Dr. Gordon Alexander Rodgers Jr.

A dentist who pushed a town toward justice

Gordon Alexander Rodgers Jr. was born in Anniston, Alabama, on October 28, 1915, the son of Dr. Gordon A. Rodgers Sr., a Meharry-trained physician from Wetumpka, and Fannie Lewis Rodgers. Black principals in Anniston added to their school one grade at a time so that he and his classmates could keep studying. He graduated from Talladega College in 1937 and from Meharry’s dental school in 1941, then served in World War II as a dentist with the 92nd Infantry Division, the “Buffalo Soldiers,” in Italy.

After the war he came home and opened a dental office in Anniston. He never really stopped being “Doc.” From about 1948 he led the Anniston branch of the NAACP, and he later served as president of the NAACP’s Alabama State Conference. By his own account that work included the first statewide voter-registration drive. In 1956 Attorney General John Patterson won an injunction that shut the NAACP down across Alabama for years.

He kept going. In about 1962 he ran for public safety commissioner in a city where the Klan was active. He lost. One later account says he had called for a biracial committee of Black and white community leaders, and the city created one the following year. In 1968 he became the first Black member of the Anniston City Council and served two terms.

He and his wife, Agnes Durrah Rodgers, raised four children in the family home on Claxton Street. In later life he turned to astronomy, photography and his garden, and he kept urging people to register and vote. He died in Douglasville, Georgia, in 2007, at 92. This site gathers what is known of his life, in his own words wherever possible, with every source credited.