|
| death_place = Hamilton, Ontario | party = Progressive Conservative | relations = | spouse = Yvonne Harrison (1948–1999, her death) Marni Beal (2011–2012) | partner = | children = Keith Alexander | residence = Hamilton, Ontario | occupation = Barrister and solicitor | religion = Baptist | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} Lincoln MacCauley Alexander, (January 21, 1922 – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian who became the first black Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, the first black federal Cabinet Minister serving as federal Minister of Labour, the first black Chair of the Worker’s Compensation Board, the first black, and the 24th, Lieutenant-Governor serving Ontario from 1985 to 1991, and the first person to serve five terms as Chancellor of the University of Guelph, from 1991 to 2007. Alexander was also a governor of the Canadian Unity Council. ==Early life and education== Alexander was born in a row house on Draper Street near Front Street and Spadina Avenue in Toronto, Ontario.〔 He was the eldest son of Mae Rose (nee Royale), who migrated from Jamaica, and Lincoln MacCauley Alexander, Sr., who was a carpenter by trade〔 but worked as a porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway, who had come to Canada from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. He had a younger brother Hughie who was born in 1924, and a half-brother Ridley “Bunny” Wright, born to his mother in 1920 prior to her marriage to his father; Bunny was never accepted by Lincoln Sr. and was not allowed in the family’s house.〔 Alexander went to Earl Grey Public School where he was the only Black in his kindergarten class. He noted in his memoir that he “never raced home from school and cried” but earned the respect of his classmates, sometimes by fighting. This taught him “… to always walk tall, and with a certain bearing, so people knew I meant business.”〔In his 2006 memoir, ''Go to School, You’re a Little Black Boy'', Alexander recalled: “Blacks at that time made up a sliver-thin portion of the city’s population, and racial prejudice abounded.” When the family moved to the east end of Toronto, and he attended Riverdale Collegiate, Alexander knew only three Black families. “The scene in Toronto at that time wasn’t violent, though you had to know your place and govern yourself accordingly.”〔 His family was religious, and enjoyed a social life centred on regularly attending a Baptist church in downtown Toronto. His father was a stern disciplinarian who wanted his son to play the piano. However, Alexander preferred various sports including: track, soccer, hockey, softball and boxing, but never learned to swim. His size made him uncoordinated so he was not a natural athlete.〔 As a teen Alexander’s mother moved to Harlem with his older, half-brother Ridley after she was the victim of a violent physical altercation with his father. He and his brother Hughie were cared for by Sadie and Rupert Downs until his mother could send for one of them. She chose Alexander; Hughie remained with the Downs family and the brothers grew apart. In New York he attended DeWitt Clinton High School, the only member of his gang to do so. He recalled in his memoir that: “...given the message about education that had been pounded into my head since I was a young child, the fact those kids didn’t go to school was an eye-opener for me.” As a black community, Harlem allowed him to find role models who worked at jobs that did not involve manual labour.〔 In 1939, after Canada declared war on Germany, his mother sent him back to Toronto to live with his father. He met Yvonne (Tody) Harrison at a dance in Toronto. The youngest of four daughters of Robert, a railway porter, and his wife Edythe (nee Lewis) Harrison she lived in Hamilton, Ontario. Alexander was smitten by her and resolved to marry her. Because he was too young to enlist in the armed forces, he took a job as a machinist making anti-aircraft guns at a factory in Hamilton to be close to her.〔 He first distinguished himself in service to Canada in 1942 as a corporal and wireless operator in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. He served in many parts of the country including Portage La Prairie. He was ineligible for combat duty because of poor eyesight.〔〔 While stationed in Vancouver, he was refused service at a bar because of his race. He reported the incident to a superior officer who refused to take action. Alexander quit the Air Force in 1945 and was granted an honourable discharge. Of that event he said: "...at that time they didn’t know how to deal with race relations of this sort of thing, they just turned a blind eye to it.”〔 After the war Alexander completed his studies at Hamilton's Central Collegiate and then attended McMaster University beginning in 1946 to study economics and history, receiving a BA in 1949.〔 At age 25, on September 10, 1948, he married Yvonne "Tody" Harrison who was five years his senior. Upon graduating in 1949, he applied for a sales job at Stelco, a steel plant in Hamilton, Ontario. Although he had references, the support of McMaster and the mayor of Hamilton, Stelco was unwilling to have a black man on its sales force. He declined their offer of his old summer job working in the plant.〔 His mother died at age 49 in 1948 having suffered from dementia; his father committed suicide four years later.〔 He married his first wife, Yvonne Harrison, in 1948;〔 their only child, a son Keith, was born in 1949.〔 In 1986, Alexander said in a ''Chatelaine'' magazine interview: “My mother was the single biggest influence on me–before my wife, I’ve always regretted that she didn’t live to see me graduate from university.”〔 Alexander then attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. While there, he suggested to the Dean during a lecture that he was using inappropriate language, the 'N-word'.〔 Challenging the Dean he said: "But you can’t say that because you have to show leadership. You’re in a position of authority, a leader in the community. A leader has to lead and not be using such disrespectful comments without even thinking about them."〔 Of the incident he recalled: “I don’t know what ever made me stand up and ask him that in a class of 200 people. . . . But I will tell you one thing, that day made me a man.”〔 His actions did not end his career as he feared and Alexander graduated from Osgoode Hall in 1953.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lincoln Alexander」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|