Seeds of Southern Change The Life of Will Alexander

“The story is a good one . . . for it exposes in an intimate and personal way the qualities of an important social architect of our time.” ―Dewey Grantham, American Historical Review

Had Will Alexander not shunned the limelight, he might already be a national legend, for he was one of the greatest white champions of the Negro cause in the South from 1915 to 1954. A farm boy who worked his way through Vanderbilt University and became a Methodist minister, he was a tireless enemy of the abuses, large and petty, which he saw around him. In 1919 Will Alexander helped establish the Commission on Interracial Co-operation in Atlanta. During the Depression he became assistant administrator of the Resettlement Administration and, later, director of the Farm Security Administration; under his supervision, the tide was finally turned against the spread of sharecropping. In World War II he served as adviser on minority problems to the War Manpower Commission. He was the driving force in founding Dillard and Atlanta universities. These were some of his achievements in public life. In addition, he helped and encouraged individual Negroes such as Marian Anderson, Ralphe Bunche, and Robert Weaver and influenced eminent white southerners, including Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, and Brooks Hays. His real impact must be measured also in the numbers of southerners giving leadership today who owe to him their start in the fight against prejudice.

Wilma Dykeman was the author of The French Broad, Neither Black Nor White, and The Tall Woman and a member of the Tennessee Historical Society.