Although the Indianapolis Police and Fire departments were among the first in the nation to hire African Americans, these public safety departments continue to try to increase diversification in their workforce.

African American males appeared on the rolls of the Indianapolis Polis Department (IPD) and the Indianapolis Fire Department (IFD) in 1876, yet until well after World War their numbers were few: 5 of 71 policemen in 1890; 16 of more than 400 in 1934. Also, Blacks invariably served in lower ranks. Not until 1973, for example, did an African American hold a top administrative position in IPD. Joseph Kimbrew became the first African American fire chief in 1987.

Both IPD and IFD were also segregated. Until the 1960s, African American policemen worked in what were then the two predominately black areas of the city and Black firemen were restricted to all-Black Fire Station No. 1, originally Hose Company No. 9, at 441 Indiana Ave. Integration of the fire stations began January 1, 1960, when four Black firemen transferred to two other stations. Two years later,, six whites (including a captain and a lieutenant) moved to Station No. 1. By 1974, 18 of the then 33 fire stations were integrated.

The impetus for employing women in police work dates to 1845, with the successful agitation of the American Female Reform Society to place matrons in New York City jails. After the 1880s the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) led the campaign and by 1900 most major cities employed jail matrons. The duties of such “policewomen” were limited strictly to juveniles and women, a clientele universally held to be suited to their “maternal instincts.” The matrons—policemen’s widows or, more commonly, trained social workers—were often paid wholly or in part by private groups.

In Indianapolis the office of police matron was established as part of the police force by the board of public safety in April 1891. The first matron, Annie Buchanan, operated from a room furnished by the local WCTU on the second floor of the station house. Buchanan counseled boys under 15, girls, and women, and decided whether to send them to institutions such as reform school, the Home for Friendless Women, or Children’s Guardian, or whether to hold them for trial.

Buchanan’s success led to an 1895 state law mandating matrons in every city and a similar law in 1901 for county jails. By 1914, Indianapolis employed three matrons and a female probation officer. In 1917, a report by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research advocated the appointment of Indianapolis policewomen to operate outside the station house. The following year, Clara Burnside, an experienced social worker and for 12 years a juvenile court probation officer, was given the rank of sergeant and appointed supervisor of 13 women police (two blacks). In mufti and unarmed, their beats were the dance halls, movie houses, parks, restaurants—places where children and women might come into contact with vice.

By 1920, 16 women under Lieutenant Burnside (captain in 1921) dealt with shoplifters, runaways, and young girls on the streets. Counseling continued to be emphasized with arrest the last resort. By 1939, however, the 23 policewomen of 1921 had declined to 14 who performed only as matrons, clerks, or telephone operators. The shortage of manpower during World War II brought a breakthrough for women in IPD, as was true for women’s employment generally. In November 1943, two armed, uniformed policewomen were assigned to traffic posts on Monument Circle. The gains did not last: although about 30 women were hired during the war, in 1947 the number on the force fell to 26, of which six worked “on the street” and were armed. Even these officers were usually not in uniform.

Policemen’s hostility to policewomen and notions that women could not handle real police work—as late as 1968 typing was a requirement for female officers—continued unabated through the 1970s. Starting pay was equal, but policewomen, believing it a useless exercise, did not sit for promotion exams. When IPD became the first department in the nation to assign women to patrol cars (the announced purpose was to free men for crime-fighting), officers Betty Blankenship and Elizabeth Robinson were given one day’s notice, no training, and limited to service runs.

A 1972 Police Foundation study of policewomen in seven cities found Indianapolis represented both the best and the worst: IPD led in assigning women to patrol cars (eight by 1972), but 60 of 74 had office jobs, with more than half working as secretaries. Moreover, disdain for women within IPD was marked. The real revolution for minorities in public safety in Indianapolis began with the 1975 lawsuit alleging discrimination filed by seven black policemen. In January 1976, the new administration of Mayor William H. Hudnut III voluntarily inaugurated an affirmative action program for all city departments, and in 1978 and 1979 it signed consent decrees on race and sex with the U.S. Department of Justice, which made hiring goals for minorities in public safety legally binding on the city.

One of the effects of the consent decrees was to bring women into the fire department. In 1978, IFD hired Bryona Slaughter, also an African American, as its first female firefighter. Women having a permanent presence in IFD dates to 1980 with the appointments of Valarie High and Nancy Sweeney. Still in 1992, while 145 women constituted 14.7 percent of IPD, they were only 2.8 percent (21) of the city’s firefighters, a circumstance attributable to the even greater competition for selection to IFD, greater physical demands, and a longer “male only” tradition (the first woman, a civilian clerk, was hired in 1950, 60 years after the first jail matron).

Affirmative action in hiring and promoting minorities has been accompanied by charges of favoritism from white males, countercharges by blacks and women of persistent discrimination, and lawsuits. Yet the changes in race and gender in public safety institutions remain remarkable: From 1978 to 1992 minorities in IPD rose from 18 to 29.3 percent; in IFD from 9.3 to 21.8 percent. In 1990 Indianapolis ranked fifth among 18 big cities in the proportion of black police officers compared to the size of the African American population.

By 2017, however, these numbers had not improved much. Of the 1219 individuals employed by IFD 23.Two percent were minorities, covering all categories. While African Americans make up 28 percent of the Indianapolis population, only 15.6 percent of the firefighters working for IFD were African American. Women only represented only a little over 5 percent of the total. In 2019, African Americans made up only 14 percent of Indianapolis police force. IFD and IMPD, therefore, actively sought a more diverse workforce. Mayor Joe Hogsett named Randal Taylor, an African American, as chief of police in January 2019. He previously had served as an assistant chief within the department.

The death of Dreasjon Reed and protests that ensued in Indianapolis and throughout the nation following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota strained relations between the African American community and police and brought greater attention to the need for better minority representation within the ranks of public safety departments in Indianapolis and elsewhere.

WILLIAM DOHERTY
Marian College
Indianapolis Fire Department, https://www.indy.gov/activity/fire-department-history, https://www.indy.gov/activity/fire-department-statistics; Indianapolis Recorder, Mar. 9, 2017, http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/news/article_0ab5742a-04dc-11e7-9cb4-230f8997cd1c.html, accessed Aug. 4, 2019.