John Hanks Alexander

John Hanks Alexander (January 6, 1864 – March 26, 1894) was the first African-American officer in the United States armed forces to hold a regular command position and the second African-American graduate of the United States Military Academy (after Henry Ossian Flipper).

Early life John Hanks Alexander was born on January 6, 1864, at Helena, Arkansas, the fourth of seven children born to former slaves James Milo Alexander and Fannie Miller Alexander. James Alexander was a barber and dry goods salesman in Helena and acquired property there. He later became the first black Justice of the Peace in Arkansas and represented Phillips County in the Arkansas House of Representatives. He died in 1871. All of the Alexander children graduated from high school and three attended Oberlin College in Ohio.

Alexander graduated number one in his high school class in Helena and soon moved to Carrollton, Mississippi, to take a position as a teacher. In late 1880 he visited his uncle in Cincinnati, Ohio, and ended up remaining in that city. The next year, he enrolled at Oberlin College and attended that institution until passing the entrance examination for West Point in 1883. Alexander was sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. George W. Geddes of Ohio. Other accounts suggest he spent his early years at the academy in "social isolation", where he suffered from racial slurs and exclusion from extracurricular activities. At West Point, he was not allowed to room with white cadets, and would routinely be ignored while attending Sunday Chapel.

In February 1894, Alexander was sent to Wilberforce University, an all-black institution, as a professor of military science and tactics. Shortly after arriving, he died unexpectedly of a ruptured aorta on March 26, 1894. John Hanks Alexander was buried with military honors in Xenia, Ohio.

Legacy A military installation at Newport News, Virginia, was named Camp Alexander in honor of John Alexander.