Chapter 1: Born in the Wake of War (1864–1880)

James Alexander was born in August 1864 in Covington County, Mississippi, during the final, bitter months of the American Civil War. His birth came at a turning point in American history, when the South was crumbling and the institution of slavery—under which generations of his ancestors had suffered—was on the verge of collapse.

James’s parents, Andrew J. Alexander and Elizabeth Ross, were likely born into bondage, and his birth marked a new era of hope and uncertainty. He was part of the first generation of African Americans to be born on the edge of freedom—free in name, but not yet in practice.

The close of the Civil War in April 1865 was a victory for the Union, but it left the Southern economy—and its social order—in ruins. Mississippi, once one of the wealthiest slave-holding states, was devastated. Plantations had burned, railroads lay in shambles, and formerly enslaved families like the Alexanders were thrust into a world with no roadmap for how to survive in freedom. Emancipation was a door opened, but what lay beyond was a long road of struggle and survival.

By the time James was six years old, the family had settled in Township 3 of Rankin County, Mississippi, according to the 1870 Census—the first federal census to list African Americans as free people. The Alexanders were among the small but determined Black landholding families of the time. Their real estate was valued at $400 and personal property at $425—a sign of modest but hard-earned stability. In an era when most formerly enslaved families had nothing, this valuation spoke volumes about Andrew’s work ethic and the family’s ability to carve out a life for themselves.

Andrew was listed as a farmer, which meant the family most likely lived on a small tract of land—possibly purchased through the Freedmen’s Bureau, or perhaps leased under an early form of sharecropping. Farming, for the Alexanders, was both livelihood and legacy. It was the one avenue of self-sufficiency available in a system still deeply stacked against them.

Elizabeth, James’s mother, was the cornerstone of the household. Like so many Black women of her time, she bore the dual burdens of labor and caregiving. She cooked, cleaned, raised the children, and likely worked in the fields beside her husband when needed. The 1870s were years of rebuilding—of trying to teach their children to read and write while still guarding against the looming dangers of white backlash.

James grew up alongside his siblings: Edward, Mary, Hugh, Audy, Isaac, and Joseph. Education was prioritized when available, and records show that his older siblings were attending school. For a Black family in post-war Mississippi, this was a radical act. White lawmakers and planters had long feared the power of Black literacy, and schools for African Americans were underfunded and often violently opposed.

Despite these odds, James was raised in a household that valued knowledge, resilience, and faith. Whether it came from a schoolhouse, a church, or a worn-out Bible passed between hands, reading was a key to the future. By 1880, James had learned to read and write—an achievement that placed him ahead of many in his generation.

James’s childhood was steeped in the realities of Reconstruction—a brief and volatile period from 1865 to 1877 when African Americans made unprecedented political and social gains. Black men voted, held public office, and organized schools and churches across the South. It was a time of radical hope.

But it didn’t last.

As James approached adulthood, the tide was turning. Federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, marking the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Jim Crow era. In Mississippi, white supremacist groups and legislators moved swiftly to strip Black citizens of their newfound rights. Voter suppression, racial violence, and forced labor contracts became the new tools of control.

For James, who turned sixteen that same year, manhood came with a sobering reality: while he had been born free, he would live in a world where freedom was constantly threatened.

Still, he stood at the edge of adulthood with quiet strength. He had grown up on Mississippi soil, in a home where family held strong, where work was honorable, and where dignity was not defined by laws, but by living with integrity. The road ahead would be difficult—but James Alexander had already learned how to walk it.

Chapter 2: A Farmer’s Life in the Jim Crow South (1880–1900)

“Labor, Land, and Love”

By 1880, James Alexander was sixteen years old and listed in the census as a farm laborer, still living with his parents and siblings in Beat 3, Rankin County, Mississippi. The Reconstruction era had officially ended just three years earlier, and in its place, a new and deeply oppressive system had taken root. Jim Crow laws—named after a derogatory minstrel caricature—were sweeping across the South, enforcing racial segregation and stripping Black citizens of the freedoms they had briefly known.

In this new world, James stepped into adulthood. The opportunities available to him were limited by design, yet like his father before him, he chose to work the land. Farming was the backbone of life in Mississippi, and for Black men in particular, it offered both a livelihood and a quiet form of resistance. Each crop planted, each row harvested, was a claim of dignity in a society that tried to deny it.

Though he worked long days in the sun, often for little pay, James carried forward the work ethic he had learned as a boy. Farming was grueling—cotton, corn, and beans in the hot Mississippi soil—but it was honest work. It kept his family fed and allowed him to contribute to the household. And in those years of labor, James was also laying the foundation for a family of his own.

In 1889, at the age of twenty-five, James married Anna A. Webster. The marriage marked the beginning of his life as a husband and provider, but their union appears to have been brief. Whether due to death, separation, or another unknown hardship, the relationship did not last long. Just a few years later, in 1892, James married again—this time to Hollie Falkner, the woman who would become his lifelong partner and the mother of his many children.

Together, James and Hollie began to build a household in the Mississippi countryside. Over the following years, they would raise a large and growing family—a testament to their resilience, love, and shared sense of purpose. Their home likely stood modest and weather-worn, surrounded by rows of crops and children running barefoot through the fields.

