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Black Knights observe 40 years
YOUNGSTOWN
If you had to work with people who turned their backs on you in the elevator, that would be bad enough.
But a boss? They’re supposed to be in positions of authority because they’re fair and responsible. They’re supposed to have your back when you’re just doing your job.
Robert E. Bush Jr., who would go on to become Youngstown’s first black police chief in 2002, remembers when the police department was, like departments all across the country, a hostile and discriminatory environment for its black officers.
That was the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
He remembers getting into an elevator full of white officers, only to have them turn their backs, he told a crowd gathered Saturday at the McGuffey Centre for a presentation on the history of the Black Knights Police Association.
There was also a far cry from congratulations for his performance on a civil service test, which police departments use to qualify candidates for promotions.
“I was walking on the second floor one day,” he said, when a captain he didn’t work for called him over.
“And he said, ‘Aren’t you Bush? I heard you passed the civil-service test?’”
“And I said, ‘Yes, fifth on the list.’”
“He looked at me and he said, ‘Well, you wasn’t supposed to.’”
“That’s the kind of thing that was going on during those days,” he continued.
“I’m proud of those that went before me, those that were with me and those that are there now.”
The Black Knights formed in 1975 to fight the kind of discrimination Bush encountered at work.
Louis Averhart, a founding member, recalled the segregation on the force.
“Two black officers couldn’t work together, they couldn’t work in the crime lab, they couldn’t work certain beats,” he said, which were in “predominantly white neighborhoods.”
The founders of what would become the Black Knights modeled the organization off a similar group in Cleveland. The Knights then joined an umbrella organization called the National Black Police Association, which was chartered in 1972.
Then, they fought back.
“When I got here in 1978,” said Detective Sgt. Delphine Baldwin-Casey, “I felt some of it.”
She said she was asked to join the Fraternal Order of Police, which was the department’s bargaining unit at the time. She was told not to join the Black Knights.
Detective Sgt. Anita Davis said that there were conflicts of interest over insufficient recruitment and promotions, minority testing procedures and brutality complaints in minority communities. In the mid-1980s, she said, members of the Black Knights left the FOP.
Today, the FOP is largely a social and fraternal organization. Patrol officers are represented by the Youngstown Patrol Association.
Several Black Knights besides Bush have gone on to successful careers, said Baldwin-Casey:
Nate Pinkard, first black chief of Mill Creek MetroParks Police and currently, councilman of Youngstown’s 3rd Ward.
Jimmy Hughes, first black Youngstown captain, its second black chief.
Leonard Williams, president emeritus of the BKPA, first black lieutenant.
Baldwin-Casey, first female president of the BKPA, first female front-line supervisor, created the Youngstown Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit for victims of domestic violence.
Anita Davis, first black female to work as an investigator assigned to the juvenile division and the first female detective.
Saundra Bell, who created the Block Watch Program.
Davis, Baldwin-Casey and Bell became the first three highest-ranking women.
Elrico Alli, first black president of the FOP and the first commander for the Metropolitan Housing Patrol Unit.
George Ross, John Clinkscale, Helen Scott and Rodney Lewis, first community police unit assigned to street patrol.
David Lomax, first black traffic investigator.
George Ross, first black officer to hold the title of fingerprint technician.
Marshall Coney, first black captain for the sheriff’s department.
Martha Warner, first black woman ever hired by the Youngstown Police Department.