Atlanta Daily World

When Negro firemen begin operating a station to be constructed at Tiger Flower Drive and Simpson Road next year their employment will climax a relentless campaign that has been waged since Negroes won the right to vote on a large scale as a result of the Primus King case.

Hiring of Negro firemen has figured in virtually every mayoralty and aldermanic race staged in recent years. The controversy repeatedly cropped up in campaign of Mayor William B. Hartsfield and was central issue in the winning race of Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr.

Former Mayor Hartsfield repeatedly vowed his support of Negro firemen, but failed to win enthusiastic backing from the alderman board of fire underwriters, who reportedly controlled the selection of sites for stations.

16 FIREMEN

The breakthrough came Monday night, when the Atlanta Board of Firemasters instructed Fire Chief C. H. Hildebrand Jr. to recruit 16 Negro firemen, at the site designated for Station No 16, which is located in a rapidly changing neighborhood, which has attracted business locations in recent years although still largely residential.

The new facility, costing more than $100,000 will be manned by Negroes, who will have white officers. The old fire station on Marietta Street will be abandoned when the new station begins operation.

There has been a blackout of Negro firemen in Atlanta for almost a hundred years although volunteer groups were very common during the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era.

While Atlanta failed to employ Negro firemen, there was widespread use of them in other cities, particularly Chattanooga, Memphis, Nashville, Charleston, S. C., Louisville Mobile and Augusta.

One of the oldest Negro-manned fire stations in the nation is at Charleston, S. C., having been in continuous operation since the Civil War.

Negro firemen are no novelty in even smaller cities of the South, notably Tuskegee Institute, Ala., Mount Bayou, Miss., and several Texas cities.

CRUSADE BEGAN EARLY
Early in the forties, Negro leaders in Atlanta, began a crusade for the employment of Negro firemen, which grew in intensity with a companion one to obtain employment for Negro policemen.

In all of the campaigns of Mayor Hartsfield the issue was a dominant one. Opponents generally cited tensions that might have been generated in the tumult of fire-fighting and the proximity of mixed living quarters for the firemen, themselves.

In organizing the All-Negro fire company, as an opening wedge, the Atlanta Board of Firemasters retained some semblance of an integrated activity by installing white officers.

Mayor Allen was given overwhelming endorsement by Negro voters in two bitterly-contested primary races as well as in the general election. In each race, Negro voters gave him more lopsided majorities than whites.