Why am I telling the Jim Alexander story?
About five years ago, I asked Jim who was telling his story. He looked at me and said, “You are.”
To understand that answer, you have to go back to the beginning.
I met Jim when I was a student at the Yale School of Drama. He had created an artist-in-residence program between Yale and New Haven Public Schools, and I was hired to work with third graders at Winchester Elementary School. Jim later became a mentor to me and helped me produce community theater in New Haven.
When I produced Melvin Van Peebles’ Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, Jim helped me do it the way it was supposed to be done, with a live band and a real set. It was something I could never have done on my own.
Later, after Jim sued the ABC affiliate WTNH-TV for its lack of minority representation, he told them to hire me. That moment changed the direction of my life. My career focus shifted from theater to television, and I was hired as the co-host and associate producer of a weekly community affairs program. Through that opportunity, I had the privilege of interviewing people like Angela Davis.
At first, I didn’t fully understand the impact Jim had on my life. What I learned from him was simple and life-changing: whatever I wanted to do, all they could say was no.
Jim didn’t spend his life talking about what Black people should do. He did it. He lived it.
He documented our lives with care, dignity, and purpose. He had people who would get him press credentials so he could photograph artists and performers like Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Run-DMC, and Michael Jackson. When Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first Black mayor, asked him to come to Atlanta to continue documenting the political and cultural events shaping African American life, Jim answered the call.
One of the most important lessons Jim learned from his mentor, Gordon Parks, was to own his work. Parks taught him not to work for publishing companies that would take ownership of his photographs. Jim listened. That is why today, his collection of more than 250,000 photographs is housed at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta. And Jim will proudly tell you that he and his family still own his work.
That example helped inspire my daughter Olivia and me to co-found The Society of African American Narratives.
At a time when our history and culture are being erased, when books are being banned and cultural exhibits are being removed from government institutions, we knew we had to do our part. Our mission is to protect, preserve, and make Black history and culture accessible to parents, students, educators, and the general public.
We also understand the power of telling our own stories, and of uncovering the stories that exist but still need to be told. Stories that show the world our brilliance, beauty, creativity, and ingenuity, despite every effort to diminish us, distort us, or erase us.
That is why Jim Alexander: Participant Observer matters.
Up to this point, the documentary has been self-funded, along with a donation from Jim himself. We now need the support of our community to help us complete this film about Jim’s life and the history he has documented through his photography.
By the way, the photograph in this blog is one Jim took of me, my sister Leslie, and our friend Gloria on one of the many cultural trips he organized for young people. He captured us strutting down 125th Street in Harlem, New York, wearing Afros, plaid pants, and stacked shoes.
That was us. That was the time. That was the culture.
And because of Jim, it is also part of the archive.
Support the completion of the documentary!
