Elreta Melton Alexander-Ralston

Elreta Melton Alexander-Ralston (died 14 March 1998) was a mid-twentieth-century black female American lawyer and judge in North Carolina at a time when there were only a handful of practising female or black lawyers in that state. With an unusual career as a trial attorney and District Court Judge, she has been noted for her “refusal to allow the circumstances of her birth, the realities of her time, and the limitations imposed by others define her destiny.” However, notwithstanding her accomplishments, Judge Alexander’s legacy has remained largely unrecognized and her story untold. This confirms the notion that black women lawyers have received minimal universal recognition for their accomplishments and contributions to the legal profession.

Elreta Narcissus Melton was born on March 21, 1919, in the small eastern North Carolina town of Smithfield. Her father, Joseph C. Melton, was a Baptist minister and teacher, and her mother, Alian A. Reynolds Melton, was a schoolteacher. Alexander’s father strongly insisted that each of his children receive a college education, as he believed “education was essential to equip his family for life” and entrenched this belief in each of his family members. Along with her parents’ strong beliefs about the importance of education, Alexander’s parents also refused to perpetuate racial injustice by prohibiting their children from riding segregated buses or otherwise partaking in segregation.

After spending about twelve years in Danville, Virginia, where Alexander spent much of her young life, the family returned to North Carolina, this time to the bustling metropolis of Greensboro. In 1937, at the age of eighteen, Alexander graduated from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College (now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University) in Greensboro with a Bachelor of Science degree in music. Upon graduation, she became a high-school teacher in South Carolina, where she met Girardeau “Tony” Alexander II, a physician who soon became her husband. They married in Asheboro, North Carolina on June 7, 1938. The couple had one son, Girardeau Alexander III (born Oct. 4, 1950). Elreta and Dr. Girardeau Alexander were divorced March 12, 1968. Elreta married retired IRS official John D. Ralston on August 23, 1979.

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