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William Carter was one of about 500 black men who applied to be Memphis
firefighters in the early 1950s. ". . . if I had known what I was getting
into, I never would've done it," he says now.
William C. Carter never dreamed of being a firefighter before 1955.
Black men in those days dared not have such lofty aspirations.
Carter served and bused tables at The Peabody and University Club.
One day that year, Fire and Police Commissioner Claude Armour, who
frequented the University Club, asked Carter to put in an application to
be a firefighter.
"I did, but if I had known what I was getting into, I never would've done
it," said Carter, 75, who now spends his days at Goodwill Homes on West
Raines Road in Whitehaven.
He lives with his second wife, Johnnie, a third-grade teacher at
Raineshaven Elementary School in the Lakeview Gardens neighborhood.
Carter's application was one of about 500 from black men who were applying
to become firefighters. The NAACP had put pressure on the city for the
department to hire black men.
In the summer of 1955, Carter and 11 other African-American men became the
first black Memphis firefighters since Reconstruction.
But breaking such racial barriers in the 1950s didn't warrant
celebrations, but caution.
The black firefighters knew they would have to fight more than fires.
Racist epithets, disrespect and intimidation would be their main foes.
Carter was up for the challenge.
"People knew I would demand respect," said Carter, sitting in a room at
Goodwill, wearing a blue and gray shirt buttoned to his neck. "I didn't
take any bouncing around."
But with a wife, (who later died) and three children, Carter didn't want
to bring any harm to his family.
But one day in the early 1960s, Carter couldn't hold back.
He was answering a call on Walker Avenue when he heard two white officers
call a black boy the "N" word.
"I don't know what was in me that night," said Carter, shaking his head.
"I went up to him and told him to refrain from saying that."
An altercation erupted and Carter was fired.
The Civil Service Board gave him his job back, and so did the State
Supreme Court after the city appealed.
When Carter rejoined the force, he couldn't get promoted, so he quit in
1968. He said none of the first 12 black firefighters was promoted for 16
years.
"Police were riding around my house a lot," he said, of his concern they
were still looking to retaliate against him. "I wasn't scared but I was
leery."
He went to work as a maitre d' at a restaurant in Indiana, making four
times what he made in Memphis.
A city official in the early 1970s asked him to rejoin the Fire
Department. Carter's family was still in Memphis, so he became a
firefighter again.
He retired from the department in 1984, and drove a cab until 2002, when
he learned he had Alzheimer's.
A bus takes him to Goodwill every day, and back home in the evening.
Vallery Young, director of Goodwill Homes, said Carter is "always in good
spirits. He loves talking about the past, especially integrating the Fire
Department."
At the center he plays cards, takes field trips and reads the newspaper.
Today the Memphis Fire Department has 1,553 firefighters, of whom 580 are
black.
To many, Carter and the other 11 firefighters are heroes.
"To face that adversity, those guys were giants," said Alvin Benson, the
city's first black chief fire marshal. "The positions we hold are because
of the sacrifices they made."
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