That activism would take him to the United Kingdom where he would engage in an historic African Asian Solidarity Conference, aimed at securing the rights of Ethnic and Religious minorities in the forthcoming European Union.
Alex Norman, having taken an early retirement from a distinguished academic career in 1991, relocated to a seaside community in 1999 to write his memoirs and develop an independent consulting business in organization development.
For the next 22 years, he engaged in civic activities as an organizer, researcher, public policy practitioner and citizen activist to advocate and empower people at the neighborhood level, to secure their rights against powerful City interest groups.
He served on several boards of organizations in Long Beach, among them the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Long Beach Community Action Partnership, the Long Beach Community Foundation, and the Josephine S Gumbiner Foundation. He was also the Co-founder of Re-Thinking Greater Long Beach and The Advanced Organizing Institute.