Lincoln Alexander

It was the 1930s, in Harlem, New York.

A teenager from Toronto was living there with his mother. He saw Black people holding higher positions than in Canada.

His name was Lincoln Alexander.

He was born in Toronto on January 21, 1922. He was the eldest son of Caribbean immigrants. His mother, Mae Rose, came from Jamaica. She worked as a maid.

His father, Lincoln, came from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. He was a carpenter by trade. But he worked as a sleeping car porter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. For a Black man, at the time, few other doors were open.

When Lincoln was a teenager, his parents separated. He went to live with his mother in Harlem for a few years. His first job was in a laundry.

Later, he said that what he saw there

In 1939, he came back to Toronto. As a machinist in Hamilton, he made anti-aircraft guns.

None of the three services, he would say, neither the army, nor the navy, nor the air force, was interested in having Black people.

In 1942, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force all the same. His eyesight was poor. He did not go into combat. He became a wireless operator, trained in Guelph and Lachine, and served at Portage la Prairie, in Manitoba.

He left the air force in 1945, a corporal.

Then he studied. A degree from McMaster University in 1949. Law at Osgoode Hall in 1953. He became a lawyer in Hamilton, then opened his own firm.

In 1965, he ran for election in Hamilton West. He lost, by fewer than 2,500 votes.

He tried again.

On June 25, 1968, the voters of Hamilton West sent him to Ottawa. Lincoln Alexander became the first Black member of the House of Commons.

In his first speech, on September 20, 1968, he said he was not the spokesman for Black people: that honour had not been given to him.

He was re-elected four times. In 1979, he became Minister of Labour in Joe Clark's government. No Black person had ever sat in the federal Cabinet before him.

In 1980, he left Ottawa. For five years, he chaired Ontario's Workers' Compensation Board.

On September 20, 1985, he became the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. It was the first time in Canada that a Black person had held a viceregal post.

He gave himself three missions: fight racism, advance the cause of youth, advocate for seniors. An award for young people who fight discrimination now bears his name.

From 1991 to 2007, he served as chancellor of the University of Guelph, for five terms. He also chaired the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

In 2006, he was named the Greatest Hamiltonian of All Time.

Lincoln Alexander died in his sleep, in Hamilton, on October 19, 2012. He was ninety. He was given a state funeral.

In 2013, Ontario made January 21, his birthday, Lincoln Alexander Day. On January 21, 2015, it was marked across Canada.

Without coming from Ubuntu, his life echoes it: a door you open for yourself must stay open for those who follow.

What remains is the image of a porter's son, standing in the House of Commons. Where no one like him had stood before.