T. Alexander, 92; Helped Sustain Bus Boycott
Theodore M. Alexander, 92, an Atlanta-based insurance and real estate tycoon who is credited with helping to keep the Montgomery bus boycott alive in the mid-1950s, died Thursday at a nursing home in Atlanta.
Alexander, a Montgomery native who owned an insurance firm during the heyday of the civil rights era, was called to help after white insurance agents in his hometown canceled the policies for 19 vehicles being used to drive blacks to work as they boycotted the Alabama city’s segregated bus system.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Alexander had supported for the pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954, turned to his friend for help to find insurance for the vehicles. Alexander obtained insurance through Lloyd’s of London.
In 1957, Alexander was the first black since Reconstruction to seek city office in Atlanta when he ran unsuccessfully for the City Council.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Alexander to an advisory committee to help implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
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