Civil Rights documentarian, Rev. Samson Alexander, dies

1st April 2019   ·   0 Comments

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

New Orleans’ Civil Rights Attorney Ernest Jones remembers a quote from a book in which the author said, “Montgomery may have been the cradle of the civil rights movement but the cradle was built in New Orleans.” No truer words have ever been spoken.

As far back as Reconstruction and up through the succeeding decades, New Orleanians participated in the civil rights movement among them Homer Plessy, AP Tureaud, Reverend Avery C. Alexander, Lolis Elie, Ernest Jones, President Clarence “Chink” Henry, Oretha Castle Haley, Rudy Lombard, Ruby Bridges, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost, Dorothy Mae Taylor, Dyan French Cole, Judge Israel Augustine, Mrs. Leah Chase, Mayor Ernest N. Dutch Morial, and many others rose to the challenge of securing civil and human rights for African-American residents in the Crescent City.

On Sunday, March 24, 2019, New Orleans lost another star in the city’s galaxy of civil rights icons, Reverend Samson “Skip” Alexander, 89, a larger-than-life eyewitness to history, photographer and documentarian of both the local and national civil rights movements, union organizer, political activist, building engineer, ordained minister, businessman, radio and TV host, and a history-maker and living legend in his own right.

A Celebration of Life Service will be held for Reverend Samson “Skip” Alexander on April 6, at Christian Unity Baptist Church on Conti Street in New Orleans, where he served as associate pastor.

In February 2018, this writer spent several hours with Reverend Alexander and marveled at his life’s work and eyewitness accounts of the civil rights movement. Surrounded by a life of photographer and images of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and other prominent history-makers, it was evident that Reverend Alexander was much more than a photographer; he was a civil rights and labor leader, who stood with other giants of the movement.

The following information came from our conversation. A magnificent storyteller, Reverend Samson Skip Alexander recounted his life’s work and mission.

This retelling of Reverend Alexander’s life, in his own words, serves as my memorial to a renaissance man, who was humble yet opinionated, fierce but gentlemanly, a husband and father, photographer, historian, lecturer, mentor, preacher, unionist, and fighter for justice:

A Conversation with Reverend Samson “Skip” Alexander February 2018

Reverend Samson “Skip” Alexander sits on his expansive porch in front of his two-story Greek Revival-style home in Gert Town. He offers visitors a warm smile as he ushers them into his home. Photographic images everywhere, mantles, floors, walls tell his life’s story and Black life in New Orleans and America.

Unassuming and humble, the self-described ‘eyewitness to history’ and civil rights icon reviews for his guests, key moments in his life. There’s Alexander and his late wife, Theresa Jarrow Alexander together, there they are at the Zulu Ball. He is the oldest Zulu member. “I joined in 1949, when Louis Armstrong was King Zulu,” he replies.

And there’s a young Samson winning an Armed Forces track competition. “I was the first Black, the only one out of 1000 whites in New Orleans to sign up for the Air Force,” where he also studied photography. “I taught Marion Porter photography,” he says of one of New Orleans’ premiere Black picture-takers.

To the right, in his dining room, standing on the floor, are the now famous photos of Mrs. Coretta Scott King and her children at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral. Although, got credit for the photos, Alexander took the photos for Ebony Magazine’s photographer, the late Moneta Sleet because “He wasn’t allowed in. They (funeral organizers) didn’t want photographers shooting pictures with flashes, that could disturb the ceremony.”

Alexander oversaw seating and had access to all areas of the church, so he took the photos. He remembers Mahalia Jackson asking him where to sit at the funeral. “I told her, ‘You’re Mahalia Jackson. You can sit anywhere you want,’ Alexander recounts.

His relationship with the King family went back as far as the launching of the civil rights movement and possibly before. As he talked, Rev. Alexander walked around his dining room, showing his favorite King family photos, including one of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King’s wedding.

Among the many photos of historical significance Alexander shot, there is a photo of the late Judge Israel M. Augustine with Dr. King and Pittsburg Courier Manager Butch Curry and another of Rev. King at a pool table. “I shot pool with Dr. King,” he beams.

Alexander was there when the Montgomery Bus Boycott kicked off in December 5, 1955 and the lifetime Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) member was present when the SCLC held its formative meeting in New Orleans on February 14, 1957. He participated in the August 28,1963 March on Washington; the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights led by now U.S. Rep. John Lewis and Hosea Williams on March 7 and 9, 1965, and Alexander was in Memphis, Tennessee when Rev. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

“I was there to organize the sanitation workers into a union,” “says the retired union organizer. “Dr. King had come out on the porch two days in a row. He had decided not to speak at a church because he had a bad cold, but he went anyway.”

“I was standing in the door of the office at the Lorraine Motel, with the owner and his daughter, after Dr. King was shot,” he continues.

Nineteen years earlier, Alexander had signed up for the Air Force at age 16, after graduating from Booker T. Washington High School. He ran track for the Air Force at the Armed Forces Network games in Japan and won the 100-meter race in 2:20, in addition to studying and practicing photography in the Air Force.

