Dr. John W. Alexander Papers

The files of Dr. John W. Alexander, accession 3308, date from 1958 to 1968, with the bulk of them falling between 1964 and 1968. Dr. Alexander served from 1964 to 1968 as the first black president of the city of Orange' s board of education, and the files reflect his ongoing responsibilities as mediator between school administrators, city government and the population of Orange, as well as long range goals or projects which he authored or assisted in implementing.

As a suburb with an approximately 25% non-white population and an extremely low median income (according to a 1960 survey), the city of Orange in the mid-to late nineteen-sixties was ripe for improvement, and these records document Dr. Alexander's efforts to implement change in the school system with respect to the traditionally underprivileged. Among the projects documented are the proposed (1966-1968) construction of a new comprehensive high school, a complete curriculum revision from kindergarten through 12th grade, an enhancement of vocational education, and in-service educational courses for teachers. There is a single folder documenting Dr. Alexander's efforts to desegregate the existing school system, which efforts are not herein documented beyond 1965. Document types in the collection include correspondence, reports, speeches, testimony, newsclippings, scoresheets, fliers, petitions, legal documents and minutes.

In conjunction with a folder containing draft materials toward the book Homeboy Came to Orange by Ernest and Mindy Thompson (1976) [in subgroup B. of the Ernest Thompson papers, accession 3251], the Alexander files take on added significance, particularly with respect to public education in Orange. Presumably consulted by Mindy Thompson while writing the book the Alexander files were originally included with the Ernest Thompson Papers, but due to their discrete nature were eventually segregated and upon receipt of Dr. Alexander's permission for them to be retained by Rutgers, assigned their own accession number. In addition to the draft materials toward the book, the Ernest Thompson Papers include files generated by an organization founded by Ernest Thompson, the Citizens For Representative Government,(comprising a series by the same name), which profile the efforts of this organization to implement changes in city government--one of which changes was the election of Dr. Alexander as president of the board of education in 1964. The CRG files do not, however, mention Dr. Alexander specifically, and do not span the years of his tenure in office.