachers. I guess in their mind, they're looking at how the junior high and elementary staff is, and I—that must have played in their mind as well.
Jack Alexander: I'm sure it did, and a—and, again, I think part of the-the-the value that a lot of us received out of the-the-the segregated schools, that we had highly degreed teachers.
Oloye Adeyemon: And-and-and motivated—they motivated you.
Jack Alexander: Motivated and-and-and they moved—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - folks up and outta there. They were not there just for a job. They were teachers.
Oloye Adeyemon: So some of them might have even wanted to defend that just because they thought it was a quality education—
Jack Alexander: Sure.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that the children might not have gotten if they were, you know, integrated [crosstalk 33:05]
Jack Alexander: And I'm sure that in some of your interviews, the earlier students that get into the integrated system will say that—you know, w-well, they won't know, but they will be talking about they didn't feel as comfortable.
Oloye Adeyemon: Oh, yeah, they said it. They said it clearly.
Jack Alexander: You know, because—
Oloye Adeyemon: Several people.
Jack Alexander: - primarily because they have gone from this to that.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. Now, I wanna get back to this division. Were there attempts by the White community, particularly the school system and others, to capitalize on this division, to undermine the effort that the NAACP is involved in?
Jack Alexander: I-I—you know, I can't say that I know that for a fact, but if you look at it and you analyze that this group of Black teachers, who have no place else to go to if they lose their teaching jobs, they're—and their jobs are-are there by cau—because of the White, totally White, board of education—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - that if they now become advocates for challenging this system and espousing things relative to integration—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, we can't be so naïve that we think that the White culture at that time was dumb enough not to be threatened because, here again, you have these credentialed people—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and if we break that system down and we integrate—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - then you're talking about—if we're talkin' about equal pay and you've got people that are going to start the riots—
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Jack Alexander: - above [crosstalk 34:46]
Oloye Adeyemon: But my question specifically is was there an effort on the part of the White community to find someone in the Black community to challenge what-what Burnett was doing?
Jack Alexander: Uh, I'm sure there was. I can't—
Oloye Adeyemon: But you don't—you don't re—you don't remember there being that kind of opposition—
Jack Alexander: No, no.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that—
Jack Alexander: But-but again, what I do remember that-that—a-an-and, you know, I—and-and I—there's things I think about today or since then, is that when you think about people who stood in the way of not wanting to either be a part of the movement or who you had to walk over or around to keep the movement going—
Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.
Jack Alexander: - uh, yeah, there's a feeling that some of 'em did it because of maybe where they worked—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - or this kinda thing.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Jack Alexander: But, again, it's not so far-fetched that where they worked, they were told.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand. What were some of the churches that, uh, opened their-their doors to meetings?
Jack Alexander: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Or what other—what-what ministers might have been—
Jack Alexander: Well, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: - encouraging their congregation—
Jack Alexander: - uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: - to participate?
Jack Alexander: - a lot of the-lot of the—well, a lot of the-the ministers, uh, were supportive, and they opened the churches up, uh, for meetings.
Oloye Adeyemon: What were some of those?
Jack Alexander: Uh, well, uh, you-you had, uh—I know from my side of town, you had, uh, uh, Brown Chapel, which I think is, uh, an AME church. You had Antioch. You've got several in and around where Mr. Burnett lived.
Oloye Adeyemon: You remember any of the names of 'em?
Jack Alexander: Um, think at that time, I-I believe Mt. Carmel was still over there then. Um, um, St. John's has been there for 100 years, uh, and then there's a couple in what we call Tennessee Town—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - which I'm sure would have been part of-of-of that 'cause all of these churches primarily were in the neighborhoods that were densely populated with Blacks and Black students. Also, they were in those areas where most of those segregated schools were.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Do you remember, um, any of the meetings—uh, well, first of all, the local people that were working to prepare the case were Charles Bledsoe—
Jack Alexander: Char—right, and the Scott family.
Oloye Adeyemon: John Scott, Charles Scott—
Jack Alexander: John, Charles—John, Charles, and there was a third one.
Oloye Adeyemon: Was it their father?
Jack Alexander: Yeah, Elijah.
Oloye Adeyemon: Elijah.
Jack Alexander: And a name that we've talked about in the past was a guy by the name of Sam Jackson.
Oloye Adeyemon: Was he a lawyer?
Jack Alexander: Yeah.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Yeah. Sam, um, worked at that firm.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Which firm? Oh, at the Scott—
Jack Alexander: At the-at the—at Scott firm. Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. And they were the ones that, you know—
Jack Alexander: That—they were—they-they were the-the-the attorneys of record, yes.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Do you remember, uh, Robert Carter coming in and other people from the national office?
Jack Alexander: Uh, I can remember national people coming in. Uh, by name, no.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Do you remember s—Thur-Thur—any of the meetings Thurgood Marshall attended?
Jack Alexander: Yeah. I can remember when Thurgood was—because, again, that was, you know, a name.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Do you—were—was-was—do you remember when the case was filed, you know, when it was actually taken down when it was filed?
Jack Alexander: Um, not to be specific.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh. Do you remember anything about the trial itself?
Jack Alexander: Uh, s-somewhat, but, again, see, during that period of time—
Oloye Adeyemon: That's right. You're-you're—
Jack Alexander: - I'm-I'm away from Topeka—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - and I'm fighting another crazy kind of fight.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Because I left Topeka in '52, and this is being revved up at that time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. In the m—few minutes that we have left, is there anything that you feel we need to know that might not be generally known about this aspect of the story?
Jack Alexander: Well, I-I-I think the-the things—Mr. Burnett was NAACP, not the—and I'm not [crosstalk 38:51]
Oloye Adeyemon: Taking anything away from anybody else.
Jack Alexander: From anyone else—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - but his whole being was about doing something to make things better.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Mr. Burnett actually lived right across the alley from Monroe School.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, during, again, our high school times, we didn't have integrated youth centers in town. We had one in Monroe School.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, his children participated. You know, I-I-I think he alone put all the building blocks in place, and maybe it's good that he was not an attorney.
Oloye Adeyemon: Why?
Jack Alexander: Well, because then he would have gotten so involved, I think, I-I-I would guess, in wanting to be a part of trying the case and this kind of thing, that we would have lost—
Oloye Adeyemon: His leadership in the community.
Jack Alexander: - in—yes. And, um, in fact, we're just now trying to recognize him by naming a building after him.
Oloye Adeyemon: What building?
Jack Alexander: Gonna name the administration building after him.
Oloye Adeyemon: Of the schools.
Jack Alexander: Of the schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: Uh, not my choice, uh, uh, primarily because this building sits out here on his—nice building. I don't mean-mean it that—that's where all the administrative functions go on—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Jack Alexander: - bu
Description
He was later appointed by the first female governor of Kansas, Joan Finney, to serve on the Kansas Corporation Commission, the first African-American to hold the position. Alexander recounts his experiences growing up in segregated Topeka, and the political landscape of the area during integration, before covering his involvement with and a brief history of the local NAACP chapter.
Date Created
09/19/2001
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