Lincoln MacCauley Alexander was born in January 21. 1922 in Toronto, Ontario to West Indian immigrants, his mother was a maid born in Jamaica and his father was a carpenter from St Vincent although he worked as a railway porter as it was one of the few jobs available for people of color at the time. Lincoln had a younger brother Hughie, born in 1924, and an older half-brother Ridley Wright, born to his mother prior to her marriage to his father.
Alexander went to Earl Grey Public School as the only black person in his kindergarten class where he noted that it truly helped him stand up for himself and fight others, later on when his family decided to move to east Toronto he attended Riverdale Collegiate high school. In 1937, when he was 15 years old, he moved to New York City with his mother where he lived Harlem and attended DeWitt Clinton High School before returning to Toronto in 1939. In 1942, he decided to join the Royal Canadian Air Force for world II where he served as a corporal during the whole 5 years. …show more content…
He practiced law until he was eventually appointed as Queen’s Counsel in 1965 and in that year he entered the world of politics, running as a Conservative MP for Hamilton West, but was defeated. Three years later, on June 25 1968, he won the seat, making him the first Black Canadian to sit in the House of Commons and continued to serve for a total of 12 years. In 1979, he was chosen as a minister of labor by Prime Minister Joe Clark, a position he held for one year. In the same year, he gave up his seat in the House of Commons and worked for five years as the chairman of the Ontario Workers' Compensation