Jim Alexander celebrated his 90th birthday at the Sun ATL on August 16. (Photo by Sharon B. Dowdell)
The room was quiet, the sound of his voice punctuated by the occasional footsteps of passersby, as though they had heard it all before. Ninety years were contained in the pauses between sentences as photographer Jim Alexander reached for memories decades away. Interviewing Alexander and listening to the stories of his photographs, I thought of my Papa. Two black men of the same era speaking with the same cadence: slow but purposeful. The same warmth that makes you lean in and feel history wrap around you like a familial embrace.
In Alexander, I saw not just the decorated photographer and activist but a man whose presence was tender and inviting. From documenting the Civil Rights Movement to serving as photographer-in-residence at Atlanta's Neighborhood Arts Center, Alexander has always turned his lens toward what mainstream media overlooked: the dignity and everyday lives of our community. In his work, he has proven that art, activism and community are inseparable.
When I asked about the first photo that convinced him to dedicate his life to photography, Alexander pointed to an image hanging nearby: a contrasty, black-and-white shot of a large crowd of Black Americans. "That was the moment I realized what I wanted to do was valid," he said, indicating that it was one of the first affirmations that led to his celebrated career today.
At the time of that first monumental shot, Alexander was serving in the Navy. He told me a story about how his sister volunteered him to take photographs for a Quaker day-care center's brochure. Our chuckles floated in the air between his words as we acknowledged the strong will of an older sibling. For Alexander, this simple favor became a turning point. During the shoot with the Quakers, he read through their human rights and anti-war works. "That really made me look more and think more about the whole human rights struggle," he explained.
Jim captured this iconic photo of a Ku Klux Klan protester facing down Klan members in 1978 at a rally in Tupelo, Mississippi. (Photo by Jim Alexander)
Alexander pointed behind me to a photo of him in his living room, bookshelves towering above him as though they replaced the wall itself, filled with books leaving no air between and even spilling onto tables and the floor below. "Yeah. I was very apprised of what was happening with the Civil Rights Movement. I was in the streets in New York at the time, also in Paterson, New Jersey, taking pictures of the things that were going on. I decided I would document the things the major media wasn't covering about us, and that was basically our everyday lives. Something other than sports and crime."
I nodded along as he spoke, recalling the lessons he learned from his father. An auto mechanic earning only $75 a week, his father still managed to support and raise a large, loving family. "That taught me you can have a house full of kids and still do what you love," Alexander said with a smile.
Along with the lessons of his childhood, Alexander shared moments photographing the Civil Rights Movement that stayed with him most. His face pulled as he recalled "a photo of a White lady walking in Harlem with a sign that read 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God.'" At that same rally, Alexander also captured Butterfly McQueen at the Statehouse, a defining event moment for the young photographer.
"It showed me there were others, outside of SNCC and the usual activists, who cared about human rights," Alexander continued. "That rally was tied to the Vietnam War. Civil Rights, Vietnam, apartheid in South Africa - they were all connected. I photographed protests about South Africa before it became popular, all right. I have photos of people marching in the streets of New York. It wasn't just an individual thing, you know."
For Civil Rights activists like Alexander, it's easy to notice how cyclical injustice is. As we spoke, we listed off Trump's efforts to dismantle human rights protections today, noting that it is all part of the same continuum.
JIm Alexander photographing the KKK rally in Tupelo in 1978. (Photo by Charles Harris)
When I asked Alexander about the plight of the modern-day activist photographer, he didn't hesitate. "My whole thing was always on documenting. I did commercial photography to survive, but that wasn't my love." Art, for him, has always been a necessity, not a choice.
My next question burst forth from me like I was a kid again cutting in on grown folks' conversations. "I'm a huge Gordon Parks fan. What Black photographer isn't … can you talk about him as a mentor?"
His body relaxed deeper into the chair. He shared that Parks once warned him that documenting Black life wouldn't pay. Alexander committed anyway, especially after Martin Luther King's assassination. He gave himself 10 years, then kept going. Years later, Parks walked through the first National Black Arts Festival and admitted, "Jim, you ran around and shot what you wanted to shoot." Alexander called it one of his life's greatest affirmations.
Just as Alexander was mentored by Parks, he then mentored in turn. "Do you see your role now as mentor in this long lineage of Black photographers -from Gordon to you to others?"
"It wasn't just photographers," he replied. "I mentored anyone working in arts and human rights. In Connecticut, I started a Black Arts organization. One of my students, Dean Lynes, now owns the film company documenting my life. She was a Yale student when I worked with her. We even got funding to place Black artists in schools, paying them while they also worked in the community." Asked what he hopes people take away from his work, Alexander's voice didn't waver: "That I was committed. I never shot with selling in mind. It was about the work."
Together, we looked through his studio, parsing through decades of photos. Walls upon walls of framed works. This archive was an experience akin to walking through a scrapbook. Alexander traced memories along the frames and told me the story about my favorite of his photographs. In the image, a black man in leather confronts a crowd of KKK members protesting at a government building, his presence looming over them. I always viewed this photo as larger than life, and the scale in which it hung in his studio resonated with it. I stood in awe and listened to his story, hanging on to every word before our time together came to an end.
During our conversation, I learned that The Sun ATL was hosting a party for Alexander's 90th birthday at the closing of its "We Are Music" exhibit. I wasn't in the room during the party, but the images and words shared from that night truly showed how much he was loved. Friends and people of all ages gathered to honor this incredible man who has spent decades honoring them. To think of him surrounded by that love, to imagine the sound of laughter, clinking glasses, a sea of melanin and cocoa butter was akin to seeing his archive come alive. I see now that it is something still living, still unfolding.
At 90 years old, Jim Alexander is still here to tell his story. Not many Black men - especially those of his generation - get to receive their flowers while alive. I left his studio feeling grateful. Grateful to listen. Grateful to have had the chance to sit with this influential photographer and share his message. Happy to amplify his impact. Though our interview is over, his words linger still: "Do art, but bring somebody with you."
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Montenez Lowery is a multidisciplinary Black American artist working in Atlanta, utilizing pinhole photography to explore identity, cultural memory and the complexities of interpersonal relationships. Lowery is interested in photographic material and process and how they can be incorporated to enrich the themes he tackles. Lowery has earned a BFA in photography from the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. He was awarded The Larry and Gwen Walker Award and shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards Student Competition.