The Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission of Florida has selected Eastside High School senior Justice Alexander as the 2023 recipient of the Edna M. Hart Keeper of the Dream Scholarship.
“Receiving an award of this nature is very important,” Alexander said in a phone interview, “because it helps to kind of exemplify the results of the work that Dr. King and so many others put into the civil rights movement in order to help students such as myself get to these places.”
The award is presented annually to an Alachua County student who demonstrates they are “keeping the dream alive” through community service, academic achievement, creativity and extra-curricular activities, spiritual development, and an “ability to relate to the causes of Dr. King and the historical culture of the people.”
Alexander’s leadership roles and community involvement easily fill those requirements. She is Eastside’s student body president, co-president of the Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica (Spanish Honor Society), president of the EHS HOPE Squad, secretary of the EHS Model United Nations and vice president of the school’s first Black Student Union.
Alexander maintains a 4.04 weighted grade point average in the academically rigorous International Baccalaureate program. She is also involved in a plethora of extra-curricular activities such as the EHS National English Honor Society, Pre-Collegiate, Alachua County Teen Court and the NAACP Youth Council. She is also the clarinet section leader for the Eastside High School Marching and Symphonic Bands.
Music also surfaces in other parts of Alexander’s life. A lifelong member of Monteocha New Life Christian Center Church, Alexander plays the soprano and alto clarinets in service each week. She also leads the youth choir and youth praise team.
Alexander has been singing solos in church since she was three years old, and she regularly performs with the Eastside chorus. She has performed at Alachua County NAACP Freedom Fund Banquets, the March of Dimes, East Gainesville Relay for Life and multiple other community events.
After high school, Alexander said she plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in international relations at the University of Florida. She wants to work as a diplomat, advocating for humanitarian aid around the world.
“I feel that Dr. King wanted equality not only for African Americans but for all people,” Alexander said. “And I feel that if I can, I would want to take those principles and expand it to apply to people beyond the borders of the United States. Everyone deserves a chance to live a life of equal opportunity.”
After a few years of international advocacy, Alexander said she hopes to return to get a law degree and open a practice specializing in civil rights law.
“I’ve always felt that it’s important to advocate not only for yourself as a member of marginalized community, but to advocate for those who can’t necessarily do so for themselves,” Alexander said.
Alexander said King emphasized character and education, focuses which she has adopted in her own life. She said she hopes to give back to her community with the time she has, which is why she is involved with so many community and extra-curricular activities.
Alexander also points to that same community and her family as the reason she has been so successful, even in the face of difficulties. She is the first student body president at Eastside High School to have albinism, a medical condition that comes with a visual disability that requires things like larger print and longer times to take a test.
Going into her freshman year in Digital Academy of Florida school, Alexander said she found that her sensitivity to light also made computer work difficult. By the time students were returning to campus she had learned to work twice as hard.
Alexander said she has learned to advocate for herself, and as student body president, she tries to also advocate for her fellow students. But she also said she wants to see those fellow students able to advocate for themselves.
“Student government, I feel, should voice as many perspectives as it can,” Alexander said. “All groups on campus should be represented in a way. Students of various backgrounds, various academic paths, all of them should have a say in the school’s decisions and how certain things come to pass.”
Alexander is set to be the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission of Florida’s 40th Year Anniversary King Celebration, where she will talk about King’s legacy. She said she is also part of a School Board of Alachua County community workshop at the end of January.