Alexander Lane

Alexander Mills Lane (October 26, 1857–November 12, 1911) was an American physician and politician.

Biography

Lane was an African American, born a slave, in Lexington, Mississippi. In 1868, at the age of 8, he left Mississippi in the care of Colonel Lyons, a Union officer that had befriended him while stationed at a Reconstruction era U.S. Army camp in Holmes County. Convinced that Colonel Holmes could give him a better life up north, his mother had agreed to this. They settled in Tamaroa, Illinois. Eventually, Lane was adopted by Joseph Curlee, a farmer/land owner and former Lieutenant of the 136th Illinois Infantry. Lane went to the public schools and to Southern Illinois Normal University in Carbondale, Illinois, which is now Southern Illinois University. He was the first African American to graduate, in 1881. He stayed in Carbondale, Illinois and served for ten years as principal of the Eastside School for Negroes, Jackson County's first African-American school. He married Isabelle Holland in 1883. He received his medical degree in 1895 from Rush Medical College in Chicago. During med school, Dr. John Keesee of Carbondale, Illinois served as his preceptor. Soon after graduation, Lane and family moved to Chicago, Illinois and served as an assistant county physician for Cook County, Illinois. He soon became a prominent African American physician. He served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1907 to 1911 and was a Republican. Lane died at his home in Chicago, Illinois.[1][2][3]

Notes
  1. 'Illinois Blue Bool 1909-1910,' Biographical Sketch of Alexander Lane, pg. 196-197
  2. 'The Death Roll-Dr. Alexander Lane,' The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska), November 13, 1911, pg. 3
  3. 'Former Legislator Dead,' The daily Free Press (Caarbondale, Illinois), November 14, 1911, pg 3


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