Samuel battle was a smart tough courageous africanamerican who demanded a place on the New York police department when the ranks were closed to blacks he broke the color line in 1911 and overcame unimaginable hardships to lead thousands of blacks onto the force he became the first black sergeant first black lieutenant first black parole commissioner an aid to Mayor fiorella LaGuardia and friend of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt my name is Arthur Brown I the editorial page editor at the New York daily news and I am the author of one righteous man Samuel battle and the shattering of the color line in New York City Sam battle was born in 1883 his father and mother were former slaves and he grew up in the rural South in Newburn North Carolina and then he decided at the age of 16 that he was leaving the south on his own to go north because he thought the north would be better at the start of the 20th century battle went to work in New York as a redcap at the old Grand Central Depot with a big winning personality he connected there with celebrities he carried the bags of black heavyweight champ Jack Johnson he greeted and adored Teddy Roosevelt and Rico Caruso the great tenor taught battle to eat Italian food he even appeared in a Broadway musical Sam battle quite on his own decided to do it he wasn't part of an organized effort he just decided that he wanted that job but when the Department finds out the police surgeon determines in his opinion that Sam battle this very physically fit person who'd been carrying luggage for 5 years had a heart murmur and was disqualified for joining the force it was a clear fraud and pretext battle got arounded by going to a very prominent white physician the doctor wrote him a glowing report that was presented to the police department it was presented to the mayor by the activist who had now gotten involved in his case there was pressure there was um writing about him in the um New York age the black oriented newspaper of the day and the mayor at the time said okay the day that s battle uh showed up for work at a Station House That Was Then on West 68th Street a crowd formed outside they came to see what they called the N cop his fellow officers refused to talk with him and they kept him in silence for 2 years but what they wanted to do was drive him out of the police force and not give him any advice or help they would not allow him into their dormatory at the police station so they took his bed they put it on the third floor and what was then called the flag loft where they stored the American flag and they made him sleep up there and he would sleep there in isolation they'd look at the flag and he'd say that's the American flag why are they doing this to me on the street tour buses would come to see him people would pay money to come by and have the tour guide say look there's the colored cop so he endured that for a whole number of years never complaining about it never attacking them publicly and every day in every way proving that he was a better cop than they were that's how he did it every step of the way saving the life of a white cop in black on white rioting heading one of the nypd's first SWAT teams helping LaGuardia C black rioting in 1935 and 1943 mentoring sugaray Robinson as a teenager befriending Jackie Robinson when Robinson was still playing football at UCLA and giving Jesse Owens a place to stay when Owens came home from the 1936 Olympics when the race was run battle wanted his story told he hired Langston yugh the poet Genius of the Harlem Renaissance to write his biography but theirs was an ill-fated partnership the work was never published but it's the foundation for one righteous man perhaps the only person in the white world who understood battle's accomplishments was Elanor Roosevelt she met battle as first lady when battle was a lieutenant later she read the Langston news manuscript and wrote a forward it read this is a record of a man's life and as he tells it you not only see one life but you see the struggles and the victories and the defeats of a whole group of US citizens what courage it took what remarkable stamina to be the first colored policeman in New York City there were qualities of mind and heart and body that were purely personal but above everything else there was the realization that he was fighting not for himself alone but for his people people the more I got into who Samuel batt was the more convinced I became and I am absolutely sound in this belief today that he was both a good man and a great man and that it is a great shame that he was forgotten that he deserved a terrific place in the pantheon of civil rights leaders in New York City and America and that his story says a lot about what what one man can accomplish with determination and [Music] courage