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October 25, 2012

Lincoln Alexander
Lincoln Alexander

Lincoln Alexander, the First Black Man to Serve in Canada’s Parliament, Has Died

Lincoln Alexander, Jr., the first black man to serve as a member of Canada’s Parliament, died October 19. He was 90.

In 1968, Mr. Alexander ran in the Canadian federal election as a Progressive Conservative Party of Canada candidate in the Hamilton West, Ontario, electoral district.

He won the election and successive elections before stepping down in 1980. From 1979 to 1980, Alexander served as minister of labor in the government of Prime Minister Joe Clark.

In 1985, the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Mr. Alexander as lieutenant governor of Ontario, Canada’s largest province based on population. As a result, Mr. Alexander became the first black person to serve in a viceregal position in Canada.

Mr. Alexander was born Jan. 21, 1922, in Toronto to Mae Rose and Lincoln Alexander Sr., who migrated  to Canada from Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The couple’s son served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. After the war, he graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 1953.

Upon his death, the national and provincial flags outside the Ontario Legislative Building were flown at half-staff. His body lay in state at the legislative building and in Hamilton, Ontario’s city hall.

He is survived by his second wife, Marni, and a son, Keith, from his first marriage to wife, Yvonne Harrison, who died in 1999.

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