Alvin C. Campbell, 1969. Anchorage Museum, Alaska Railroad Collection, B1979.2.1909
Alvin Campbell encountered taunts and racist slurs as he and his family prepared to move into a newly constructed home in Anchorage’s segregated Rogers Park neighborhood. In October 1950, days before he and his family planned to move into the new house, it was burned to the ground in a racially motivated arson attack. Black Alaskans immediately rallied around the Campbells and successfully lobbied the NAACP to charter its first Alaskan branch.