Scholley Pace Alexander (1902-1974)

Portrait courtesy of www.legis.state.pa.us.

   A prominent Philadelphia, Pennsylvania real estate broker and one-term Democratic state representative, Scholley Pace Alexander was also a U.S. Army veteran and member of the Philadelphia Housing Association for several years. The son of former slaves Hilliard Boone and Martha Alexander (both natives of Virginia), Scholley Pace Alexander was born in Philadephia on June 8, 1902. In addition to the man profiled here, the Alexander family would also boast Raymond Pace Alexander (1897-1974), a noted civil rights leader, lawyer, and jurist. A defense attorney who gained wide distinction for his defense of six black defendants in the Trenton Six re-trial of 1951, Raymond Alexander was later elected to the Philadelphia City Council and in 1959 was appointed as a judge on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, becoming the first African-American to serve in that capacity.

  Scholley P. Alexander attended the Temple University High School in Philadelphia in 1920 and married in Manhattan on March 26, 1923, to Ethel B. Watson, to whom he was wed until her death from a heart attack in August 1955. Following his marriage, Alexander became the business manager for Harlem: A Forum of Negro Life in 1928, and by the early 1930s  was employed as a clerk in his brother's law office. Sources also detail that Scholley Alexander had earned a law degree by 1934, as he is listed as an attorney in the August 8th edition of the Pittsburgh Courier.

  The 1936 election year saw Scholley Alexander made his first foray into Pennsylvania politics, announcing his candidacy for the state house of representatives from Philadelphia's 7th ward. In a special assembly election held that April, Alexander was defeated (3,639 votes to 1,311) by another black attorney, former Philadelphia city councilman Richard A. Cooper. 

  In the years following this legislative defeat, Scholley Alexander gained prominence as a realtor in Philadelphia, work that later saw him become a member of the Philadelphia Housing Commission and the Citizens Committee on City Planning. In 1950 he launched another candidacy for the Pennsylvania legislature but was dealt another loss that November, being defeated by Republican Lewis Meade Mintess, 4,924 votes to 3, 662.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 5, 1952.

   Alexander's political fortunes changed in 1952 when he successfully won a seat in the Pennsylvania house of representatives, besting the man who had defeated him two years previously, Lewis M. Mintess. Serving during the 1953-55 session, Alexander (along with several other Philadelphia Democrats) introduced house resolution in May 1953 asking the U.S. House of Representatives to "support the U.N.'s human rights covenant". Alexander wasn't a candidate for renomination in November 1954 and at the conclusion of his term was appointed by Governor George M. Leader as a workmen's compensation referee for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, serving from 1955-56.

  The later years of Scholley Alexander's life saw him gain local distinction as a patron of the arts, with he and his second wife Marian's Philadelphia home playing host to the "Expressing the Feminine Mystique In Art", an all-female art showing which benefitted the Student Welfare Council. Alexander died in Philadelphia in February 1974, aged 71, and a burial location for both he and his wife Marian remains unknown at this time.

Scholley P. Alexander as he appeared in Jet Magazine, February 1964.