Alexander was driving home from Denver, Colorado, honorable discharge papers in hand, photographic training and skills acquired. He was ready for civilian life.

But the August 28, 1955 murder of Emmett Till by KKK members in Mississippi changed the trajectory of Alexander’s life. The tragedy brought him face-to-face with his destiny: to fight for civil and human rights.

A fateful stop for water was the catalyst for Alexander’s involvement in civil rights. “I was coming home in a 1949 Mercury and I knocked at a home in Mississippi. The man gave me some water and some advice. He said, ‘Leave as quick as you can.’ “That was Emmett Till’s grandfather. That brought me into the civil rights movement.”

Till’s murder invoked memories of a similar incident in Louisiana. “I was ten years old on the way to visit relatives in Baton Rouge. I remember my family had to hide in the woods because we saw a truck full of whites with a Black man in the back. They were going to lynch that man.”

“When the Emmett Till thing broke, I went to Chicago to visit my aunt.” While there, Alexander got involved with the AFL-CIO and learned how to organize unions. “The AFL-CIO was a major supporter of the civil rights movement,” he adds.

An event at Booker T. Washington High School foreshadowed Alexander’s entry into the labor movement; when he met labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, president of the Sleeping Car Porters Union. “Our principal, L.B. Crocker invited him to school to talk about voting rights and unions. Once he explained what unions could do, nothing could stop me from joining the labor movement because I was looking for something to protect me from the white man,” Alexander explained.

“I was on my way to Montgomery,” Alexander remembers. “I met up with union people in Montgomery and stayed with other civil rights workers,” during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

He also remembers a meeting between Rev. King and New Orleans’ labor boss, Clarence “Chink” Henry, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association- Local 3000. “Dr. King came to meet with Chink Henry to get funds for the movement. The AFL-CIO gave him big checks. Labor and the civil rights movement worked together.”

“I did it all,” says Alexander of his work as a union organizer with the American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees (AFSCME). “I organized the Sewerage & Water Board, Charity Hospital, Baumer Foods, Public Service buses, and Avondale Shipyards. And once unionization passed the U.S. Supreme Court, I was organizing everywhere. I struck (organized a workers’ strike) at Venus Gardens. The man who owned it was selling rotten meat. I had Mrs. King on the banquette,” Alexander says in the Creole parlance adopted by indigenous New Orleans families.

I’ve done a lot, but I don’t want to be credited,” he says modestly.

Alexander spent a year organizing in New York, after receiving death threats for trying to organize a union at West Jefferson Hospital. “My wife was a nurse there and they were treating her very badly.”

He met his wife, Theresa, in Edgard, Louisiana, while visiting his grandmother. “I had met her when I was a boy. I would go stay with my grandmother every summer,” he explains. It was love at first sight. The pair were married for 60 years. They had four children, Samson, Jerome, Jo-Ann, and Jacqueline. Son Samson has passed but the remaining three stays in touch with their father. Jacqueline lives with Alexander.

Alexander weighed nearly 16 pounds at birth on July 20, 1930. He was so large, his mother Carrie Harrington, had to have a C-Section. Samson often visited his birth father, Felix Forshey, and paternal grandmother in Edgard. However, Sam Alexander, a friend of his mother, adopted young Samson and gave him his name.

Hid maternal grandmother, Lorena Spencer, reared Alexander. He attended Danneel and Thomy Lafon schools before graduating from Booker T. Washington High School at 16. The brilliant student was lauded by teachers and students for his comedic talent. “I keep them laughing,” he remembers.

His political career began when he campaigned to get the city’s first Black mayor elected. The impetus for electing Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial was the attempt to integrate the City Hall cafeteria. Alexander saw Reverend Avery C. Alexander being dragged up the basement stairs by New Orleans police for trying to have breakfast. Although not related, a large photo of the two stands as a testament to their lifelong friendship.

Alexander worked in the Morial Administration for 10 years as a first-class engineer. He was responsible for air conditioning and boiler systems at various city buildings. He helped the coroner to retrieve Morial’s body, the night he passed.

He retired from the position to run for elected office but lost the District 92 state seat to Rene Gill Pratt. “She just got out of jail,” he quips. It was his second political race. He was the first Black to run for the District B councilmanic seat but lost to Ed Booker, a white opponent backed by former Mayor Moon Landrieu.

He owned the Alexander Insurance Agency, but stiff competition from larger companies caused him to shutter the business several years later.

Alexander shares his civil rights experiences at lectures; on his WBOK radio show, Hidden History (Thursdays, 3 p.m. – 4 p.m.), and his Eyewitness to History television series, Cox Cable, Ch. 76 (Sundays, 4:30 p.m.). He is also an Associate Pastor at Christian Unity Baptist Church.

“We are in a lot of trouble,” he says of the state of the Blacks today. “We have to reinvent the civil rights movement. Education is the key. You must know your history to deal with the present.”

This article originally published in the April 1, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.