1. Archibald Alphonso Alexander was an American architect and engineer.
23 Facts About Archie Alexander
1. 2.
Archie Alexander was an early African-American graduate of the University of Iowa and the first to graduate from the University of Iowa's College of Engineering.
3.
Archie Alexander was a governor of the US Virgin Islands.
4.
Archie Alexander was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, to Price and Mary Hamilton Archie Alexander, part of a small African American community.
5.
Archie Alexander then attended Highland Park College and Cummins Art College before matriculating at the State University of Iowa to study engineering.
6.
Archie Alexander's professors warned Alexander that it would be difficult for him to find work as an African-American engineer.
7.
Archie Alexander was a football player at the University of Iowa, where he was a three-year starting tackle and earned the nickname "Archie Alexander the Great".
8.
Archie Alexander was a member of the predominantly black Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.
9.
In 1921, Archie Alexander studied bridge design at the University of London while on a sabbatical.
10.
Archie Alexander later obtained his civil engineering degree from Iowa State University in 1925.
11.
Archie Alexander partnered with Euro-American contractor George F Higbee for eight years before Higbee's death.
12.
In 1926, Archie Alexander was honored with a Harmon award for his distinguished achievement in business and engineering.
13.
The firm was hired to build a bridge and seawall at the Tidal Basin in Washington DC, where Archie Alexander brought in an integrated construction crew.
14.
Archie Alexander's firm became so successful Ebony magazine declared it "the nation's most famous interracial business" in 1949.
15.
Archie Alexander began his political career in 1932, when he served as the assistant chairman of the Iowa Republican State Committee, a position that he held again in 1940.
16.
In 1934, Archie Alexander was appointed as part of an investigative team that looked into economic development possibilities for Haiti.
17.
Archie Alexander aggressively campaigned for Dwight D Eisenhower's White House bid in 1952.
18.
Archie Alexander served as a charter member and the 1944 president of the Des Moines chapter of the NAACP.
19.
Archie Alexander was president of the Negro Community Center Board and a trustee at both Howard University and the Tuskegee Institute.
20.
In 1954, Alexander was appointed Governor of the United States Virgin Islands by President Dwight D Eisenhower.
21.
Archie Alexander was the first Republican governor there since the establishment of the civil government.
22.
Archie Alexander died of a heart attack in 1958 in Des Moines, Iowa.
23.
Archie Alexander is included in the Chick-Fil-A College Football Hall of Fame for his three seasons on the University of Iowa varsity football team.