Though life was never easy, James and Hollie worked as a team. He tended the fields; she kept the home. Their children grew up watching them model sacrifice, strength, and survival. Theirs was not a life of luxury, but it was full—rooted in family, shaped by hard work, and grounded in faith.

Outside the walls of their home, the world was shifting. Across the South, white supremacy was becoming codified into law, and violence was used to enforce racial order. Lynchings, voter suppression, and economic exploitation plagued the Black community. In Mississippi, Black farmers were often forced into sharecropping arrangements that kept them in cycles of debt, unable to gain true independence.

It’s likely that James participated in such arrangements. Landowners provided seed and supplies on credit, while laborers worked the land with the promise of a portion of the crop. But the system was rigged, and many Black farmers found themselves perpetually indebted to white landowners. Yet James persisted. Whether he farmed on his own land, rented, or sharecropped, he did what he had to do to care for his family.

Even under the weight of injustice, James carved out a space where his family could grow. His home was a place where children learned how to work, how to read, how to pray, and how to survive. It was a sanctuary of strength in a society that sought to keep them powerless.

As the century turned, James was not just a farm laborer—he was a patriarch in the making. With Hollie at his side and children arriving one by one, he was building something lasting. In a time when so much was being taken from his community, James Alexander was creating life, love, and legacy in the Mississippi soil.

Chapter 3: Building a Legacy—A Family of Seventeen (1900–1920)

“Strength in Numbers”

As the 20th century dawned, James Alexander found himself in the prime of his life—hardworking, rooted in faith, and surrounded by the laughter, chaos, and labor of a growing household. The 1900 Census recorded James living in Beat 4 of Marshall County, Mississippi, with his wife Hollie and their four children. At just 36 years old, he had already established himself as a family man and a steadfast provider.

He and Hollie lived in a rented farmhouse, like many other Black families in the Deep South. Mississippi’s soil was rich, but the system was not. Though technically free, most African Americans still lived under economic conditions that mirrored slavery—working for white landowners under crushing debt, with few legal protections. And yet, James persisted. He labored through blistering heat and unpredictable harvests, providing for his wife and children through sheer will and backbreaking effort.

The turn of the century brought no relief from racial hostility. In fact, white supremacy tightened its grip. Mississippi had rewritten its constitution in 1890 to include poll taxes and literacy tests that effectively disenfranchised nearly every Black voter. Lynching was rampant, fear was constant, and economic advancement was deliberately obstructed. Still, James and Hollie built a life rooted in love and legacy.

That legacy came in the form of children—lots of them. James and Hollie would go on to raise seventeen children together, a remarkable feat by any measure, and even more so given the hardships of their time. The names of their children tell the story of a family that was large, close-knit, and grounded in tradition: Frank, Fred William, Isadore, Mattie A., Isidora, Sammie, Charles “Charlie,” Sam, Mantry, Mootury, A.C., Jimmie, Elree, L.E., Elrea, Charity, and El Ree.

Each child represented more than just a new mouth to feed. They were an extension of James’s hopes. In a world that tried to erase the Black family, he and Hollie created one so large and rooted that it could not be ignored. Their home was likely full of noise—crying infants, boys running through fields, girls gathering water, siblings working side by side in the rows of cotton or corn.

Despite the burden of raising so many children, there is no record of James faltering. The census does not list him as unemployed or absent. He was always there, season after season, field after field, doing what needed to be done. And his older children followed his lead. By the 1910 Census, James had nine children living under his roof, and the two eldest were already working as farm laborers alongside their father.

This generational work ethic wasn’t just survival—it was culture. The Alexanders were teaching each child the value of labor, respect, faith, and kinship. Hollie, the heart of the household, kept the home running: cooking, cleaning, raising babies, tending to illnesses, and praying every night that each child would return safely from the fields. Together, she and James made a unit as resilient as any church congregation, more enduring than the laws trying to keep them down.

James’s family wasn’t just biological—it was communal. In rural Black communities across the South, neighbors became kin, and families like the Alexanders were often at the center of their community's social and spiritual life. Whether they gathered in clapboard churches, met at harvest markets, or shared news along dirt roads, the Alexanders were part of a larger story of Black survival and solidarity.

Through it all, James maintained his devotion to the land. Farming, for him, was more than a livelihood—it was legacy. Every furrow he plowed was a thread connecting him to his ancestors who had toiled without freedom. Now, he worked for his children’s future. Even if they didn’t yet have access to wealth or status, he was building a foundation—brick by invisible brick.

As the decade drew to a close and the world stood on the brink of World War I, James had become more than a laborer. He was a patriarch. His hands were calloused, his back weathered, but his family stood tall. In the fields of Mississippi, he planted more than crops—he planted roots that would grow strong for generations to come.

Chapter 4: Holding On Through Hard Times (1920–1930)

“A Quiet Resistance”

As the 1920s began, James Alexander was in his mid-fifties, a seasoned farmer, husband, and father of a growing legacy. The 1920 U.S. Census recorded the family living in Thomasville, Rankin County, Mississippi, where they continued to rent their farmhouse and work the land. James had lived through war, through Reconstruction and the loss of it, through political betrayal and racial oppression. And still—he endured.

