Clifford L. Alexander Jr., whose long career as a leading adviser to Democratic presidents
ranged from working behind the scenes on landmark legislation like the Voting Rights Act to high-profile roles like serving as the first Black secretary of the Army, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 88.
His daughter, the poet Elizabeth Alexander, said the cause was heart failure.
Mr. Alexander was a lifelong devotee of the promises held out by President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Great Society, in particular the idea that government could do much to alleviate racial and economic inequality. And he was among the generation of young Black leaders who, in the 1960s and ’70s, brought the civil rights movement from the streets into the machinery of the federal government.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/04/us/clifford-l-alexander-dead.html?