Reverend Avery C. Alexander

Mr. Avery Caesar Alexander, who was born on June 29, 1910 was a trailblazing Louisiana civil rights leader and public servant who used the state legislature to further the aims and goals of the historic Civil Rights Movement. He was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1975 and served in that office until his passing.

Mr. Alexander participated in voter-registration in Louisiana prior to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and helped organize economic boycotts against businesses in New Orleans that refused to hire Blacks, including a successful boycott to force the monopoly utility and transit company to hire Black bus drivers. Mr. Alexander participated in several marches with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and in sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters.

In a well-publicized and videotaped incident in the basement cafeteria at City Hall on October 31, 1963, he was arrested and dragged upstairs by the heels. In a similar incident in 1993, police used a chokehold to subdue Alexander when he participated in a protest against former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke at the Battle of Liberty Place Monument ceremony in New Orleans after Alexander repeatedly crossed police lines separating protesters and celebrants. In 1975, when Mr. Alexander became a Democrat to represent the 93rd District of Louisiana House of Representatives.

In 1977, he along with nine other state legislators together established the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus as a way to increase the African American state legislature ratio. Alexander also served as the chaplain of the Black caucus and due to his political and religious background became known as “Rev.” He also established a non-denominational church, the Church of All People, in 1990.