Life in the Jim Crow South was not only unjust, it was dangerous. Black citizens were barred from voting, segregated from white society, and excluded from fair wages, education, and medical care. Lynchings were still common across the South, especially in Mississippi, which bore one of the nation’s highest rates of racial terror.

And yet, James didn’t run. He didn’t flee north with the early waves of the Great Migration. He stayed. Whether it was for love of the land, for family, or because he had few options, James chose to remain rooted in Mississippi. He farmed soil that his ancestors had likely been forced to work as slaves. Now, he worked it as a free man, determined to pass something down to his children.

By this time, many of his older children were grown and beginning to start families of their own. His home was still bustling with activity, but the energy had shifted—older sons helped manage crops, daughters learned how to run a home, and younger siblings followed the examples of those ahead of them. With seventeen children by Hollie, and more children fathered with Pearl Mortiz—a total of over two dozen sons and daughters—James had created a living legacy.

But survival still came with cost. The family likely faced poor housing, unpredictable weather, disease, and constant financial uncertainty. Black farmers were often the first to be cheated at market and the last to receive fair credit or resources. Despite this, James persisted, season after season.

This decade also brought broader social change, even in places as rural as Rankin County. Though James’s world was still governed by racial segregation, the voices of African American leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey were reaching rural communities, carried by traveling preachers, church networks, and Black newspapers. The seeds of resistance and racial pride were being sown.

And within his family, those seeds took root. James’s sons—Frank, Fred, Sammie, Charles “Charlie,” and others—learned more than just how to plow and harvest. They learned responsibility. They saw in their father the embodiment of discipline, patience, and integrity. His daughters—Mattie, Isidora, Elree, Charity, and more—were raised by a mother who kept her home not just clean and fed, but full of care and faith. Together, James and Hollie instilled in them a sense of pride and purpose, even when the world outside tried to strip it away.

By 1930, the family was living in Beat 5, Rankin County, still renting land, still farming, and still together. The census shows James as the head of household, now approaching 66 years old, continuing the labor that had sustained him for decades.

The dawn of the Great Depression would soon cast a long shadow across the country—but James had already survived a lifetime of hard seasons. For him, the 1920s were not a time of roaring prosperity like they were for wealthy white Americans. For him, they were years of quiet resistance, of building family strength amid economic fragility and institutional violence.

James Alexander didn’t speak at rallies. He didn’t write articles or run for office. His form of protest was simpler: he stayed. He raised his children. He worked the land. He refused to give up.

In a time when Black life was devalued by the system at every turn, James built something that could not be erased—family, legacy, and pride.

Chapter 5: Final Years and Farewell (1930–1934)

“From Dust to Rest”

As James Alexander entered the final stretch of his life in the early 1930s, the world around him was unraveling once more. The crash of 1929 had sparked the Great Depression, and even in rural Rankin County, Mississippi, its effects were swift and unforgiving. Crop prices plummeted. Credit dried up. Landowners and tenant farmers alike faced hunger and uncertainty. For Black families—already on the margins—the suffering cut deeper.

James was now nearing 70 years old. Decades of farming had weathered his body, but his spirit remained unbroken. His life had been defined by work, faith, and family. Even as the Depression set in, he kept farming. Likely with the help of his sons, he did what he had always done—met each day with quiet endurance.

He remained in Beat 5, Rankin County, living with Hollie and the younger children who were still at home. Some of his children had moved on—raising families, starting work, or migrating to new towns for opportunity—but many stayed close. In total, James fathered over twenty children—seventeen with Hollie Falkner, and at least seven more with Pearl Mortiz. His name lived on in each of them: Frank, Fred William, Isadore, Mattie, Isidora, Sammie, Charlie, Sam, Mantry, Mootury, A.C., Jimmie, Elree, L.E., Elrea, Charity, and El Ree—a lineage as vast as it was strong.

His children likely filled the pews of local churches, the rows of community schools, and the fields that stretched across Rankin County. They carried their father’s lessons with them: be honest, work hard, protect your family, keep your faith.

James may not have left behind wealth or property. He may not have had formal schooling, titles, or accolades. But what he did leave was far more valuable—a foundation that could not be shaken. One rooted in soil, in sacrifice, and in bloodline.

On December 15, 1934, James Alexander passed away in Cato, Mississippi, not far from where he had spent most of his life. He was buried in Thomasville, Rankin County, among the people and land that had shaped him.

There is no grand obituary, no monument carved in stone—only a quiet burial and the enduring legacy of his name etched in the hearts of his descendants. But that is where James’s true legacy lives: in every child he raised, in every seed he planted, in every generation that followed.

He lived through enslavement’s aftermath, Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, two marriages, a massive family, and the Great Depression—and through it all, he held steady.

In his passing, Mississippi lost one of its unsung patriarchs. But in memory, James Alexander remains a towering figure—proof that even in the hardest times, a man can shape history not through power or position, but through persistence, family, and faith.