More than a century has passed since the first Black officer joined the NYPD.
Samuel Battle, a son of enslaved people, was born 150 years ago this year. He joined the force in 1911 and patrolled mostly in Harlem.
In a 1960 interview, Battle said he faced taunts and the silent treatment from fellow officers. Still, he was promoted to sergeant and then lieutenant. He would eventually become the first Black appointee to the city parole commission, according to his interview and historical records.
The NYPD is now 42% white and 16% Black, which is slightly less diverse than the city population as a whole. While the department has made significant strides since Battle’s time, some of the same tensions that existed more than a century ago linger today. Officers of color have sued over discrimination within the department and have spoken about how they’re viewed negatively by some who share their ethnic background.
Keith Taylor, who is Black, joined the NYPD in 1991 and said that for a community whose lives in the U.S. are rooted in slavery, majority white police forces patrolling majority Black neighborhoods could be reminiscent of slave patrols and occupying forces. Battle later said that he had to contend with a threatening note left on his bed at the station house, as well as deal with tourists who traveled uptown to gawk at the city’s lone Black police officer.
“Just as Samuel Battle tried to ignore the obvious taunts and behaviors and efforts to diminish his authority as a person, as a police officer, as an American citizen, I think most officers who joined realized that in order for them to be successful in a department, they had to manage the relationships with people that would be hostile sometimes towards them,” Taylor said.
And a more diverse police force isn’t a cure-all when it comes to protecting communities of color from police abuse and brutality, said Fritz Umbach, a historical criminologist who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Umbach pointed to the killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, and the five Black officers indicted for his death, which lays bare the nuances of how diversity does not necessarily improve policing.
“Lots of data crunching and we know that the race of police officers doesn't change the number of complaints, or the legitimacy of the police department in the eyes of the community when we do polling data,” he said.
Still, according to Taylor, who retired from the NYPD several years ago, Black officers do provide a level of cultural competence that can help prevent negative interactions with the public. And that all goes back to Battle.
“He certainly set the standard for African-American achievement, grace under fire, ability to deal with all of the inconveniences of racism as well as the more formal levels of discrimination that existed,” Taylor said.
In 2009, the city named an intersection for Battle at 135th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, right where he had once saved the life of a fellow officer from a mob in 1919.
