T.M. Alexander Sr. ‘31

Theodore M. Alexander Sr., was an insurance company founder and civil rights activist who has been credited with keeping the historic Montgomery bus boycott alive.

Mr. Alexander, an Atlanta resident, had a key role in the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott. After white Montgomery residents canceled auto insurance policies for cars used to drive Blacks to work when they boycotted segregated buses, Mr. Alexander obtained Lloyd's of London insurance for the boycott vehicles.

He co-founded the Atlanta Negro Voters League in 1937 and was the first Black person since Reconstruction to seek a city government office in Atlanta when he ran unsuccessfully for what is now the City Council in 1957.

In the 1960s, Mr. Alexander obtained seed money from business leaders for new housing for Blacks. Construction of those 203 homes and 127 apartment units helped ease racial tensions in Atlanta.

"This pioneering venture established long-term financing for the black community that had never before been available," said John A. Sibley, former chairman of Trust Company of Georgia.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Mr. Alexander to an advisory committee to implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Mr. Alexander was a native of Montgomery and a 1931 business administration graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta. In 1931, he also founded the Alexander & Co. property and casualty insurance brokerage. It had offices in Georgia, Alabama and the District of Columbia and became one of the nation's oldest and most successful minority-owned independent insurance agencies.