"A purple people eater hiding in plain sight"
Uncovering the story of a Minnesota Viking turned Supreme Court Justice and philanthropist
Like many Black youth growing up in America in the ‘50s, Alan Cedric Page didn’t think he had many opportunities coming out of Canton, Ohio.
He thought he was destined to make his mark in the steel mill industry. After all, who could have grand dreams if racism and state sanctioned segregation ran rampant? But that would surely change. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. I remember the days when the court of the highest land would make decisions based on merit and not based on personal views. But I digress.
Watching it all play out was 8-year-old Alan. He watched Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP chief counsel who won the landmark case, and wanted to become a lawyer just like him. He read newspaper articles in the Canton Repository and Cleveland Plain Dealer about the decision. It inspired him. Alan’s path didn’t lead him straight to the courtroom though. His life took a slightly different turn.
Alan Page was born on August 7, 1945. His parents instilled in him the spirit of seeking excellence. Their view was to do whatever they did, as well as they could. “Want to be a garbage collector? Be the best garbage collector you can be,” is the family motto. He worked in construction as a teenager and helped build the Pro Football Hall of Fame that lives in Canton, Ohio. Decades later he would be enshrined in that very building. He started playing football at age 14 – around the time his mother died. He attended Central Catholic High School in Canton, graduating in 1963. He earned a football scholarship to Notre Dame, where he helped lead his team to a National championship in 1966. He was also named to the college football All American team for 1966 and graduated with his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1967.
Have you heard of the Purple People Eaters? It was a nickname for the defensive line of the Minnesota Vikings from 1968 to 1977, consisting mainly of Alan, Jim Marshall, Carl Eller, and Gary Larsen.
When the Minnesota Vikings first came into the NFL in 1961, they picked up Jim Marshall from the Cleveland Browns. In 1964, Carl Eller was drafted in the first round. In the next season, they acquired Gary Larsen from the Los Angeles Rams. Then in 1967, Page was selected in the first round of the draft. He revolutionized the defensive tackle position. He was the “original JJ Watt”. He was relentless and at times volatile and short-tempered on the field, but mild-mannered and serene off of it. He was one of the reasons why the Purple People Eaters became feared across the league. They’re the only defensive line to have all four starters go to the Pro Bowl in the same year and over their careers, the Vikings credit them with over 447.5 sacks. That’s how dominant they were!
Minnesota won ten division titles and made four Super Bowl appearances during his stint, though never winning one. Alan won NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors twice and Most Valuable Player of the Year in 1971 by the Associated Press. He’s the only defensive lineman ever to win the MVP.
By the end of his time in the NFL, he had earned All-Pro six times, was voted to nine consecutive Pro Bowls, was eleven times All-Conference and nine times All-National Football Conference. He officially retired from football in 1981, after three years with the Chicago Bears and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.
“My ancestors who came here in the belly of a slave ship. The slaves who made the bricks for the original White House. The people who died during the civil rights struggle of the '50s and '60s, who gave their lives so that someone like me could have the opportunity to do the things that I've done. Whatever I've done pales in comparison.”
-Alan Page, 2021
Becoming a lawyer was still a goal for Alan, even with his success on the field. Just after his rookie season with the Vikings, he attended William Mitchell College in Law in 1968. But he wasn’t focused, wasn’t commited, and dropped out after only three weeks. But he didn’t give up that easily. Years later while still playing for the Vikings, he attended the University of Minnesota Law School and received his Juris Doctor, which he graduated from in 1978. The following year he began practicing with a law firm in Minneapolis.
After retiring from professional football in 1981, he served as Special Assistant Attorney General in the Employment Law Division from 1985 until 1987, and then as Assistant Attorney General from 1987 to 1993. As an employment attorney, he saw firsthand how women and Black people lost out on employment opportunities. His career in law also gave him insight into racial disparities in the criminal justice system, where minorities — particularly young black men — are over-represented.
“A judge’s role is to exercise his or her judgement, not his or her will. It is that simple…As a judge you have to be able to make difficult decisions that are inconsistent with your personal preference.”
-Alan Page, 2019
Alan made history on November 3, 1992, by winning election to the Minnesota Supreme Court and, in so doing, becoming the first Black American to serve on the Court. Justice Page was re-elected in 1998, 2004, and 2010, serving on the Court until 2015 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.
He spent much of his legal career examining and fighting racial bias in the justice system and working to give students of color access to post-secondary education through the Page Education Foundation. The foundation, which Page and his wife, Diane, launched in 1988, has provided more than $12 million in scholarship money to more than 6,000 college students in its 27 years. The foundation awards about $800,000 in scholarships each year. He sees education as an equalizer and an area where minority students are underrepresented or disengaged.
He was named the 11th Heisman Humanitarian Award winner in 2016. In June 2017, a Minneapolis school was renamed Justice Page Middle School; and a new elementary school named for him opened in a St. Paul suburb in 2022. In 2018, the Trump administration gave Page the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Placing personal and political beliefs aside, he said by accepting the award in person he intended to recognize generations of Black Americans that preceded him, going back to the anonymous individual who laid the White House brick that he now owns.
When asked for his advice to people seeking to carve their own path, especially those looking to pivot to the second phase in their lives, Alan offered this:
“Do as well as you can. Work hard at what you do. Recognize that because you’ve had some good fortune you not only have the opportunity, but the obligation, to help others along the way. You really can achieve your hopes and dreams, but things don’t just happen. You have to work at it and you have to prepare yourself for it.”